Announcing a rework of the forums, and Home Talk!

Good morning!

Well, it's first light on Tuesday morning and, as promised, I am here to announce first an upgrade of our forum system, as well as a new addition to Dave's Garden - an area set aside for everything related to the home.

The words "home" and "garden" go together like peas and carrots, and I've wanted to cater to those interested in home stuff for a long time. With some changes occuring in other home and gardening websites, we realized that the time was ripe for us to move into this area. We want to become the destination site of the "home" world just as Dave's Garden is to the gardening world.

Dave's Garden is on the brink of becoming the largest gardening website in the world. Our largest competitor is losing members fast, and we are gaining new members at an even faster pace. Because of this, I am confident that by May 2006, we will be the largest gardening site online.

We want to do the same things for the home-minded community. :) We think today is the first step that will begin a flurry of new energy and growth at Dave's Garden.

So, first the changes: the forums have been slightly reworked to (hopefully) make them much more user-friendly. There are two main changes:

1) The main "Forums" tab has been updated. Previously, it was just a big long list of all the forums on the site, shown in the order of the most recent post. This setup is downright confusing to most new people who are looking for a specific forum.

So, now we are categorizing all the forums, and displaying them in alphabetical order.

2) The Forum Watcher has been significantly updated. In the past, you had to go to "My Info", then "Preferences", then "Forums" and then pick and choose from around 100 forums. Starting today, however, you can add and remove them as easily as adding or removing a thread from your thread watcher. (The old method will continue to work as before, and has actually also been updated to make it more user-friendly, also).

When you are in a forum, just look at the top-right hand side of the screen and you will see a link to add it to your list, or remove it from your list. Watched forums then show up on your homepage and display, of course, in the order of the most recent post.

Now, moving on to the home area... As many of you probably know, GardenWeb's ThatHomeSite hosted a large and active community of people who like to discuss things pertaining to the home. As a result of several changes iVillage has made since acquiring GardenWeb, many of their members are seeking out other sites. We're creating a place within Dave's Garden that we think these folks will like, and we hope they will come and participate. Just as important, we hope that our own DG members here will find these new forums interesting and exciting to participate in.

The new forums that are created, will (for now) be open to non-subscribers and subscribers alike. Let me make it clear, however, that all forums that existed before today will continue to remain subscriber-only and that will not change.

We hope many who come for the Home Talk section of the site will decide to become paying subscribers and join the rest of the community here. We're very excited at this potential influx of new people interested in home and gardening topics, and we know you'll help make them feel welcome with the friendly and helpful atmosphere you each help create here at Dave's Garden.

Another big note that I want to make is that this is still a work-in-progress. The forums areas might have some opportunities for improvements, and things may have been left out. If anybody has any feedback, please do let us know by posting in this forum!

Well, back to gardening. :-)

Dave

Bless your heart. you have done a great job.
Thank you,Pheadra

I tell ya, I just love it! You have done a wonderful, fabulous job, Dave! Such a good idea, and so well laid out. Congratulations on a job well done!

FANTASTIC!!!!

WOW!

I've been here since there was only 4 or 5 forums and and about 350 members... have watched DG 'grow up'...looks like you've done good Dave...still need to learn to navigate, but I think I'm really gonna like it.

A job well done! Thank you, Dave!! Judy

Wow Dave! When I look at the other site and Dave's Garden, I can never figure out how they claim to be the biggest as the quantity of posts in the forums is nothing compared to here.

In my opinion, Dave's Garden has been the largest gardening forum for a long time! More inactive members doesn't make you bigger.

Super!! Lots of exploring to do here today :-)
Sharon

How do we tell if a forum has new threads without having to physically visit each and every one?

PF Photos is for the discussion of the photos that are posted. The discussions are gardening related.

The PlantFiles forum, however, is for the discussion of PlantFiles itself. So, it's not really gardening-related.

dave

http://davesgarden.com/place/t/567007/

dave, can you move this thread for me? I didn't know you would have a trash to treasure forum and I posted this earlier.

thanks and I love all the new ideas!

That's a good question, Baa. We'll need to figure out a way.

Of course, when the forum is in your Forum Watcher, it shows up on the homepage as always. So, any forum you are interested in watching should be added to your watch list.

You can also bookmark the "old" forums page:

http://davesgarden.com/forums/complete.php

That page includes ALL the forums, using the old ordering system.

dave

Lisa - done!

Look at all the new Forums! And such a clean layout, as well. Very very nice, Dave. :)

Donna

How many new forums were created?

My home page says 156 forums now, but I can't remember how many there were yesterday, lol.

mg

edited for that dratted 'm' that I keep forgetting!

This message was edited Jan 10, 2006 9:18 AM

Per Badseed's screenshot when she noticed something was up, there were 118. http://davesgarden.com/forums/fp.php?pid=1959840

Whoa.........a plethora, now that's a plethora...

congratulations dave! I know this will enhance the DG experience in many ways indeed.

brilliant!

best,
don

The number of forums depends on who you are.

Subscribers see more forums than non-subscribers, for example.

Ubers see extra forums.

Admins see even more forums.

For me, I have 155 forums. There are probably around 145 forums for subscribers.

dave

First bug report: When you click on a "Watched" thread, it takes you to the forum instead of directly to the thread.

Took me a while to realize it, lol, need more coffee!

mg

How can I have more forums than you Dave?

Sorry but I never did understand all of those features you implemented I've never used them and I don't like to restrict myself to a set of forums, no doubt I will have to change my ways.

oooooooooooo secret forums.... lol

This is super duper neato dave. :) Rock on his royal highness!

Baa,

The complete list that I linked to will continue to give you the functionality that you've always used.

The Forum Watcher is an oustanding feature, though!!

Dave

Beautiful job dave - thank you very much !

Dea

Quick question Dave: When I click on one of the threads I'm watching that have new posts (ala they've popped up on my home page), I don't get taken to the thread - just to the forum the thread is in. Should this be happening?

Dave, it happened to me once too when I first brought the Website up about 45 minutes ago. I clicked on a watched thread in Pets and it took me to the Pets Forum page instead of the thread.

I just tried again with a thread in Parking Lot (message Changes IIc). My cursor says the link that opens should be "http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/563894/", but it opens "http://davesgarden.com/place/f/parking/all/"

Dave.....with all those new forums when are we suppose to have time to do gardening??? rotflol
Love the new Dave's Garden! its GREAT :0))
Janett

Just did a few more tests. It looks like it's only happening with the forums that are in "Home Talk". When clicking on any threads from forums in "Garden Talk", the link from the watched thread works correctly.

Ok, thanks for these details - I'll get this fixed.

that's cool!

One problem - I did a "search" for threads I'm watching, went to one in Prayer Requests, clicked on the thread I wanted to post to, and it hopped to the forum, and not the direct post.

edit:
Extra question - are "Home Talk" forums not restricted to paying subscribers? Are they open to all?? If so, that brings up an uncomfortable security concern for me...

This message was edited Jan 10, 2006 9:48 AM

i noticed on both forums that at the bottom it says ones marked with astrick only for subscribers but none were marked. am i missing something??

I'm still waiting for a new post in my 'watched' threads to appear, lol, everyone is exploring instead of posting.

I remember it happened on today's "Coffee" thread, and on "Operation Tailfeather" too, so that would be Parking Lot and UpperMidwest for the forums.

Back to exploring....

mg

Couple things:

1) I fixed the thread issue. Starting now, all threads work when you click on them (previously they were sending you back to the main forum page.

2) Subscriber-only forums. The asterisks weren't showing up for non-subscribers, but they are now.

Regarding the implications of that, please re-read my announcement above. If you need clarification, let me know.

Dave

Dave,should all the forums have this (*)

That's what I was just going to post - all the new "Home Talk" forums also have an asterisk next to them...

never mind...:)

Dave the Home forum is great, but I have to agree with Tayson, with all this new interesting forum and threads to watch where will I find time to actually do gardening. Of course it is still winter. Thanks for all your work in making DG even more interesting. DonnaS

The asterisks were briefly showing up on all forums, but that's since been fixed.

Finding time to garden is your responsibility. ;-) I haven't yet finished my "adding several hour to the day" todo item.

dave

Lol Dave...making the days longer has been on my list since my kids were born.
Great work you've done here and I really appreciate the improvements....at this rate, I'll be signed up for many years to come.

Erynne