CactiGuide.com

This topic was brought up recently. I think it's a good idea to rejuvenate the forum and introduce some reforms ( i feel like i'm talking about perestroika ). However, i believe purging old members and forcing other to be active is kind of like dictatorship that will force new members away.
Personally, i stopped being very active at the forum due to other time consuming hobbies as i have currently have 2 V8s on the repotting bench waiting for parts. I only log in daily to activate new members and glance some topics. By this logic i should be purged.
I do have the permissions as an administrator to purge but i want to see what the consensus is and then i'll take it with Daiv.
The problem with new memeber is endless IDs and requests and then they disappear. While this annoying, every now and then some plants pop up in the ID section that some of us have and don't know the name of so that is not entirely bad.

ElieEstephane wrote: ↑Tue Mar 19, 2019 11:08 am The problem with new memeber is endless IDs and requests and then they disappear. While this annoying, every now and then some plants pop up in the ID section that some of us have and don't know the name of so that is not entirely bad.

I also consider this to be a problem, as it clutters up the forum and drains resources from current forum members. I only help out identification from members I know are active, and ignore the others.

The option for a 10(+) post count (in any forum section besides the ID section) before one is able to post anything in the ID section, as you have previously introduced as an idea, seems like a good idea to try in practice. Maybe allow for one identification request for every 10 total messages posted? But that might be hard to implement.

This will at least probably stop those that are only here for an identification request, and might stimulate others to contribute more to the forum.

Yes i really liked that idea and tried to implement it automatically through the administrator panel but there's no option for that. Maybe someone volunteers to be an active moderator? However, i suggest maybe 5 posts per 1 ID. This topic is open for debate for anyone to participate

I's be a bit more relaxed. The ID posts are useful. However, they don't tend to be as useful when they have loads of photos in the same thread.
So how about 1 id request per thread, max of 4 id requests per week, no other restrictions.

To be fair to people new to succulents, the first thing they are likely to post is either an id request or cultivation / problem solving tips.

As a newer member I would say talk of purging for inactivity seems rather unappealing. Although, I admit that I don't fully understand what purging means in this context and what rubric you would be using to define inactivity. I have two fears regarding this. First, I have noticed that when looking through "the archives" that the comments of members who have been removed are also removed. Since there are members that have been inactive for quite some time, but have contributed a lot of value to this forum, it would be a great loss to no longer be able to have access to their contributions. If this loss of content is a byproduct of purging I would not suggest going that route. Second, I work a job during the summer months where I potentially don't have access to an internet connection for a couple weeks at a time. It would be very frustrating and disappointing to return from an assignment to find out I had been purged from the forum. Unless the time frame for inactivity was a generous one, it would be difficult to support this. There can be many reasons for inactivity that wouldn't warrant purging, perhaps a family member becomes ill or other responsibilities that come up. Or, as Elie mentioned, simply another hobby is taking precedence at the moment.

I haven't been a member of a forum since the late 1990's. I joined recently because (of course) a love of cactus and arid things, but also because I am no longer able to make as frequent trips to the nurseries in the southern part of my state, and I really have missed the conversations that I get to have on those trips about these plants with like-minded people. Cactus, their study, and their care provide me with a calming outlet and the forum is excellent for this. Other social media is difficult for me to interact with because it is so quickly paced and I may not be able to get online enough to have real-time conversations. The forum seems ideal because a delay in response does not seem to be a breach of etiquette, and it is ok to be a "part-time" user. I may not be truly active on a daily basis, but I am given the opportunity to contribute as well as to ask questions over time. I imagine there are many users in this position. I think Daiv's "Purpose of the CactiForum" and "Who can use the CactiForum" are a satisfactory mission statement for the forum. Any changes should be looked at through that lens. Are we facilitating an experience that caters to both the beginner and the advanced, returners and newcomers both?

This is my two cents. It is certainly a conversation worth having.

I completely agree with you as i thought about this in length yesterday. While deleting old inactive members doesn't delete their posts, it deletes there account. If this happens, you can't access someone's profile and follow his posts. Makes stuff a lot more frustrating.
As for IDs, i agree with Esp. There should be a certain quota for iDs. And it's up to every member wether to ignore or reply to an ID post.

I have been a forum member of CactiGuide since 2006 and feel at home here. As far as requesting services from fellow members are concerned, I have asked and still ask for help with identifying plants, growing media composition, etc.. I am, however, not just a "taker", but also try my best to be a "giver", trying to help out fellow cactus growers with problems they encounter, be they caused by insects or pathogens.
My opinion is, that this site should not change as a result of having people ask for example for identification of their newly acquired plants.
The openness and friendliness is what has kept me in this group. I do not like restrictions to be placed on forum memberships, except for things like being courteous to fellow members and using acceptable language. We are here, in order to help each other grow cacti and succulents; a fellowship of people with interest in this hobby. I would hate for this group to become overly regimented and thus lose its character of openness.
I understand, that some people ask for a lot of identification help and assistance with cultivating these plants, especially if they are new to this hobby. However, even a more experienced cactus owner (collector) may at times have questions. I hope, we are all striving to have as much success with growing these plants as possible, which means, that we are constantly learning or try to learn new things. In order to achieve this, the forum has to be accessible and restrictions make it less so.

Harald

"The problem with new member is endless IDs and requests and then they disappear. " You will have to decide how much of a job it is it maintain inactive member ID's. I would say you all who maintain this forum don't burn yourself out and purge away if it makes your life easier.

Plenty of what kind of cactus is this requests and I think its up to others to decide whether they try and ID it or not. Doesn't bother me I ignore or answer depending on the photo and request. 20 photos in a row of home depot bloated cactus grown in poor light and I'll probably ignore it.

ElieEstephane wrote: ↑Tue Mar 19, 2019 11:08 am This topic was brought up recently. I think it's a good idea to rejuvenate the forum and introduce some reforms ( i feel like i'm talking about perestroika ). However, i believe purging old members and forcing other to be active is kind of like dictatorship that will force new members away.

Collecting cacti seems to be, more often than not, an old man's hobby. Given the amount of time this forum has been around, I'm sure quite a few members are no longer with us, or are unable to care for their collections.

Aiko wrote: ↑Tue Mar 19, 2019 12:30 pm The option for a 10(+) post count (in any forum section besides the ID section) before one is able to post anything in the ID section, as you have previously introduced as an idea, seems like a good idea to try in practice. Maybe allow for one identification request for every 10 total messages posted? But that might be hard to implement.

This will at least probably stop those that are only here for an identification request, and might stimulate others to contribute more to the forum.

My first post was for an ID. I thought this forum was a good resource and folks were mostly friendly, so I stuck around. I don't think I would have bothered if members acted like dicks about an ID request. I mean, what's the big deal? You help out where you can. If you know the plant, you ID it (or ignore it). If you don't, you pass.

The CactiGuide Home section, Search By Genera is terribly time consuming for the newbie, and the photos are not always useful. Mammillaria, Echinopsis, and Rebutia come to mind. It's nice to get some discussion or debate about the plant. I'm not bothered by folks that only use the site once.

Yes, I was on a photo Forum where they occasionally "cleared the books of dead men". It was not a case of how many posts people had made or if they simply were "lurkers", but how long it was that they had not logged on to the Forum for. They usually removed any who had not logged on for a year or so, stating if they returned their account could be reactivated by contacting the Administrator. You do get people who have left the hobby still on the books, plus actual dead men since we have no way of knowing if some of the early older members are now deceased, other than they have not posted for a long time.

It is quite easy to find out since if you click on a members profile it says when last active, meaning when they last logged on to the site, not last posted, or if ever posted at all. It is not "readers" or "posters" you want to remove, but those who never log in again to the Forum for a year or two.

My question is what the drawbacks of keeping inactive accounts might be. Is there any negative repercussion about keeping the accounts? Is it using up some kind of forum bandwidth that I don't know about? If not, it just kind of seems like it would be a kind of waste of time to go deleting old accounts.

There's also the question of someone like me, who hasn't really posted for a while, though I keep the forum in the back of my head. In this case, I have only been a member for a two years or less, but I have been member of another forum for a band, and I didn't post there for quite literally 5 years -- and then one day I felt like logging in and posting, and I continued to do so. I would have been crushed to know that old posts were gone, or that my account was gone.

The 'take the ID and run' issue is another thing. I don't really have any solution for it in mind, unless you opened a megathread for throwaway messages that are inconsequential. But what's inconsequential to one might be very informative to another, so, who knows?

I would be surprised if your account name is removed that your old posts or even pictures are removed because this upsets the threads. The time pictures disappear is when people don't post them directly on the Forum, but link to a picture hosting site which itself removes their pictures, therefore the the link is then dead. I have never used a picture hosting site so don't know if they charge a fee for hosting images and remove your pictures when you stop paying?

I would not think keeping your name on the Forum uses up bandwidth. As I said elsewhere, I knew one photo forum that had very few posting and few logging on that claimed to have hundreds of members since no names had ever been removed over the years it had been going, simply because it carried adverts to pay for it and purging the "dead wood" would have indicated to the advertisers how few members it actually had and so it was a waste of money advertising there.

Maybe a tag "inactive" should appear after a fixed time of inactivity under the Username. But the info and opinions posted is better to be saved.

Also maybe an option to terminate your own account from the control panel would help with self-purging?

Is there a way to make or restrict ID requests forum for only those here for 90 days or a certain # of posts before it allows you to post there? Just a thought for the hit and run ID request people...

Being a new member, I thank everyone who keeps this forum running. I can appreciate those whom have help identify cactus for others. I see it as passing on their knowledge. Every one at some point couldn't identify a cactus and asked for help. I do see posts with multiple request for id's. Sometimes multiple request in one post. Maybe start 1 request per post and or 1 request per day. Myself, being new to cactus as a hobby, I will give my best guess. I probably be wrong 90% of the time. I like to look at old post and pictures from years back. Please don't remove these as there is a great deal of knowledge on this forum. Thanks,Jim.