lorax

Sounds simple, Pauly, but it's actually quite difficult to get a good translator to work that way. Especially with us, and our varied styles of speech.

damaclese

well it was a thought

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Scuba_Dave

Until I stumbled across this site in a search I had never considered growing bananas. I have a ton of perennial plants & quite a few indoor plants
I frequent a lot of DIY sites due to the addition & work on my house. (2) of these there isn't much participation/new people - so I may not be going there too much. There is a 3rd one that has lots of people, lots of posts. A 4th is mostly for plumbers it seems, but some colorful people make it interesting to visit each day
I used to be on saltwater forums a lot. One decided they didn't like "off-topic" postings, I stopped going to their site. Another I just stopped going for a while, my tank is in limbo until the addition is completed

I'm also on a few Christmas sites, but that is now only "in-season" from maybe October (Halloween) thru beginning of Jan

I can see how this site may be seasonal as a Northern grower
But as long as I can learn the correct way to grow & take care of nanas I'll be around. I'm hoping my greenhouse will work over the winter, but I'll have to see how it goes

isn't it "sound like a skipping CD" these days ?

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harveyc

I've seen that, but doesn't mean I like the idea of it and I don't believe it increases overall membership participation. You can continue to break down the forum into maybe 100 sub-forums and what do you end up with? A confusing arrangement that will likely scare off any new members. In addition, you'd have just a handful of members, or less, in many cases communicating with one another in a sub-forum instead of having a discussion in a forum which is viewed by more people and a wider variety of views on a subject being expressed. I haven't poked my nose into the European forum but would not be surprised if things have been discussed there which I could have contributed some information on, but I would feel like an intruder there. So my participation has been discouraged. Sub-forums end up excluding participation more than encouraging participation, in my opinion. We can create a sub-forum of banana growing in zip code 95651 and I can just communicate with myself mentally and never post a thing.

I realize that there can be some benefit to having sub-forums since it makes it easier for someone with a particular interest to find what they are looking for but, even then, a particular subject can often overlap into many different areas.


Exactly how will a sub-forum accomplish that? I don't believe it's fair to assume you will actually attract more SEA members by having an area devoted to that region of the world. How will SEA members know what USA members are interested in if they just chat in a SEA sub-forum? How will USA members know what's available if these selections are being talked about in just the SEA sub-forum?

Certainly there will be people posting in multiple areas but very few people will take the time to visit each sub-forum and that, in my opinion, decreases overall participation. As it is, there are discussions in the Cold Hardy Bananas, Container Grown Banana Plants, and others that I never see because I visit those sub-forums infrequently since I find plenty that interests me in the Main Banana Discussion. Yet, I have interests in many of the things being discussed in those other sub-forums.


Overall, only a little of the discussion here at IBS is about overwintering of bananas and most of it is in the Cold Hardy Bananas section. During certain times of the year there is more of it as people face the challenges of very cold weather and then in the spring when they report how their storage methods worked. About the only banana I'll dig up and store in my greenhouse will be an Ae Ae and perhaps a few other uncommon ones that would be hard for me to replace. I have no plans to store bananas in my crawl space, attic, etc. but don't mind seeing a post about it even though its not something I can related to. Seeing such posts does not decrease my participation. Seeing a post that I am interested in does increase my participation, however. Again, if a post which would be of interest to me is posted in a forum I don't visit, my participation and that of many others is decreased.


People posting into wrong sections will always happen and creating more sub-forums will not decrease the degree to which this takes place, IMHO. That can only be corrected with very active moderators to straighten things out. I hereby nominate Tog as our next new moderator!!!


I don't believe for a second that any information about banana growing must come out of SEA. There are practices in SEA that will not work in my climate and the experiences of others with similar challenges is of great importance to me.

At the same time, I'm fascinated by the possibility of trying some of the 40-day bananas from the Philippines as I might be able to grow them as annuals here. There are many practices in Asia which I have also found useful and interesting. But I also find Mark Hill's comments about his tunnel growing of bananas interesting and useful.


There are many ways to look at this and different ways to try to increase membership participation. I would enjoy more participation by growers from SEA but honestly don't believe increasing the number of sub-forums will help. I believe we have way too many sub-forums as it is.

As I write, I see that there are 45 people viewing the Main Banana Discussion, 18 viewing the Tiki Hut, 15 at Other Plants, 7 each at Banana Recipes and Species Bananas, 6 at Cold Hardy Bananas, 6 at Banana Identification, and all the others are 0 to 3. There is only 1 person at the European Section. You could very well be the only one viewing/posting at the SEA section much of the time and that would not do much for increasing participation.

I respect your ideas and information tremendously, but honestly don't believe having a SEA sub-forum will increase participation like you hope it would.


Now, for something new, maybe we should have a welcoming committee and we can have regional IBS ambassadors. You can handle SEA I can fight others for the NorCal slot. We'd have to require new members specify the region they're from so that they can be properly welcomed and encouraged to participate.

Have a cigar, Tog, and think about it some more, okay? Stay away from the hot spicy stuff that causes you anguish, though!

Your NorCal Pal,

Harv

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lorax

See, and here I read this as "other Malaysians aren't interested in growing bananas."

harveyc

Could be. I read it several times and wasn't sure what the comment was a reference to. It followed a quote of Bob which didn't seem to make a reference to this topic.

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saltydad

Beth and Harvey= I also read it as Beth did.

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"Gardening is the purest of human pleasures." - Francis Bacon





"If by a liberal, they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind; someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions; someone who cares about the welfare of the people, their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, their civil liberties; someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicion that grips us; that is what they meant by a liberal, I am proud to be a liberal."
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http://flickr.com/photos/saltydad/ and
http://community.webshots.com/user/saltydad
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harveyc

Okay, probably so. When reading the rest of the paragraph it comments about how there are others in SEA that are interested in naners so that's why I decided on the other meaning. I'll just delete that portion of my response above before Tog wakes up and catches my mistake!

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PT DUffy

Being an old fart botanically wise(anyone else old enough to remember Round Robins;>) I'm "agin" diffusing the mission becasue I've seen this wreck groups over the last 40 yrs. It's Quality, not Quantity. I want honest discussion of the subject matter, not having to scroll through miles of "____are the bomb!" type entries. If numbers and superficiality is what you want, start a "MYSPACEBOOK" group....
Cheers,
Pat

bepah

Harvey,

I congratulate you on your volunteer spirit! I promise never to fight you for the 'NorCal slot'!

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John Case
Rookie Gardener, Veteran Drinker

Jack Daw

And precisely for this Jarred created specialized sections, such as our... European section, so that we can localize with people nearby.

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Thnx to Marcel, Ante, Dr. Chiranjit Parmar and Francesco for the plants I've received.



Zeitgeist - Corporatocracy 101 (~2hrs)

Zeitgeist - Moving Forward (~2.5hrs)

Dalmatiansoap

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MediaHound

Just getting to this thread now, been busy with my newborn and honestly did not start reading it till this evening.

Thanks so much to everyone who participated on the thread, that's the type of comradeship that we're here for. Maintaining the Org is an art, not a science, and the feedback helps keep it all in perspective when we take new initiatives, direction, or make changes to the forum, etc. It's like being a chef with a delicate stew, one bad ingredient can mess it up and one extra good ingredient can make all the world of difference. So that's really kept at the forefront of the decision processes and everything is taken into consideration. A lot of good ideas posted, many added to our wish-list so they are not forgotten about.

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mjdsinsacto

Thanks for bringing this thread back up top. I happened on this thread a few days back and, as I browsed through it, got a chance to see "membership participation" in action; and a bird's eye view of the core membership. Great bunch of bananas.

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Dalmatiansoap

Just to bump this thread due the lack of activity lately,
some things just never change

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harveyc

I wish the weather was warmer and I'd be more excited about growing bananas. It's in the low 50s early in the morning right now and by Sunday we're not expected to even reach 60F for a high. Once my nanners start picking up steam I'll get more enthused about bananas.

Still, I think for some of us the banana hobby has matured and we're less active in seeking information. Some of us share pups with friends and I guess we need to keep introducing new hobbyists to the IBS. I've got around 20 varieties of bananas now and am probably going to scale back as I've been focusing more efforts lately on a new passion of growing pitaya (pitahaya, dragonfruit). I've got over 20 varieties of it now also and have yet to get one to flower but hope to have some this year if things warm up early enough. I had six banana flower for me last year and have a bunch hanging right now, so I guess I sort have conquered that challenge. Maybe I'll trying grafting bananas. I think I'd need a lab and a better education in science to tank on that one. lol

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lmswayne

Being new and looking at old treads you get to see how you got this site up and running. I would like to thank you all. You have done a great job.

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Pallen

Lurker here: I have not said much since I joined. I just not have felt I had anything worth posting that the pro's here do not know already. I found this thread after searching the term "Oregon" to see if I could find any fellow Oregon growers. The term was found towards the top leading me to this thread and then moving this Lurker to post.

Now, I have some pups now on my first plant, I think I will try to go find the "correct" thread to post about it.

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Kat2

I get really freaked out seeing my name as the last poster on several threads so, yes, I'll be last here again (who knows how long?) but I, for one, have pulled back from posting much. Yes, I ask stupid questions and perhaps could find my answers searching here but an active forum does tend to repeat itself with those in the know pointing newbies to good threads while we all get to know each other. I suppose we can all just join so we can read and that's that but I find that rather sad.

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Abnshrek

I think this is funny.. but a better way to search if the search tab isn't doing much for you might be to go the general topic that your thread would be in, and you may find your answer (for plants) by scrolling thru the various threads in that area, and if none are found create a thread listing your question, so you can get an answer.. Bananas.org - International Banana Society:^)

Now on another topic related to this thread is I always notice when I goto the link above we have 5-6 times the amount of visitors versus members looking for answer to something..
I don't mine being the last poster.. :^)

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I'm a Nannerhead :^)