Journals getting crowded

[Green Utopia]

Hi all-

Its great that so many folks have cool journals, and I love to flip through them all. But I'm wondering if perhaps there aren't some ways to organize them a little bit more. I know separating them by grow method didn't work, but perhaps by skill level?

While entirely a subjective determination, I think the self-moderating aspects of this site, combined with its fine moderators would lend itself to the journals being grouped for example as First Time Grows, Learning Gardeners, Experienced Gardeners and Master Gardeners.

Also, perhaps we could have stickys/links to the Cannaseur threads in the Journals in Progress thread?

Any thoughts?

 

[Wingman420]

Good idea but IMHO that might also direct traffic away from those most needy of our help.
This might also create a connoiseur club of elitist members who would look down upon other members who were not growing "their way." I do think that having all journals under the 420Mag umbrella forces interaction with one another giving the noob and expert alike valued input from all members.

 

[420]

I agree with Wingman, separating them would make all of the master growers hang with the master growers, then who will help the first timers?

I do however think maybe moving the 420 Cannasumer Reports back to to Journals in Progress as a sticky might give them more traffic.

Please bring your feedback everyone.

Thanks for your wonderful ideas and support Papa!

 

[IrishBoy]

whatever happen to the led only section? that was nice for members looking for led grows they were all their.

 

[420]

We moved them to their own forum and nobody could find them, the traffic almost died in them. Almost the same thing that is happening to the 420 Cannasumer Reports.

 

[IrishBoy]

We moved them to their own forum and nobody could find them, the traffic almost died in them. Almost the same thing that is happening to the 420 Cannasumer Reports.

umm didnt think about that..

maybe you could leave things how their are now but create another area for the led grows like before also and the same for the 420 Cannasumer Reports? to be honest i couldn't find the 420 Cannasumer Reports area, so i never go on them unless i come across it threw a thread.. i have no clue how many are out their..lol. just like the leds everyday someones join as a led grower or looking for led grows and i see them popping up all the time but theirs still allot of them that i miss and lots of others miss and I have to post the links on my thread to advertise for them for the poor growers could get some help.. ive seen this happen many many times and it get discouraging for some growers trying to find help, but they dont understand most of us cant find their thread and they think were just ignoring them and go somewhere els.

so maybe having both would be an good idea so we dont have to have so many led grows on the back burner because we cant find them all. we could just see a list and be able to help the new led growers out and so them how friendly we our on this site with led growing because we all know the other sites are not as supportive towards leds as we are.

 

[Green Utopia]

Thanks for the feedback folks. If its possible to get stickys or links from various forums back to a single journal, then that's prolly a great way to help the orgainizing. In other words if one journal appeared as a link in Journals in Progress and LED and Bubbleheads. Not sure whether the software can implement this or whether it would be a major strain on the admins, or whether it would list multiple pages in Google which would be bad.

As far as the differing levels of experience banding together - I disagree. I think you will find the same advanced growers helping beginners. But more importantly I think you'd find many more beginners and intermediates helping each other. I think perhaps by separating the journals by experience level, we put the emphasis on gardening - not technology.

I am trying to be gentle here. I 100% remember when I was starting out and all the questions I had. And I think the folks starting out will still get lots of help from the same folks that are doing it now. For a more experienced gardener, the fun in reading a journal that starts out with burned sprouts in a plastic cup is watching that person turn their grow around. A beginner on the other hand is looking to make friends with another grower at the same level. And there's nothing to preclude one group from posting in another.

I think this site has gotten so big and popular that it would pay to think of things in terms of experience. There will always be new growers. Much like a college class. Freshman become sophomores. It would be crazy to lump all people studying Physics into the same group regardless of experience and age. Not that a PhD doesn't want to help a Freshman, but a PhD doesn't want to re-read the freshman textbook every day to do it.

BTW, I also want to make it perfectly clear that I don't consider myself a master. Advanced intermediate here. And just looking for ways to find others at the same level. I don't wanna bug the support guys with every question, and I can only read so much of the beginner stuff every day and still find new threads and info at my level.

Also, there are already two forms of peer review points built in to the site. Perhaps these could be used as an indicator. 1-1000 points freshman; 1001-2000 points sophomore; 3001-4000 points junior; 4001-5000 senior; 5K+ Master.
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A final thought. Perhaps there could be some kind of module for News of the Day from the site admins. Something that would fit nicely in a column on the side of every page. This is such a large site, and there are so many viewers that info sometimes gets lost. I, for one, would like to hear from the admins when something has changed. But I don't want to have to go out of my way to find that info.

 

[IrishBoy]

i agree with what ur saying but i feel some might take offence to their level skill of growing... i mean who decides on what level they are? someone might think their a great grower but the person that decides on their skill level dosent think so and buts them on a lower level and now that member is pissed off and butt hurt.

but then again it would be easy to find the newbie journals and help them out, because you would know where their at..

they both have their ups and downs.

 

[TorturedSoul]

I like non-segregated journal forums. At first I thought that separating them by grow style (DWC, E&F, NFT, soil, etc.) might be good. But then I realized that some people grow using multiple methods. The same could apply to different light types. And... Just because someone is growing Blue Donkey using DWC under LEDs and feeding them Acme Blast doesn't mean that they wouldn't benefit from the information found in a grow that has a different strain, different media/method, different lights, different nutrients (even if grower A started on a Tuesday during a full moon while grower B started on a Friday during a new moon, lol).

It would be especially helpful if everyone used journal titles along the lines of "DWC Grow Under 400-Watt HPS & 120-Watt LED" instead of "JimBob is Trying to Grow Without Burning the House Down" or some other "entertaining" phrase. I've never understood the point (if any) in the latter.

But at the end of the day, if you're looking for something specific... This site's search routine still works and you can set it to search only in Journals in Progress (or any other forum) - and if your search is more complicated than the site's search routine allows for, Google still allows a person to do complicated site-searches.

As far as separating the journals according to the grower's real or perceived abilities... I agree that it would be detrimental to the whole "helping others" thing and should be avoided at all costs. But for the individual reader that wishes to read such journals, you DO know that you can sort the threads in forums by something other than last post date, right? You can click on the Rating, Replies, and Views headings and they will be sorted appropriately.

 

[Keith Lake]

Great discussion, I'd like to weigh in

1) Regarding updates, 420 Magazine News & Updates - 420 Magazine is where we post the announcements of new sponsors or people that have joined staff. We could use this area for more communication like the fact we've started a new Cannasumer Reports sub-forum

2) Regarding the crowding (speaking in Macro terms here) a large part of our problem is that we haven't kept up with moving older journals to either the "completed" or "abandoned" sub-forums. Right now there's 12 pages but should only be 5 or so, because the latter half haven't been updated in over a month. This is an indication they're either abandoned or finished.

Happy to take on any volunteer that wishes to step up and help; it's an easy job?

3) Regarding the crowded journals (speaking in Micro or within journal). I'd really like to take the opportunity to point out Munki's great idea of using the Blog to direct people to the individual sections within a long journal for the key bits. How To: Use the Blog to Post Grow Journals and Result Info

4) Regarding uniform labeling - this would make things easier to find. We've included this in the tutorial How to Make a Grow Journal but peer pressure (friendly suggestions) to newbies is needed to have this catch on. Feel free to post suggestions on titles when you come across something with a suboptimal name. PM me directly, this takes no time at all the change.

5) Regarding more sub-forums, I've gone back and forth on this. I always struggle with which category would take precedence. What if someone is primarily DWC but tries LED, does this go in DWC or LED? I'm open minded but I see a lot of moving journals around in our future

 

[ptg701]

The Journals contain a wealth of information, but it's difficult to pick out from all the bloat and non-relevant yak and blab.

Personally, I have no interest in viewing picture after picture of sprouts and seedlings or reading posts like "Nice plants" or "Good job."

I would like to see the Journals better organized and edited so as to present only "The Facts".

 

[Snuggs]

I do agree that it does get difficult navigating to find someone else's grow that interest's you. Add some "post shyness" to that and it gets discouraging.

I also think that labeling things never seems to help. IMHO that would probably create a new class of users, either established or registering with there only intent on becoming a master grower. As Irishboy said, they would take offense if there not advancing to the rank they desire. A crowd I am sure 420 would prefer not to moderate to say the least and probably deal with on a daily basis as is.

I have a thought that could potentially allow some extent of organization that Papa Green had exampled. Let's say they were organized in that manner. Could a user possibly have the option in there cp to clone there journal to a sub-forum that is specific for those who want help or are new. Thus when they no longer feel they are a beginner or need help, they can sort of self mod there thread by removing the option.

This could also branch other ideas, I mean if the sole purpose is to help, it could also be used in that manner. Picture it like a service ticket. I go to my cp or thread option, check a box that clones my journal to that specific section. I don't have to create a new thread asking questions and once I feel comfortable with my problems, again I can self-mod and no longer request support. I left a lot of blanks in there cause I could easily ramble away. Of course I have no idea what this looks like on the admin end but it sounded pretty neat in my head.

TS, I'm a computer guy and I gotta tell ya, I did not think that far into it. So I'm sure others missed that as well. Could also be the one thing that brings us all together.

ptg701, I can understand where your coming from but I probably wouldn't share a journal if there wasn't some sort of personal communication.

I'll just put it out now I suppose, If there is anything I can ever help with, all I need is a friendly point in the right direction.

 

[Keith Lake]

ptg701 -> This method solves your issue. I sure wish we could get people to think about it.

For someone like PitViper that has a 1000 post journal, there's no hope of him finding key milestones in any reasonable time, but if he catalogued like Munki - it would be there for him and anyone else for all time

 

[TorturedSoul]

ptg701 -> This method solves your issue. I sure wish we could get people to think about it.

For someone like PitViper that has a 1000 post journal, there's no hope of him finding key milestones in any reasonable time, but if he catalogued like Munki - it would be there for him and anyone else for all time

Yeah, about that, lol...

I forgot to mention to the crowd when I typed about searches earlier that the "Search This Thread" option (while one is viewing a thread) works great.

Took me about 44 seconds to find the post where he first mentioned the LED that he'd received (there were mentions of the term "LED" in a few posts before the one I needed and I stopped to grab a cigarette).

He disclosed that information in post #2680. Here, let me flip tabs, hit the multi-quote button in that post, and flip back...

COOL! I didn't even need to cash this message and start over, just hit the Preview Post button (I just learned something, lol).

Well we are anouncing the LED lamp. Mike from GrowLEDHydro has was kind enough to supply us with one of their 600W LED units. I like the technolgy hes implemented.
He PMd me the Fedex tracking number today and we shoud have it early next week...Thanx Mike!!
3w Leds
4 different blue spectrums
4 different red spectrums
sep IR diodes
sep UV diodes.
We are going to start them on clones, then on a veg cycle, and finish with a bloom.
Ill start a new thread just on the LED's for Mike.

How'd I do?

 

[Keith Lake]

How'd I do?

I think we'll stipulate you have above and beyond skills

Not sure everyone reading will have the same patience though

I'm still of the mind that the more "silver platter" the content can be served - the better

 

[Green Utopia]

OK - thanks again for a great discussion.

I bow to the majority on the growers level being used to categorize (although I still think it would be fine - mods would have the final say on where it gets placed, and its ok to have a competition to get better).

That's all great info Soniq and I think you're right.

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What about just one segregation then. 1st time Grows in their own area, and everything else in another?

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EDIT: One other thought. It would be GREAT if folks could admin their own thread. Or at least change the first post. I continually wish I could change the first picture and add a table of contents to my first post. But a TOC would be useless if it can't be updated. While the Blogs is perhaps a work around, its hardly ideal. It involves extra clicks, and its simply not what a Blog was intended for so its counter-intuitive.

 

[Keith Lake]

EDIT: One other thought. It would be GREAT if folks could admin their own thread. Or at least change the first post. I continually wish I could change the first picture and add a table of contents to my first post. But a TOC would be useless if it can't be updated. While the Blogs is perhaps a work around, its hardly ideal. It involves extra clicks, and its simply not what a Blog was intended for so its counter-intuitive.

High Papa, we limit editing to time periods because of the moderating process. We know if we're reading the new posts that we're catching any problems with guideline violations. If we opened this up to historic posts we'd lose this ability.

I'm happy to edit in the summary data to your first post anytime - just shoot me a PM

 

[Green Utopia]

High Papa, we limit editing to time periods because of the moderating process. We know if we're reading the new posts that we're catching any problems with guideline violations. If we opened this up to historic posts we'd lose this ability.

I'm happy to edit in the summary data to your first post anytime - just shoot me a PM

That's a terrific offer. Thanks much! I will be starting a new journal soon, and when the time comes for a TOC I will avail myself of that kind offer. I will certainly be judicious in any updates, as I know its just one more thing on an already full plate.