I have one specific proposal to generate some traffic and would like input then a general comment or two.
I have ~100 fig cuttings of 13-16 varieties. My thought was to offer them for postage here, max 10 cuttings per person. My questions are:
Would it be appropriate to advertize and link this offer elsewhere, say fruits&orchards? Not offer there but link to the offer here.
If I charged a nominal fee per cutting say $2, could those monies be directed to use by this forum, is there a need here?
Other comments:
Could the main page be dressed up to look more inviting/interesting say with pictures or links?
How could we incorporate pictures to spark interest? I could offer up about 40 photos of my operation.
I like your idea. Unfortunately, I have not many scions to offer
I don’t know if my idea is too unethical or too blatant. When we answer questions in the Gardenweb forum, can’t we mention this site each time? If we keep mentioning it in many posts, the newcomers will hear about it.
So far, this site is only mentioned in Gardenweb on one post “Houzz Blah”.
That is a very generous suggestion and I’m sure might generate some visits. I might suggest limiting the number a little more since it seems that there have been some folks on Figs4Fun just trying to get cuttings to resell at a profit on ebay so I’d hate your generosity to be taken advantage of. Maybe wait until there is more content here so folks lured by your cuttings find a reason to stay and return.
In one of my former lives I ran a web site for a public television and radio station and although there were many suggestions of all types of exciting things we could do (restaurant reviews, photo essays, etc.) by folks, we knew from the traffic patterns on the site that the main driver was people wanting to know what was on, when it might repeat, etc. I know for forums it is the specific content that brings me in, so the faster that grows here the more folks will find it and refer it to others.
@mamaug,
I would expect that the Gardenweb folk might start getting annoyed with any blantant promotion for this site. My guess would be they took over Gardenweb for the member base, content and Google placements it was getting. While they might accept the occasional mention of something good over here, I wouldn’t be surprised if they started blocking users or just blocking specific links if they saw anything that might be cutting into their audience.
I agree with you. All I could do now is letting my gardening friends to check out this site. When gardenweb forum participants send me private e-mails, I’ll mention it to them, too. In other word, word of mouth is what I am doing.
Zendog, I agree its the fact that the site itself is good is the biggest draw. But any sort of offers wouldn’t hurt
fruitnut, the site could certainly use pictures, etc. You can create a new topic and post pictures in it, that would be great. There is also a way to configure a logo, you can do it from the admin settings. Feel free to try out some different formats, click on the three lines in the upper left and then on the wrench to get into the configuration options.
I am unfortunately too busy in my job these days so I can’t put any major efforts here myself, but I hope it can grow organically.
I think the best way to expand this is to e-mail others you’d like to see involved. That will keep it more a community than if we reached out more publicly. It already feels more like our own community to me than Gardenweb ever did.
Scot, thanks again for starting this and I’d love to pitch in some $ to defray any out of pocket expense.
It is an interesting question whether we want membership to be controlled in any way. I just asked Scott if I could join up and would certainly be comfortable with him (you) as a gate keeper.
At this point it seems to me like it should be your call, Scott, because you went to the trouble to start this up. Plus you are as reasonable and cool headed as anybody on the forum, IMO.
Should this forum be wide open or should current members throw names out there for possible veto as Mrs. G just did? I’m somewhat ambivalent but really am open to anybody joining as long as they remain civil. I can’t imagine anyone objecting to Mile High or Hoosier Quilt.
Personally, there is no one on Garden Web that I’d want to exclude…
I’d think the site should be open to everyone as long as they remain civil. Where things can get blurry in my mind is the type that thinks they know way more than their input indicates. We’ve had a few like that on F&O but they usually post a flurry of BS and then move on. If it isn’t total BS leading people astray then we need to be open minded about different opinions. That’s my 2 cents for what little it’s worth.
I agree, we should keep it open. Thats how its configured now, anyone can sign up. Hopefully we will continue to attract good people, I think thats one advantage of being a little off the beaten path. Another advantage is we are in control and can decide to change at some point if too many disruptive people are showing up.
For whatever it’s worth, my opinion is that it would be best for the forum generally to be very open to new members. However, I can see some advantage to requiring new members to have to just something really simple to a moderator to explain that they have a legitimate interest in fruit beyond spamming or promoting their businesses. I don’t know if that’s a possibility with this platform, but I’ve seen other forums that required something like that. For better or worse something like that might also exclude some beginner questions from people that just want to ask a quick question without going to even a little trouble to join the forum.
With regards to all these sorts of questions, I fully agree with Alan – it’s still hard not to think of you as Harvestman, and I’m very glad to see you’re here, by the way, Alan – when he said, “At this point it seems to me like it should be your call, Scott, because you went to the trouble to start this up. Plus you are as reasonable and cool headed as anybody on the forum, IMO.”
Floyd, one advantage of doing our forum is we can be more democratic about it. I’m way too too busy at work myself right now, but when I get less busy I’d like to discuss how we can improve the site more (also, we will know what needs improving as we use it more). This site has plenty of ways to moderate people, in fact I think the default was you could not post until you have read a certain number of messages; I changed that since all the initial folks were people I already trusted. We can change those settings down the road if people are just popping in to post their ad.
Well I’ll try to behave, if you expand and add other forums, if you need a moderator, I can do that if needed. Although I must admit I’m not the best choice. I’m somewhat computer literate. I was a cosysop on a bulletin board system years before such a thing as the internet existed. I miss fidonet and the old ANSI graphics, man those were the good old days. Anyway if you need maintenance help or anything, I can help most of the time. Thanks for the site, it’s awesome! No worries about others doing it. I always loved what Groucho Marx said “I would never belong to a club that would have me as a member!”
If some of the knowledgeable folks here were to make videos of grafting or planting or “orchard walks” etc and post them to YT and include a link in the video. I think that would generate a good deal of traffic and better yet the kind of people that would be good for a fruit growing forum.
BTW…Scott, how does this site pay for itself…or does it?
What if such videos were uploaded to our forum here (GF) and then once here a short identifier that it came from a GF member was added and THEN uploaded to YT from here?
That’s a much better idea Mike. In fact, I like that all the way around. Should be pretty successful based on the scarcity of good non-commercial fruit growing vids on YT.
