In reference to this thread:
The thread "ATP Annual Seed and Plant Exchange Idea" in
Site Talk forum
I've received a tremendous amount of ideas from various members, most notably
@DogsNDaylilies who provided the initial conversation starter.
We are going to set this feature up, and it's going to happen soon. Some of the primary feature of it will be:
1) There can be multiple swaps occurring simultaneously. Any member will be able to host a swap, create it in the system and then participants will be able to join in. Start and end dates will be automatically incorporated into the feature (the host will set those dates, of course.)
2) The dates will be something like:
a) Start date: This is when people can start entering seeds into the swap.
b) Trade begins date: This is when nobody can add seeds anymore, and people will start selecting what they want from each other.
c) Trade ends date: this is when people are told what they need to send, where it goes, and all that.
d) Deadline for trade receipt: This is when your seeds must be delivered to the host.
e) Deadline for trade finalization: this is when the seeds must have been turned around by the host and sent out to the participants.
3) Members will be able to manage a primary list of seeds they are offering. The member can then "join" an existing occurring swap and select which seeds they will offer up into that swap.
Now, this is a complicated feature, and I've gone back and forth more times than I can remember as to how I'm actually going to implement this. I've decided to go ahead and get a preliminary seed list feature up and running very very soon (maybe today) so that people can start entering their seeds.
As for the rest of it, I really feel like I need to host the first swap, so that I can experience for myself exactly what a host goes through so that I can make the host tools as I go along. Ideally, this first swap will be limited to a smaller number of participants and with a short time frame, in order to make it not too overwhelming for me and so we can get this underway fast. Then with its success finished,
@DogsNDaylilies can host the 2nd swap which would be much bigger and open to everyone.
I'm thinking the first swap would be limited to perhaps 20 members.
So that's my update. I'd love to hear what you all think about this direction.
