Hello Tamara,
I am a totally new member but perhaps that is the best case for the feedback as fresh eyes usually notice better.
I just bought a house on a pretty big yard and would like to start gardening which means I am very new to gardening and cant contribute to the forum yet but am reading it to get advices on soil, fruit trees, pruning etc in a specific zone 4a. So my typical steps are:
1. goto http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/mngard/
2. search for some key word (lets say 'sweet cherry'. And it baffles me that the search within a given forum (MN in my case) is at the bottom of the page. Not intuitive and very inconvenient since I have to constantly scroll down

thanks
maryna

.. and one more thing..
As I just posted my very first message I realized I had to preview my message prior to posting it. I think it would be more convenient to have buttons 'Post' and 'Preview' next to each other on the same page. So if somebody does not want to preview they could skip this step. Also it would be nice if after posting I was taken to the same page I came from instead of confirmation page saying 'your message was posted'

Thanks
Maryna

Tamara,

For your consideration:

1.) Better forum moderation regarding the negative people ranting and making personal attacks. I find myself accessing the site and engaging on GW less often because of this, and I know of others that are doing the same. I am not talking about people attacking me - I am a big boy and can take care of myself - I am talking about people attacking people in general and then good folks feeling they have to defend themselves. Then other people feel obligated to defend the attacker or defend the OP. I get weary of reading an interesting thread only to come across a negative, insulting, or demeaning reply from a jerk. Then the thread goes off-topic and devolves into attack and defense and the whole continuity of the thread is destroyed.

Now, I will be the first to state that the problem is not bad here on GW, especially compared to the rest of the web, but it is still annoying and can really ruin the experience. Having a thumbs-down button to hide but not remove unpopular replies in a thread after a certain number of negative votes would be a solution. It is not censorship if users can choose to show the hidden reply so they can read it if they so choose. This allows members to help GW by self-moderating the forums. A thumbs-up button is unnecessary and kind of silly because any post that is not hidden has already been deemed to be acceptable by the readers. IMO thumbs-up buttons are simply meaningless popularity contests.

2.) Continue general cleanup of the site. There are some goofy and outdated things hanging around that are not needed or are not intuitive for most people to use. There are some good features that are simply too hard to locate.

3.) I agree that the search engine could use some updating - not very functional in my experience.

Thanks for the nice free gardening web site - I know a site of this age, size, and complexity can be a hard thing to manage and maintain. Lots of legacy code to muddle through in order to make site changes as well, I am sure.

-Tom

Since we are not able to edit our own messages (again, an issue I would love to be addressed), I think the preview button should remain mandatory. If or when we can edit our own messages, then a post and preview button should be side by side, after the first mandatory preview.

This is common sense etiquette, as so often words do not convey the emotional attachment meant to be simultaneous. Rereading one's own message in a different format than originally typed, forces a fresh look, and that fresh look often prompts the mind to think out of the box of original thought and into what another GW member might perceive. I believe it saves a lot of grief, innuendo and unintentional "suggestions".

Could we have a Info and caring site for those over 70? Hints and helps for us older ones peertaining to home and garden.

Hi everyone!

You asked and we listened. Today we are very excited to be debuting our newest feature -- post editing! To use this feature, go back to the post you wish to correct and you'll find the link under the 'My Clippings' links on the right side of the page.

I want to give a special shout out to all the testers who tried to break the editing tool. ;) Your feedback was insightful and invaluable. Thank you!

You may have also noticed that we adjusted the login cookie awhile back so that you should not have to login repeatedly.

Stay tuned -- we have more cool things in the works!

As always, please let us know if you have any questions or concerns.

Best regards,
Tamara

Hi Tamara,

I, too, like Maryna am brand new to this site. I just read that you allowed editing of posts--sounds like a great idea to me! I second the suggestion to move the search-a-forum function to the top of a forum page... as I didn't even know I could search a specific forum--cool!

Anyhow, I'm going to start poking around the forums here--what a great website you guys have here! I hope to contribute someday, as I find all the information here very helpful! :-)

- Siobhan