Hey Garden Friends!
We've seen some exciting growth on this site. We're getting a lot of unique visitors that are finding some of your great posts using search engines. In fact, here are some of the fun terms that are bringing people to visit us:
best gardening forum (that is so cool)
shade loving vegetables
choke weed
leaf shredder mulcher
freezing butternut squash
dirt sifter
weck canning jars
We've got a LOT of really smart members with a ton of diverse experience.
Of course, with growth and diversity comes more probability of differences of opinion. We would like to maintain a relatively relaxed moderation style on this forum, but we also must maintain an environment where peeps can express their feelings freely.
A few reminders on proper forum etiquette: http://www.ehow.com/how_2106033_use-proper-forum-etiquette.html
1) We must respect that others have different opinions, but we must be civil and friendly even if we don't agree.
2) If you ever feel a post is directed to you personally and that someone may be "attacking" you, by no means respond publicly. Hit the report button on the bottom of that post and the forum staff will review and take action if needed.
3) Express your differences of opinion as being "opinion" and not "fact".
4) Remember there are lots of challenges with communicating only by text. So much is lost (tone, body language, etc.) which can cause a HUGE miscommunication problem. Per wikipedia:
"Some researchers put the level of nonverbal communication as high as 80 percent of all communication. More reasonably it could be at around 50-65 percent. Thats exactly what Mehrabian discovered in his communication study. He found that only 7 percent of communication comes from spoken words, 38 percent is from the tone of the voice, and 55 percent comes from body language."
So, you can see that in cases where people are reading and then posting replies to a comment, especially one that has a lot of emotion, a TON of information can be lost or miscommunication. This is usually responsible for 90% of the problems on forums which cause threads to be locked or removed.
We encourage everyone to be VERY careful as they read AND reply to posts on a forum (i.e., have a thick skin when reading and be very friendly and clear when posting).
5) Be careful how you reply to someone posting their opinion and how you react to "attacks". Never flame a person for their opinion. Examples:
Bad:
"You're pretty dumb for believing that! Let me tell you that I know I'm right and you're wrong..."
Good:
"I see what you are saying. I personally believe that xxx yyy...."
Bad:
"How dare you call me dumb you jerk!"
Good:
--- Do not reply publicly but report the post to the staff.
Also a very important request from the staff: If you see something is a problem, let us know by report or PM. We don't see everything and need your help to know where problems are starting so we can work together to nip them in the bud before they become big thorns in our wonderful community.
Again, our goal is to continue to foster open, educational, and friendly discussion, and as the forum grows we want everyone to keep this in mind.
Keep up the great work and the fantastic conversations. This forum is already chalk full of really valuable information and we want to continue to see it develop and grow.
We've seen some exciting growth on this site. We're getting a lot of unique visitors that are finding some of your great posts using search engines. In fact, here are some of the fun terms that are bringing people to visit us:
best gardening forum (that is so cool)
shade loving vegetables
choke weed
leaf shredder mulcher
freezing butternut squash
dirt sifter
weck canning jars
We've got a LOT of really smart members with a ton of diverse experience.
Of course, with growth and diversity comes more probability of differences of opinion. We would like to maintain a relatively relaxed moderation style on this forum, but we also must maintain an environment where peeps can express their feelings freely.
A few reminders on proper forum etiquette: http://www.ehow.com/how_2106033_use-proper-forum-etiquette.html
1) We must respect that others have different opinions, but we must be civil and friendly even if we don't agree.
2) If you ever feel a post is directed to you personally and that someone may be "attacking" you, by no means respond publicly. Hit the report button on the bottom of that post and the forum staff will review and take action if needed.
3) Express your differences of opinion as being "opinion" and not "fact".
4) Remember there are lots of challenges with communicating only by text. So much is lost (tone, body language, etc.) which can cause a HUGE miscommunication problem. Per wikipedia:
"Some researchers put the level of nonverbal communication as high as 80 percent of all communication. More reasonably it could be at around 50-65 percent. Thats exactly what Mehrabian discovered in his communication study. He found that only 7 percent of communication comes from spoken words, 38 percent is from the tone of the voice, and 55 percent comes from body language."
So, you can see that in cases where people are reading and then posting replies to a comment, especially one that has a lot of emotion, a TON of information can be lost or miscommunication. This is usually responsible for 90% of the problems on forums which cause threads to be locked or removed.
We encourage everyone to be VERY careful as they read AND reply to posts on a forum (i.e., have a thick skin when reading and be very friendly and clear when posting).
5) Be careful how you reply to someone posting their opinion and how you react to "attacks". Never flame a person for their opinion. Examples:
Bad:
"You're pretty dumb for believing that! Let me tell you that I know I'm right and you're wrong..."
Good:
"I see what you are saying. I personally believe that xxx yyy...."
Bad:
"How dare you call me dumb you jerk!"
Good:
--- Do not reply publicly but report the post to the staff.
Also a very important request from the staff: If you see something is a problem, let us know by report or PM. We don't see everything and need your help to know where problems are starting so we can work together to nip them in the bud before they become big thorns in our wonderful community.
Again, our goal is to continue to foster open, educational, and friendly discussion, and as the forum grows we want everyone to keep this in mind.
Keep up the great work and the fantastic conversations. This forum is already chalk full of really valuable information and we want to continue to see it develop and grow.
Thanks Nifty.
