Are there any other recommended forums for gardening that are informative, on topic, free from trolls etc?
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Theres almost 6 million folks here…
https://www.reddit.com/r/gardening/
25,000 here
https://www.reddit.com/r/BackyardOrchard/
Others-
https://permies.com/forums/forums/allForums
https://davesgarden.com/community/forums/
We hope to see you there.
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What are trolls
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Sounds like the sort of question a troll looking for new hunting grounds would ask. : D
On similar topics as this forum, there are a few others that are good, most of them are most narrowly focused. For figs, OurFigs is very good. For citrus and tropical fruits, but also some general fruit growing, I’d say go to TropicalFruitForum. Dave’s Garden is useful in a lot of ways, but I use it for non-forum related stuff, mostly for references and their nursery database. Permies I don’t know I can really recommend, the information quality is decidedly mixed (you’ll get solid info on some stuff, but it’ll be mixed with rando stuff like Vedic moon calendars for crops…). There was an old gardening forum that was good, but it got bought out by Houzz and now is kinda dead. Reddit… Is fine for googling, I guess, but given their troll issues, admin issues, and other issues, I’d be hesitant to actually register there and become a user. StackExchange has a gardening section, but it’s less proper forum and more Q&A, since, well, it’s StackExchange.
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I ask because If I have ever been a troll I hope it has been very rare.
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Oh I misread your original comment. I had thought you said “We are trolls” in a bit of self-deprecating humor.
But yeah, just what is a troll gets messy. Certainly, the number of people or post that get called trollish vastly outnumber the actual trollish ones.
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That one has a lot of technical problems (can’t get a password reset email so I’m on my third account, can’t get email notifications of PMs either), and the AI spammer bots keep creating accounts to “answer” questions with unrelated links embedded in them. Growing Fruit is much, MUCH better at keeping out spammers, the sign-up filters or whatever have done a great job here compared to anywhere else, but especially compared to TFF.
But on the flip side, the buy/sell/trade sections on TFF are pretty active and you can find some good stuff that’s hard to get anywhere else, both tropical and temperate stuff. But unfortunately there seems to be a near total disregard for USDA or state ag quarantines or restrictions to prevent the spread of diseases and pests, so you will need to educate yourself on those things to avoid being the person who destroys some valuable local crop.
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If you actually see trolling (as opposed to just someone disagreeing with you), you can flag posts for a moderator to review. That helps keep the forum nice.
Click on the ellipses (…) at the bottom of a post and then the flag icon (
).
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This is true. GrowingFruit is a standout when it comes to functionality and reliability. But TropicalFruitForum just has far more information available, at least for citrus and tropicals.
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Which would be great if their search function wasn’t completely broken! But you’re right, it’s got some people that really know tropical stuff and are active members there and not here.
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The older citrus forums are even worse in the little bit I’ve used them. It’s a real pity–there’s so much information out there that just isn’t publicly available otherwise.
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I agree, I was not a fan of the Discourse software at first but it’s really grown on me and GrowingFruit is great. I now much prefer Discourse forums over other forum software like SMF. I haven’t had technical problems with TFF and like it too. I see GF and TFF as complementary since there is not as much talk here on tropicals.
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Along with TFF I like ShareTheSeeds for more exotic stuff. It’s pretty dead right now but members are always willing to help and some fun specimens pop up now and again 
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tomatojunction.com Is good for tomatoes and has a whole subforum for their annual tomato seed exchange. (The “Mostly Mystery Mater Mailinglist)
Fruits & Vegetables | TheEasyGarden - Easy, Fun, & Fulfilling Gardening Has “the easy bean network” for trading beans
And then there is the Open Source Plant Breeding Forum - Index which is good for when you want to talk to people who will be impressed by your wacky plant breeding project
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