The African Violet forum has become a lot more active this winter, which is just fabulous! I've been noticing, however, that our threads here have started getting *really* random. Good information about propagating, pest management, culture, etc., ends up getting buried because it is posted in threads that started out showing a few new pictures or asking an entirely different question.
When a question about wick watering or propagating or whatever comes up on a thread that started out being about something entirely different, maybe we could post the answer on a previous thread devoted to that subject (which would "bump" that thread to the top). We could then mention on the thread where it came up that we had done so (eg, "Great question! I added some comments to our wick watering thread about it.").
I think it's probably more reasonable for O/T trade stuff to pop up in threads ("Hey, I have that plant -- do you want it?"). It's generally a brief excursion, and if you keep running wish lists for yourself & others (pretty easy to do by editing entries in the Trade Tracker, BTW), it shouldn't get too confusing. And I sure don't mind when cute pet pictures pop up to brighten my day!
But it would be great if the kind of information you'd like to be able to find easily could be added to more appropriate threads.... Especially since those threads could then be linked into our "sticky!"
I don't want to be come off as some sort of deputy sheriff wannabe here. I've just started to get confused by the twists and turns that our threads have been taking. More than once, I've hunted for half an hour to find some piece of advice I needed that had been posted in just the last couple of days, but that I knew was off-topic on one of 15 possible threads. I can't be the only person getting lost, so I thought I'd see what ideas y'all had about how to improve things.
??
How can we avoid burying good information on O/T threads?
I agree. Great that this forum is so active, but would be nice is some of the cultural info was on topic for reference purposes. But, it becomes a vicious cycle because it takes time to find that other thread where the topic was discussed at length for bumping up. Add to all that, the forum is moving fast enough that threads are moving off the first page really fast. (Which is really good, of course.) okay, not very helpful, but just wanted to say I've been noticing it too.
i am very open to anything that will make it more efficient and helpful...
Ditto!!
Keyring, I think the "sticky" will help with that problem. Good culture info threads can be added to the sticky (and there are probably links to appropriate thread topics already on the sticky).... So, when you have some useful information to pass along, zip up to the sticky, click on an appropriate link, and add your post to that thread.
I think that would work?
When this forum got just a few posts a day, it was easy to keep up with everything. But now that it's so active (and don't get me wrong, I'm sure not complaining -- I'm delighted with how our community here has grown!), we just need a way to keep more on-topic, at least with some subjects.