WC: I have a tab on my browser that points to New Posts, and IO check it every couple days. Tose forums I have on my watch list have my avatar attached, so I can quickly scroll to those I'm interested in. This eliminates the need to visit every forum you want to come into your email's inbox.
I use this as my forum landing page:
https://www.420magazine.com/community/watched/threads
And visit this one almost as often:
https://www.420magazine.com/community/find-threads/unanswered
...to play the latest round of "The Spambot Game," to check for people that might have posted introduction threads and been ignored (due to periods of high forum activity, I assume
), or just new threads that catch my eye.
There's also the New Posts link:
New posts
...but it's pretty busy for me, these days.
I was initially annoyed by the "scatterbrained" aspect of the above. For example, if I use the "threads with no replies" link (above), I get a list - and also have the option at the top of that list to see "Your threads," "Threads with your posts," and "Watched threads." Okay, fine. Add "New posts" to that list, and I would have typed: Okay,
great.
Except... I'm a big fan of cannabis and all, but it's obviously the forum software developer's drug of choice, lol, and he's consuming way too much of it while on the job. The above? Click on the "Your threads" or "Threads with your posts" links, and you get the same kind of list - with the same heading choices. Logical, yes? Sure - but now try that with that last category, "Watched threads." Different list, in that you've now lost the choices at the top of the list and can no longer (simply & easily using the "standard"(???) method used previously) flip back to one of the other lists. That incongruity makes no sense (IMHO) at all.
Things like the above should (again,
IMHO) be an "all or none" kind of thing. I'd have trouble teaching someone how to use the forum because of stuff like this. When you add exceptions to logic like that, it makes a thing unintuitive at best.
I don't think we'll ever get back all the functionality we got used to in the previous version of the website.
It's looking less and less likely as time passes, doesn't it? 'Tis a question of priorities, I suppose; the old software was great for usability (and for its users), but has been <POOFED>, which causes me to think that it must have been a RPitA for the admin/etc. to configure/maintain, more expensive than this one, or some other (hidden) behind-the-scenes factor was so significant that the benefit of switching software packages outweighed all the obvious negatives. And one assumes that this wasn't a spur of the moment decision, either. I mean... you don't shoot yourself in the foot on a whim
.
Look on the bright side, lol. It's annoying to use, now - but we get to do so for free. There used to be a link at the top of every page on the forum that'd take us directly to the big list of forum
sponsors/advertisers. I don't know about everyone else, but I hit that link at least a couple times per week, on average. I'm not financially well-off, so I don't make purchases all that often. But when I do, I like to support our forum's advertisers as and where possible (they're not paying to keep this forum in existence out of a sense of altruism, lmao). More often, I used it when making suggestions to others about where they could purchase equipment/etc.
Now I can't find such a link to the sponsor list so easily. I have to load the main forum page, then scroll down to the "420
Sponsors" section, then open the subforum list (NOTE TO DEVELOPER: sub-menus that have only one choice are, in practice, nonsensical things, lol - just showing the sub-menu's single choice
in place of that sub-menu takes up ZERO additional screen real estate, makes it approximately 10,000,000,000,000,000 times more obvious what's in there, et cetera),
and then... click on the link to the list of
sponsors.
And the
sponsors PAY to be here. <SCRATCHES HEAD> I do find myself wondering how many times that web page (
sponsors' list) was accessed per month last year - versus how many times it has been accessed per month this year, now that it has been (pretty effectively)
hidden from the average forum member's view
.
IDK. I could bitch and moan about stuff like this, but I choose not to. I figure our chief is reasonably intelligent and that he would have thought all this crap through before making any decisions, yes? Therefore, there must have been significant reasons for making the switch (and
those reasons must have been BIG ones! ) .
The pale seed I put in a wet paper towel two days ago has not sprouted yet
I have, within the past 45 days, tried four different germination methods. ALL of them have worked well for me in the past. No joy now
. I'm trying to start some auto-flowering seeds, and I've been going through my stock at a prodigious rate. I had
wanted to have started some photoperiodic seeds two or three weeks ago, but really need to start the autos first, so... <BLEEP!>
I have seeds from a variety of sources, going back several years. Not being too picky about specific strains (just, as mentioned, wanting to start the autos first), I initially began with the ones that I'd had the longest. Well... This morning, I realized that I'd tried one (or more) of just about every auto strain I had, and was up to
Crop King Seeds' White Widow Auto. I was actually hoping to save those for a rainy day, lol, because they're one of the higher "ranked" autos I have. But, well, you know (lol)... So I dug out the micro-Ziploc baggie that they came in (non-Canadian customer) - only to discover that the inside of that baggie is
covered with tiny white spots, WfT?
I received these seeds directly from the supplier late last year, so they're relatively fresh. I did open the baggie, but make sure to use good "hygiene" practices when doing so. I never touched any of the seeds while they were in the baggie, never stuck my finger - or anything else - into it, et cetera. I maneuvered one seed to the top, folded the baggie over so that it was separated, opened the top, and allowed the single seed to roll out on its own (and then immediately reclosed the package). That one seed was basically used in a germination test, lol, and it germinated. Hmm... Could I - somehow - have introduced a pathogen into my seeds?!? I was on the verge of panicking when I thought, "Wait a second! I also received a pack of Blueberry seeds at the same time, and I haven't even opened that one." So I pulled out that tiny Ziploc baggie, held it up, and looked at it...
And the inside of THAT baggie is covered with little whitish dots as well!!! A quick look at 20 or 25 other seed packages (opened and non-) showed me that this white stuff, whatever it is(???!), is
ONLY in the two seed packages from
CKS, so at least that particular worry was unfounded.
But, still... I'm
a little upset at discovering evidence that there's more life in the two
CKS seed packets than just... cannabis seeds.
And I still can't figure out what I'm doing wrong this year, in general, in terms of germinating/sprouting cannabis seeds. I've effectively missed out on my region's (rather short) window of "just warm enough at night that I won't need a heater, but just cool enough in the daytime that I won't need an air conditioner." I also promised a buddy, who is falling apart (disabled, cancer incident last year, no money, no job, depressed, has less use of his hands every day) - and who happens to be someone I've known for well over 30 years and my best friend - two or three auto-flowering plants and a photoperiodic clone (, female) or three. Now I don't know for sure, but I strongly suspect that he's starting to think I've just been blowing him off.
It's all a bit...
irksome.
Karmic re-balancing in progress, possibly?