Re: Increasing membership participation
 

I'm calm, Beth, but good points as usual. I really don't think you're a snot, btw. ;)

Re: Increasing membership participation
 

I'm just saying - don't make me be the voice of reason. Y'all are older than I am, and hopefully old enough to know better.

Re: Increasing membership participation
 

Bingo! I think it's a nice, active forum that embraces new members quickly. Even though we don't hear from all the banana gurus on a daily basis, if someone cries out for some serious help they step in which means that the threads are being read. Sometimes the subject matter just doesn't require everyone to respond and people are busy. IMO I don't think there is any cause for concern. :lurk:

Deb

Re: Increasing membership participation
 

Well then Beth, I should be the only 1 in SEA section though, but truly my dear people, I am very frustrated in not having the networking like y'all in the US. The reason I joined the board is my genuine interest in 'naner species and then I found that it basically points back to my region as it is where they are found. I find that I can't get any info on the cultivars from my region due to nada participation from the folks here. I mean I would love to learn about my own region, but I just can't. I take peeks at the European thread and they seem happy to have found each other though most have been around for sometime.

Hey Ken, looks like all the Thread Wreckers are gonna serve time! :ha:

Growing Zones; Yes I do agree with Paulo on that it does not matter where you are as long as the zones are rated the same in clime, etc., technically speaking, that is... However, did you notice some of the posts on the FHIA-23 that even if you have a similar zone for it, it does not work out that well? I don't know what zone I am in but I think due to the peculiarities of the cultivars here, they may not do well in a similar zone over at your place. Do y'all realise that though there are some Indian and Thai cultivars in the US/European market, but there are none from M'sia and Indon? Why do you think most of the Tropical species originated from my region? Especially the Callimusa. Eumusa, Australimusa and Rhodoclamys have a wider range but not the Callimusa. What I am trying to highlight is that though zones may be alike but the micro part of it is a totally different thing.

This comes to an interesting part I would like to put forth;
There is an old thread on the pronunciation of the Chinese word, Xihuabanensis. All the Orang Puteh trying their best but none got it right. :ha:
Another is the question on the Thai Danee. It was a dead end thread.
There weren't any active member from SEA then, now, it's me, only me. Point here is where would y'all ask a SEA question if you have one? Well, I would put it as dropping a line at the SEA Section. I am not trying to segregate the board but to give the International more credibility. We joined to have fun, yes, but isn't it the quest for knowledge which brought us here in the first place?

Ahhhh....:ha::ha::ha: Oi! I just want to have a contact/networking point to learn about my own region. As you can see here, there are 2 school of thoughts here - #1 if it works, why bother - #2 doing more to improve it. Please re-read the title of the topic again, it seem to say Increasing membership participation! The point here is we are trying to increase the participation, not just let it be. Parting line is, I will not go start a SEA Banana Society cos this is the International Banana Society.

Re: Increasing membership participation
 

Beth, you're saying I'm not using reason and nitting and picking and I don't believe any of that is the case. I floated an idea, John didn't like it and said why, and I defended my idea. That's it. I know the point of the thread. I started it, after all.

Deb, the idea of greater participation is to get help from more people, etc. For instance, if I'm asking if anyone has seen a particular cultivar in zone 9 before, it's much more helpful that more eyes see my question. There may very well be someone growing something I'm looking for right near me but they've been absent from the forums for a bit. A digest e-mail might entice them to come back for a visit.

Paulo, I can't think of any forums I belong to which do what you're taking about (require I confirm my interest in the forum). I do get "digest" e-mails from about 3 of the 20 or so forums I belong to, with the largest and most organized forum sending me e-mails every week or two. I thought it was only once or twice a month but, since I started this thread, I think I've received two of those digest e-mails.

I also belong to about 10 or so Yahoo groups. One group I belong to is quite active and I once proposed that we convert to a forum. While some people liked the idea, some did not. The main reason for people saying that they don't like forums is that they don't bother to go visit the forum and check out what's being discussed. In a Yahoo (or other) group, all the messages are delivered right to their e-mail inbox (either individual e-mails or a daily digest, unless they've chosen to have web only viewing of messages). Sending out a periodic digest helps add some of the advantages of groups to a forum. It involves no "change" to the forum but does require someone to prepare the digest. It can be as much or little work as someone chooses.

Peace and love to all (seriously),

Harvey

Re: Increasing membership participation
 

Hey, Tog, I think your neighbors just take bananas for granted and they get no respect there, so they don't bother joining a forum on bananas. I would never think of joining a forum on Bermuda Grass even though I've got it growing all around me! I've also got fennel growing wild around me and I don't give a fennel forum any thought. You might be a bit lonely, but your participation here is much appreciated. I promise: if I move over there and become your neighbor, I'll not only buy some plants from you, but also chat with you on bananas.org! :ha:

Re: Increasing membership participation
 

I see what you're saying Harvey.

Re: Increasing membership participation
 

On the lighter side I agree with what Harv said, here we are just floating ideas and hope by the end of it have a couple of do-able ideas to present to Jarred. Please let's not get personal here.

If the new ideas are good and implemented, we will get more hits on the net on anything involving bananas.

Forums are great if you look at the history of it. It was at the Forum where great policies and nations came into being. However, it was also at the forum where Julius Caesar had the most hits!!!:ha::ha::ha:

Re: Increasing membership participation
 

Couldn't have said it better. So now I'm wondering what for example would interest me in joining say an apple or pear discussion. Wouldn't have thought about it on my own except for this thread. Then it came to me: I used to be a member of the seed savers exchange when searching for heirloom tomatoes and was for a few years actually became really interested in heirloom cultivars of many common fruits and other crops because of what I learned from their journal. The only thing preventing me from more participation was a lack of growing space. In fact at the time I didn't own any of my own property and wouldn't bother with too many things that I couldn't keep in a pot or grow in a season. Bottom line though is to interest tropical growers who may take for granted what they have, maybe there needs to be some form of education/ information readily available so that people can take some special pride in certain local and regional cultivars that may have just been taken for granted. I can't do it but we can all help even if only by adding some pics and personal notes to the wiki which I guess would be a start. I forgot which post at the moment but Tog had mentioned how a lot of us should be documenting and photographing growth habits etc. so that we are more able to identify certain varieties throughout their lifespan without running right to Gabe for example. Making information available and getting it to indigenous peoples in all the tropics is key. .......... ok sorry about the novel.

Re: Increasing membership participation
 

Harvey
the sites that i belong to mite not been polite to discus but a number of them do this periodic cleaning of there ranks band width is exspesiv and so is data storage

Tog
i dint go in to the particulars of zone for expedience my replies tend to be wordy as it is yes just because you in zone 9 like me dose not take in to account total climate after all my zone 9 is Mediterranean so say some one in the lower coastal region of Italy would have a much wetter climate and also altitude plays a big factor i just thought you all would know this so i didn't put it in for the sake of brevity

also Tog many of the aspects of what you are talking about as far as the SEA species are already in the forum we have the section on Banana species which would cover all of the aspects of what you want in your forum also take some of those banana Bucks you all are hording and make a thread thats sticky jarred will do that if its a good thread so as i see it its not broking in the first place you just have to use the tools that we already have i think this is one of the better thought out chat sites

Beth thank you for your support LOL Kiss!

thank you all for listening to my rantings i know i sound like a broken record (for those of you to young to know what that is its way before your time so I'm not going to tell you LOL)

i was thinking that the news letter would not really have to have any articles in it some one could just pick throw the threads and make a really short one or two line synopsis of the thread thats more then enough to peak interest

Re: Increasing membership participation
 

Well, U do sounds a bit like my last Alice Cooper LP. LOL
:woohoonaner:

Re: Increasing membership participation
 

Increasing membership participation - Let's us get back into this interesting discussion as cool headed adults. I think we should keep the topic in mind in this thread. Somewhere along the line, it was getting to the point of increasing membership(not participation) and the inability to cater to everyone's needs.

Every big corporation (even the smaller ones) have a PR dept. Countries have the Foreign Affair Ministries. Why? It is to increase the interest/participation of that particular establishment. As I have said earlier, it is up to the core members to spot eager new members to get them involved in the discussions. This I feel is a way to increase their participation which is overall participation. A few of us are the chatty and friendlier types, and we can get together and form a sort of unofficial PR dept acting as PR Officers to identify these people. It takes work, but I feel it is worth it.

Harv, Jarred has already implemented the European Section Forum. Now the boy/gals there are happy to discuss their own problems and also to increase their networking in respect to their import limitations. With the sub sections, we can also do a friendly competition to increase membership and participation to see how well each section grows which also accounts to the overall growth of IBS.

I like the idea of sub section as it enables the members from that area to pool their resources. Imagine, if I were to ship a variety of cultivars to the US, it will be easier for me to source out the varieties through a net work and to do it on my own. In this way, we can easily increase our material wealth of 'naner species/cultivars in a very short time.

The other point is in getting info on the cultivar/species of that region.

I agree with the point about people not having any interest in 'naner growing from my region. I am positive that there is more than just me from SEA who has an interest in this. New members from SEA are in a way shocked (like me in the beginning) to see nothing on this board which they can relate to. Everything is about wintering and cultivars which we are not familiar with.

Pauly, sad to say, the Species Forum at the time I joined only covered the well known commonly available/established species. I scoured through it many times trying to find out more but I only managed to skim the surface in terms of knowledge. I found the International Banana Society which is a relief to me as its name relates to me a wealth of knowledge on 'naner worldwide being International. I wanted to find out first and foremost about 'naner cultivars and species from my country and it drew a blank. Technically, it did not serve the purpose of what I had expected.
The most confusing thing is to look into the Photo Gallery for Species 'Naners. Many hybrids and cultivars are in there, not only that, sometimes cultivars were posted in the Species Forum. It only serves to confuse a beginner and to the scour of a seasoned keeper.

We have to admit that banana cultivation and species comes from your other side of the world and any information will have to come out of that area. Aren't we all here to learn and isn't it evident that questions are always the topics? I have spoken to Hakkinen and he said he went into 'naners as part of his research on food cultivars. In his course of research, he discovered many new species in SEA which were taken for granted by the locals. However with his direction, the locals like the Mainland Chinese and Kalu Meekiong have taken the research further as in the case of the most recent independent discovery and description of Musa juwiniana by Kalu.

In conclusion, from my point of view, there is two way to look at this;
Let the society be a happy casual 'naner discussion site or to take the responsibility to build it to greater heights with lots of hard work and dedication by members who are committed to it.

Ah, remember, these are suggestions for Increasing membership participation. :ha:

Re: Increasing membership participation
 

well if you put it that way LOL all good points Tog i don't have all the answers if people want it then let them have it Live and let Live i guess
is still rather be a casual site thats all inclusive. as far as beginners go often i feel we mis the point with them Bananas are not hard to grow as a mater of fact id say there some of the easiest plants i have i think in an effort to educate we often confuse but after all the Org is not a book of how too's its made up of vastly differing peoples from all different cultures for my part I'm going to recommit my self to listening allot of times i just don't answer post because the are simply to basic and i don't want to look like a know it all answering every post with my opinion and as iv said in the past my no nonsense approach to gardening some times has garnered me critical responses theirs just so much to say on the subject perhaps a better way of doing it would be for some one to research all the good threads and move then in to logical sections that any one could see right off the bat the how to's so so to speak
what do you all think about that its already here its just kinda a disorganized mess if you ask me

Re: Increasing membership participation
 

This forum isnt any more only about naner growing. Now it has internationall touch and that is what is fascinating here. Grrrh.., hate my english, want to say much more but I just cannot express myself in the way I would like. Members do participate in all segments awaileblle, socials, cultular, even economics and all that in good will and good spirit.
I belive in people!
:woohoonaner:

Re: Increasing membership participation
 

That is the beauty, but in the end, no solutions (except for those banana related) are found, so it's just about social touch with people.

The problem is, that the population of people, who are fascinated by bananas is small and getting still smaller. The reasons are either unavailability of plants, plant stereotype (somewhere grow bananas naturally)... many people simply grow their naners and might not even know what it is.

The forum is just as good as it is, maybe some new sectioning and other stuff, but generally, the more you will want to press people into communication, the more will they resist.
It just must come naturally, like with us, ey, guys? ;) :D

Cheers

Re: Increasing membership participation
 

A suggestion to float out there. Since Facebook has so many people on it, maybe we could have a Facebook page. I have no idea how this is done (I only joined at my son's insistence), but this would increase our exposure tremendously. Some would be casual friends, but possibly some would end up joining the org as devoted members once they see what a likable and knowledgeable group we are. There might even be some folk out there who don't even know they want to grow bananas yet!

Re: Increasing membership participation
 

Precisely what this site doesn't need... It would just raise the numbers, but in the end, the only communicating would still be done by us. ;) The problem also is the language you know, not all the world's growers can speak English. But to make this site multilingual? It would lose the key factor - understanding. So it's back to square one. Sorry to be pessimistic, but as a programmer I've seen several forums undergo such changes and it never turned out to be good. The change must come spontaniously.

Re: Increasing membership participation
 

That s the point, just like my snails drinking beer right now :)
:woohoonaner:

Re: Increasing membership participation
 

Actually, I respectfully disagree with this point strongly. I feel we (the org) exist somewhat in a closed world, one only open to those with a demonstrated interest in growing bananas already. An opportunity to open up to new members would be beneficial. I fully expect that for every 100 lookups only 10 or so would take the next step to view the org, and maybe only half of those would either join and participate or lurk for a while before joining. I understand that this may be more about increasing the potential membership base, and that many (most?) would not be as active as we are initially. Eventually, however, I believe a 5% addition to our active membership would be beneficial. Whether it be by Facebook or some other means is certainly worthy of discussion. The goal here in this thread is discussion and the floating of ideas, and the reactions to them both positive and negative. In other words Jack, I'm glad for your reply, and solicit others, both yea and nay and new. We only stand to benefit from the discussion. Thanks Tog for pushing this out here.
The language issue is an important one. However, I don't see an obvious way around English, at least initially. As they say that English is now the international language of science, this may not be an insurmountable problem. Chinese or other languages would be fascinating to contemplate in opening up a new world area to the org, but how to do this I'm not sure, This might be a topic more in line with a subsection discussion for the geographical areas.

Re: Increasing membership participation
 

i know garred could add a button at the top of each post that lets you translate sounds simple enough to me