What are the differences between DG and GardenWeb?

I agree with Nap, never been to GW and don't plan to go as am very happy here.

DonnaS

I just kinda "stumbled onto" Dave's...everytime I looked up a plant online I ended up in Dave's plantfiles, so I took a closer look and joined. It is exactly what it should be for me....good people who share info, plants, seeds, life. Somewhere recently I saw GW mentioned and went over to take a look...first thing that I noticed was that I didn't care for the format, but that could be just that I was used to Dave's. Saw that they had a salvia forum which appealed to me a lot, checked that out and then went to take a look at the seed trading. The first thing that I encountered was a posting from a person who was very, very threatening about their trading requirements and bad experiences. First, I certainly wouldn't want to trade with this person, but mostly this posting told me that there are a whole lot of ugly people out there who will do just anything to get your seeds!!! Why? All you need to do is ask. It just seemed indicative of what was going on there and gave me such a bad feeling of just being exposed to this that I decided I didn't want to go back for any reason. I can't with any experience compare the two since a maybe 10 minute exposure to the site made me feel so negative that I left without getting anymore involved. After reading all of this, I'm glad to see that my instincts are good.
Sherry

I happily came across Dave's on a search engine. Within 15 minutes of checking out the site, I knew it was for me. I had never even heard of Gardenweb until I was at Dave's and to date, I have still not heard anyone who was happy with Gardenweb. Still, out of curiousity, I popped over there. My immediate reaction was "whoa, this is way too advertising focused." It felt hard to manuever through all the junk to find a forum I found of interest. I remember that I only entered one forum and I didn't like the tone in there because no one was providing information and some of the folks sounded arrogant. After that experience, I'd had enough visiting the other side of the tracks. Oh and one other weird thing, they have pop ups on their site!! I have 5 different pop up blockers set up but their site managed to sneak one in on me. I hate pop ups.

GirlGroupGirl, if you're still around after two years, could you give me some examples of the more specific or localized forums you found on GW? I find myself getting dizzy from the number of plant-specific and locale-specific forums here. I'm thinking maybe it's a different sort of category you're referring to?

TIA
LAS

There have been a number of forums added during the last two years. Since I don't usually hang out on GW I don't know if they still have more there than we do here, but we definitely have more than we did back then so that's probably why there's a disconnect between what she said and what you're observing now.

I went over to GardenWeb because I wasn't getting responses to my delphinium question. Dave's Garden is so much better for me because it alerts you to responses in threads where you've posted replies. That's such a relief! In GardenWeb you have to remember where you've posted replies and then go look there to see if someone has answered. I can't remember what day it is! Never mind how many posts I've made and where. I don't know what happens if you initiate a thread. No one has responded to the thread I initiated about delphiniums.

Bottom line. I'm so impressed with the way Dave's garden is structured and managed!!!!!

LAS

I've tried to go back and visit and join in some conversations but can't because of that exact reason...I can't find the threads I'm trying to keep up with!! And it's so boring without all the pictures!!

I go back there about once a year to snoop around and promptly remember why I don't go there anymore.
Aside from forgeting and/or trying to find the thread you posted in, with dial up service the downloading there takes FOREVER!
Does anybody know what happened to Mr. Cheerful? (aka Spike)

I think that Spike sold GW to iVillage for a ton of money. Make sure you have popup and ad blocking software installed when you go to GW or your computer will be bombarded with that crap.

Ya I know he sold to iVillage...just wondering if he's still working for them or moved on.
Oh yah, I know all about the pops ups which are blocked on my pc but what keeps me away is the ultra slow download there.
Don't have time for it.

I have frequented the GW forums for around (8) years, I think.

I joined GW when the alternative was to endure the advertising pop-ups. I enjoy reading and participating in various forums, but am more of a lurker than not. I mostly soak up the garden- ing ambience and information.

I have witnessed some heated threads ... seen some account bannings, but was not aware of the larger scope of Spike antics until I happened upon this thread (I'm pretty non-confrontational).

I'd like to say that there are some pretty nice people that frequent GW, as well as some not-as-nice. GW seems to be a site for a wide range of persons, ... I guess, except for those who get on Spike's bad side.

One of the perpetual rubs was between the gardening "professionals" and the gardening "amateurs". (Some) of the professionals have a really hard time with the fact that gardening amateurs will show up on the site and ask for free advice. I'm a student of human nature and, at times, GW can be a quite educational teacher of human nature as well as plant nature. It can be fun.

Anyway, I have been visiting DG (less frequently) for around (2) years now ... and I really haven't learned yet how to use the site to its best effect for me.

I enjoy visiting both sites, as well as others (HGTV, etc.) as I have been very interested in gathering Garden info.

As I become more facile at this site, I'm sure that I will come to love it as much as most of you do.

Do ya still get a free trip to see Mickey and Cinderella for free?? The world keeps changing and revolving....and we keep on truckin'!


"eyes"

Although I rarely go there anymore, since ivillage took over theres much more diplomacy used.
I got it first hand that ivillage was not in agreement with how Spike handled controversy.
I think Spike is gone or has much less power.

One thing I really like about GW is that you can post numerous photos easily in one post. And when you read a post, the photos come up a nice size that you don't have to do a lot of clicking back and forth to get it larger.

Is there any way we could do something similar here on DG?

I used to thing DG was better...and it was. Now...after what IB is doing...maybe not!

This has nothing to do with any other sites, whether they are better or not. It's just basically me asking if we can change the way we post photos so that we can post more than one at a time and have them come out a bit larger. Just a programming change. Not intending to turn this request, or this thread, into anything else. There are plenty other places for those opinions to be expressed.

Gwendalou, that is something that has been asked for before and to be honest, I don't think I've ever tried to post a photo at GW.

Do they have an upload function like we do on our threads? (Beneath the post, where you can find the path on your hard drive or wherever the photo is located, then upload it?) If so, does it work (more or less) like Blogger does, which allows me to load something like 5 photos at a time and then move them around my blog post?

Or do you have to key in html tags to insert photos?

Do they host the photos, or are you hotlinking to them from another storage area, like photobucket or flickr?

I do understand it would be nice to allow more than one picture per post. I also understand why Dave designed the system the way he did (it keeps threads from getting really huge with a ton of photos to load everytime someone opens up a thread.)

You have to insert the tags. So I store my photos that I want to upload on photobucket. I believe there is more than one way to do it, but that's the way I do it. Maybe if it could be an option - that people could do it either way.

To address the really huge threads, well, I believe we get those anyway! LOL People just post one photo at a time. I don't think it stops anyone from contributing to huge threads. At least in the PNW forum it does not. We just start new threads whenever a thread gets beyond 300 posts.

Sometimes I see here on DG where someone has turned a collage of photos into one photo that they then post as one photo. I would like to learn how to do that, what programs one uses to do so, etc. So if anyone knows, please chime in! The photos are a little harder to distinguish, and of course, they are not large at all, but I can see that I would use something like that from time to time. If I knew how.

Stitching photos together is pretty straight forward in most photo editing tools. I think we have a photographer's forum where you can ask for some advice on which software and how-to-use it.

We do get huge threads, that's true. We actually encourage people to break at roughly 100 posts, especially if there are a lot of photos. I think the technology in this area has gotten better...I know Blogger just recently started letting people use their mouse to move photos around - before that you had to know enough html to tweak any photo into the exact position you wanted.

I can't promise any quick changes in this area but I'll definitely see what we can do as the tech team looks at ways to improve the forum features ;o)

Thanks, Terry!

Gwendalou, I also do not want to go off-topic on this thread, but look at the name of the thread? I believe the person you were speaking to was trying to point out one difference between the two. Plus, I haven't read the entire thread in a long time so I don't remember, but I'm guessing there were a lot of comparisons and opinions going on before you asked the question.

Read the person's post again: "I used to think DG was better...and it was. Now...after what IB is doing...maybe not!"

So she is answering the original question, not yours.

I went back to the GW recently as an alternative to DG that I was seriously considering dropping membership here
The pop up's and download time are HORRIBLE.
Forget that idea. :(

Cottage, You are so right! I checked back too. It is totally user unfriendly.
Vickie

It's really too bad to. Because in it's day, it was a great site.