I just wanted to say that I really like that this forum is divided into the 3 categories it is without being divided dozens of different ways. I think the 3 categories make a lot of sense, but I like that all the regular discussions are together.
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Thanks Floyd. I have seen forums start out with dozens of categories and one or two posts in each and I wanted to avoid that. That said, the way the main screen here can show all the recent activity in all categories means it would not be so bad if we added more categories; the main screen would look the same. Something to think about a ways down the road.
Scott
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Good point.
I would like to see a few more added without going overboard.
Maybe something like
fruit topics
other gardening topics
equipment topics
scion trade
growing fruit website
off topic/general discussion
One challenge with an all-encompassing “General Fruit Growing” category: participants can’t subscribe to all new posts about certain types of fruit. @scottfsmith’s point about having a bunch of empty categories is a very valid concern, particularly with a less-active forum. It’s 2023 now, though, and GF is really active (yay!).
The upside is that there’s something for everyone. The downside is that it’s harder for people to find the posts they care about and are likely to participate in. The “General Fruit Growing” category is too high-volume for most people to read. It has over 17,000 posts, compared to 2,600 for the second most active category (General Gardening), 900 in the third (Pictures), and under 400 in the other 7.
While not all categories are going to be equally active, ~80% of posts in one category (and in absolute terms, thousands of them) might mean it’s time to make that category more usable.
Users have sort of tried to work around this by creating gigantic threads, like “Kiwifruit 2022.” In a sense, these long-lived threads are a workaround to see and follow the posts that would be too hard to spot in “General Fruit Growing.” There are much worse outcomes than that, but maybe there’s better ones too 
Here’s a couple ideas:
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Discourse doesn’t have a way to save searches that one wants to hear about (ie, keyword-based notifications). Saved searches/notifications has been added as a plugin, though. I can’t include links in my posts, but here’s the URL: meta dot discourse dot org /t/discourse-saved-searches/67901
That plugin, combined with an easy way to toggle popular GW keywords, might help deliver the right posts to the right people. For example, imagine a preferences tab for “Saved Searches.” It would list the 10-20 most popular keywords or keyword sets (as well as letting users type their own keywords). Clicking a keyword on the list (or typing a new one) would add it to the user’s notification list.
This approach does transfer the burden on to every new user, which is unfortunate. However, it would allow them to be quite granular: notifications about “kumquat” rather than about all citrus.
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Alternatively, maybe it’s time to split out a few sub-categories of “General Fruit Growing.” Not a zillion categories, just broad ones like: Berries, Citrus, Melons, Pomes, Stone Fruits, General (or “Everything Else” or whatever one wants to call the catch-all).
This would let new users follow a category and focus on the threads most likely to interest them. All of these categories would have more posts per day than at least half of the current top-level categories, but few enough to be at least potentially readable. Also, a user’s signal:noise ratio on notifications would go up: if someone’s growing kumquat, other citrus posts are likely at least somewhat useful to them.
Finally, these 2 approaches aren’t mutually exclusive. An advantage of #1 is that it doesn’t require any changes to the commenting experience. A “Choose what you’re most interested in” (saved search selector) page during the new user activation flow would feel natural and would ensure that every new user sees posts and notifications about the specific thing they’re growing. That said, it seems like if the forum stays active, #2 becomes necessary eventually. Without it, that “Do I care about this?” filtering is still happening, it’s just that every user has to do it manually for every post - which manifests in less engagement, particularly from new users.
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@troy
Have you tried the search engine?
Do you make use of the notification feature at the bottom of each thread to Mute topics you’re not interested in?
Many of us are growing all of those.
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Agree that people should use a search engine to find any topic they are interested in. It is straight forward and efficient.
Many times, I have used the search engine to find the topics I created.
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The plug-in that @troy suggested would expand the usefulness of search by allowing you to keep specific “saved” searches as if they are forum categories. I think that’s an interesting idea and might make search even more powerful than it is now.
@troy Welcome to the forum and thank you for your input. It’s well thought out and certainly worthy of consideration.
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Excellent advice. Now that the forum has become very popular “muting” has helped reduce number of new posts for me.
As an alternate to the “New” selection there is a way to use “Search” for limiting new posts. Select “Search” and click “Advanced” then enter a key word and select “Post after” and pick a date.
As an example search word “apple” and a date 5 days prior to the current date to get all posts with the word “apple” in the past 5 days.
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A partial solution is “Like” a post and then you can do a search in advanced search of just those posts you “Liked”
Also I Bookmark posts if I want to read them at a later date or see if additional information has been added to the thread.
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One of the reasons the broad categories system works quite well is it reduces some of the problems that come from undisciplined user behavior.
On posts ostensibly about one thing, there will be threads hundreds of comments long about something completely different. That, and users often mix subject matters in individual posts. Or users make good contributions, but to the “wrong” post, ie posting on x-fruiit_2022 when it is 2023 now. Even if there were a bunch of specific categories, users would probably not use them correctly.
Which, honestly, is fine. This isn’t StackOverflow where information needs to be concise, to the point, and error-free. It’s a forum for people to discuss, read, learn, and have fun. And rambling, bumbling, and not having good topic discipline is a big part of that. So yeah, just a few broad categories is the right call. That, and having a really good search tool.
Thankfully, even in 2023, when SEO and AI search tools have all but destroyed most internet search engines, this forum still has a conventional indexed search engine, and a d*mn good one at that.
GrowingFruit has, by far, the best UX I’ve seen for a forum.
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Yes, but the saved search would also let you get notifications when new threads are started or new posts in other threads mention the keyword. Assuming it works as advertised, I think that plugin would be a great enhancement to the forum.
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@fruitnut
There would be more categories than those listed. For example: Almonds, Avocados, Bananas, Chestnuts, Figs, Mango, Persimmons, Sapotes, Walnuts, Willows.
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There are so many topics we can post and comment on. It would be nearly impossible to keep up with a bunch of individual categories.
Having said that I do feel a bit bad on posting in threads that may not be the best match for my questions or comments. It can’t be avoided really. I search before posting a new thread and sometimes have to revive a years old one by posting.
Everyone seems to be very accommodating which I appreciate.
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Have you tried the search engine?
Do you make use of the notification feature at the bottom of each thread to Mute topics you’re not interested in?
Great questions! Yes and yes. The search engine doesn’t catch new posts, though; I’d need to do that again periodically. The plugin I mentioned is basically “Search for me, all the time, with some common searches that many people would otherwise have to think of on their own.”
More importantly, most people aren’t that committed. Most users aren’t looking for a second job . They just want to read the stuff they’re interested in. The easier we make that, the more the community will grow.
(It would be interesting to get input from people who signed up and then didn’t participate, or who posted once and then didn’t continue using the forum after a few days. In a sense, they’re the lost opportunities. Many of us in this thread are motivated, technically savvy, or growing enough that any forum is wonderful )
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I think it’s already easy. Just skip the posts you aren’t interested in and they’ll go away.
“Growing the community” implies increasing the number of daily or weekly conversations (at the very least a part time job for participants). If that’s your interest, try “Watching” those you wish to follow.
Many people come here solely to ask a question and once they’ve received it they rarely return. In that way it’s similar to BugGuide.net.
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Actually they would all show up in New.
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What the plug-in @troy suggests would do, which is currently not possible, is to set it so that you would get a notification alert any time a new post is made that matches one of your saved searches. Using my own obsession as an example, I’d love to get a notification every time someone posts anything with “avocado” in it, so I wouldn’t need to worry about missing a discussion I’d be interested in if I’m not able to check the forum for a week or two at some point.
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The search option sort by “latest post” covers this. It lists search results chronologically from newest to oldest.
Try it:
https://growingfruit.org/search?expanded=true&q=avocado%20%20order:latest
Easy peassy.
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