Hi! I've asked this question before and I understand that there was a plan for how to post gardening ideas. I have a few that I'd love to post and I'm wondering if we have a special place / way ready to go yet? I love reading the ones already out there, and would love to make that contribution to the site too.

There is more on the subject here, but the short answer is that the garden ideas section is out of commission for the time being.

The thread "Writing Ideas" in Site Talk forum

The Ideas feature was retired a few months ago and is now used only by me to post news items.

The forums are the better place to post ideas and short howto-s. I recommend the All Things Gardening forum.

dave said:The Ideas feature was retired a few months ago and is now used only by me to post news items.

The forums are the better place to post ideas and short howto-s. I recommend the All Things Gardening forum.

I'd rather wait until Community Ideas are back. Are you still considering reinstating them in a manner that is less time consuming for admins?

I have an awful suggestion but it's one you might consider--just as you have restrictions for database pictures (limit non-plant things in picture, be in focus, etc.), you could state that any posts that require more than minor editing of the text or content (photographic placement, etc.) will not be published. (I'm sure you would find a nicer way to say this). It could be much like your banner submissions where you have a really nice, yet firm, caveat.

I really hope that you'll reinstate community ideas, especially if we can earn an acorn or two for good submissions. I also noticed that you've had a few volunteers to be "first readers" of ideas. It seems I'm not the only one who's missing this feature.

Anyone want to chime in?

Good feedback, thank you.

Right now, I have just finished the knowledgebase feature, which took me about 2 weeks to create. I'm now moving on to other important priorities, and so this is not something that I can take a lot of time to consider. Just being frank here: I'm not going to do anything with the Ideas for the foreseeable future.

dave said:Good feedback, thank you.

Right now, I have just finished the knowledgebase feature, which took me about 2 weeks to create. I'm now moving on to other important priorities, and so this is not something that I can take a lot of time to consider. Just being frank here: I'm not going to do anything with the Ideas for the foreseeable future.

That makes me sad. However, I do understand and I applaud all the wonderful work that you do here @dave. And I'm sure you have other work too!

for all you do.

It took me a while to adjust to the decision to do away with the Articles/Ideas feature, but...since I appreciate being able to belong to this site, I calmed down and tried to think of a good way to accomplish sharing. It had been suggested that the blog area was a good place but I could not see that working.

The All Things Gardening Forum is an excellent place for new articles and ideas submitted by the members. Maybe when someone is ready to post they could start a thread in All Things Gardening and name it "Articles and Ideas from NGA members" - post here!! That way we could more easily find the new articles and ideas.

Okay, I just bit the bullet; started a thread for Articles and Ideas and posted something I have been working on for over 2 years. Hope folks will add articles and/or ideas so we can all share.

I see that @dave requested that we start a new thread for each article or idea in the All Things Gardening forum so I will request that the subject of my post over there be changed to comply.

The better option is that each person who has a new idea to post, should start a brand new thread for each idea.

dave said:The better option is that each person who has a new idea to post, should start a brand new thread for each idea.

OR.....

Can we please have a gardening ideas forum? Pretty please? Then we can definitely start a new thread for each idea and they'll never get lost in the multitude of other things!

Please, please, please?

I think @joannakat has a great idea (no pun intended) to start a forum for gardening ideas. People really enjoy providing helpful information to other gardeners and they enjoy positive feedback on a personal level. It would probably be a very popular forum!

wildflowers said:I think @joannakat has a great idea (no pun intended) to start a forum for gardening ideas. People really enjoy providing helpful information to other gardeners and they enjoy positive feedback on a personal level. It would probably be a very popular forum!

YES! AND, people (especially me) really enjoy getting helpful information too! We're such a creative bunch, I absolutely love some of the things us gardeners come up with! It would be so easy, cool and comfortable to be able to access them all in one specific forum.

Really hoping we can do this. @dave?

I agree that a forum for member ideas would be the next best thing to a return of the articles that we all enjoyed. I'm always interested in tricks and ideas that folks come up with, but not so interested in wading through generic forums trying to find the needles in the haystack.

lauribob said:I agree that a forum for member ideas would be the next best thing to a return of the articles that we all enjoyed. I'm always interested in tricks and ideas that folks come up with, but not so interested in wading through generic forums trying to find the needles in the haystack.

Laurie. That wading is time consuming, and I usually opt out. But having one place for ideas and suggestions? That I would wade through and monitor!

I jumped in and posted an article and have been amazed at the results.

For all of us who hope to see a forum for articles and ideas, why not go ahead and post your article and/or idea in the place suggested by dave - the All Things Gardening Forum. When dave sees all the traffic that it generates, he might be more agreeable to letting us have an entire forum for this purpose. C'mon everyone! We can do this.

@greene -- where did you post your article?

Here it is.

The thread "Article: Anole lizards in the garden" in Gardening Ideas forum

Yep, it is in the All Things Gardening forum.

I had originally created a thread in that forum hoping others would add their articles/ideas to the same thread but @dave suggested that we each create a new thread in that All Things Gardening forum so I did a "Suggest a Change" to change the subject of the thread. Makes sense because folks want to make comments and having each article/idea on a separate thread helps us to know which comments relate to which article/idea. (Did I mention that dave is pretty smart!)

tx_flower_child said:@greene -- where did you post your article?

@green, and @daave, I think this question says it all. All things gardening is full, full, full of stuff and ideas simply get swallowed up there. I'm glad you posted your article, but I would really hope that we could have something that's easier to access, and very clear that it's specifically for sharing ideas.

Besides, isn't this entire site and organization about all things gardening?

@dave, if a new Ideas forum would need a moderator, I'm sure there would be a volunteer.

Would you consider doing it for a trial period to see how it goes?

Once three different new ideas get posted to All Things Gardening, I will then create the new forum and move the three (or more) idea threads into it.