Forum home› The potting shed
This Forum will close on Wednesday 27 March, 2024. Please refer to the announcement on the Discussions page for further detail.

Other online gardening community recommendations

WaysideWayside Posts: 845
in The potting shed
Great community of helpers here, but the forum software is a bit irritating to say the least.  What with the irritating adverts and other issues.

Do any of you frequent and/or recommend some other online haunts?
«134

Posts

  • Beaus MumBeaus Mum Posts: 3,554
    Totally agree Wayside 😊 
    I use Instagram and really enjoy the gardening community there 😊
  • ObelixxObelixx Posts: 30,090
    Install adblock!  No more ads to irritate.
    Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
    "The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
    Plato
  • Beaus MumBeaus Mum Posts: 3,554
    It's not the adverts Obelixx that irritate me it's how I just can't type on the site. It continually judders around and this happened on the old site too. I use two different iPads and they are quite up to date new ones so do not think it is them as GW is the only site I have problems with

  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,147
    edited March 2018
    I really don't understand. I have no problems either on Chrome on laptop or very slow elderly iphone and my daughter Wonky uses a tablet with no problem either. 
    And I don't even run
    adblocker. 

    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • WaysideWayside Posts: 845
    Going off topic, but the site has been plagued with irritations since the day I joined.  Text areas/pages appear to get reloaded ad hoc, input focus gets stolen/moved - I assume that's the jerkyness others mention.  The adverts are a big, big, pain - and make it next to unusable on older machines.  Yeah sure you can use an ad blocker - but that's not really the point.  The site is branded/under the banner of one of the BBC's flagship programmes so you expect it to not be that 'beta'.  I'm a member of another forum that costs next to nothing to run.  Especially if you tap into community moderation.  You can even use some off the shelf free software.  Heck, even some email groups from over a decade still tick along, and are easy to use - and are far more accessible than this site.

    At least finally the search looks to have been fixed.  This was broken for ages.
  • WaysideWayside Posts: 845
    I can't even log in at the moment under Chromium (which is pretty much Chrome), and editing is broken under Firefox.   As a web developer myself, I'd be shot for putting out software this buggy.  All sites have issues, and I expect some teething problems for upgrades/new releases, but when you can't even log in to the site - to use it - that's not that great is it?
  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,147
    As I said ... I don't run an ad blocker on my browser and my iPhone is about as old as they come ... It's slow but it works here as you see. 
    Something is obviously going wrong for you but I'm sure that Nora is happy to help the few people who are having difficulties. 
     :) 

    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • madpenguinmadpenguin Posts: 2,543
    edited March 2018
    I also don't seem to have any of the problems Wayside has.I do run Adblock which has helped greatly on so many sites.Using Chrome on a laptop.
    As for other gardening forums have you tried a Facebook group,good sometimes if you have a specific interest.I use one for the British Cactus and Succulent Society (BCSS) and have found it really useful and friendly.
    “Every day is ordinary, until it isn't.” - Bernard Cornwell-Death of Kings
  • Joyce21Joyce21 Posts: 15,489
    I use Chrome on a laptop.
    I am not tech savvy and have not encountered problems.
    SW Scotland
  • WaysideWayside Posts: 845
    Well the point is I both a web professional and site user.  And I am having problems, and have read countless moans in the past about bugs here and there, like image uploads not working every now and then and other usability issues. People must have noticed that the site search was broken for however how long. And that's a really useful and intrinsic part of the site.

    If I find it hard to find a workaround for what are genuine bugs, then there isn't much hope for those less tech savvy.  I'm glad all is well for those without problems!

    I'm not suggesting people aren't prepared to rally round, or that the front facing help desk isn't just as wanting for things to work or to get bugs fixed as the rest of us.  And none of this is personal.  But if people are getting paid market web development rates to produce something sub-standard - off the back off a community of garden enthusiasts - then that bothers me.  Not sure about the funding structure here and whether it's independent or not.
Sign In or Register to comment.