I categorically deny posting under the username kailleanm. ;)

Well expressed, though.

In any event, I think the primary problem for forum old-timers is that innovations in the landscape design field just haven't kept pace with changes elsewhere in gardening. There are exciting new plants and interesting new gardening products for example, but design ideas and issues seem stuck in a rut. Even the squabbling in this forum follows well-worn patterns, based on what I've seen on the rare occasions I've stopped by over the last year.

New ideas and interesting personalities to expound on them will solve your problem.

As to the bread-and-butter of the Design Forum, problem-solving posts from newcomers and those still interested enough to respond to them seem to be rolling along quite nicely. :)

I just got tired of the same old same old. I decided to muse to myself in the blog format www.missrumphiusrules.blogspot.com and if that's self promotion big brother will delete me. Since no one seems to really want to explore design issues except as how it directly affects their front yards, the deeper philosophical and technical discussions that used to be here are are rare. Another of gw's past designer participants who was in zonal denial is also blogging at www.deviantdeziner.blogspot.com.

I would love the lively and theoretical/practical discussions and dissention that I used to find here...I do miss the exchange.

We all know that it is easier to shout from the sidelines than to risk injury from actually playing the game and this has been what this particular thread has mostly been about. I can't remember the times I have been told to by-pass questions I don't find interesting and start another on a subject I do by people who, I think, are known as Monday morning quarter backs, in America. That is those who know how the game should have been played and what the score should be, there are two prime examples above, while they themselves stay safely behind the lines eating their bread and butter.

Why should people have to "risk injury" to participate in this forum?

None of the other forums I visit on this site so blatantly expect participants to accept rudeness and brushoffs in order to participate.

There is such a "clubby" atmosphere on this particular forum and you have to endure a sort of hazing to be deemed worthy enough to have your questions answered.

It's not that us Monday morning quarterbacks don't have anything meaningful to contribute, it's just that there are more welcoming places to make those contributions.

I also find it funny that it's almost always one of the "old guard" who start these hand-wringing posts bemoaning the lack of participation. Yet when lurkers explain why they don't post, we're told our opinions don't matter because we don't post enough!?!?!?!

Do you really want to encourage conversation, or just remind us all again why we don't measure up to your expectations for the forum?

This will be my last post to this Forum. Whine. Whine. Whine. Try to help the whiners and they whine more. They want instant answers while providing minimal information to make an educated guess as to how to help them. So, we try to drag the particulars out of them and they complain. We suggest that the best answer to their particular problem might be a consultation with an expert. They whine. Those who whine have driven some very talented people from this Forum. So sad.

I think kailleanm pretty much hit the nail on the head. Then when the poster boy for what's really wrong with this forum pipes up in response, we KNOW kailleanm hit the nail on the head.

-Ron-

And I think nandina has hit the nail on the head. Oddly enough, a good portion of the whining that is most often present here comes from those who have NEVER made any meaningful contributions yet feel so entitled to pass judgement on those that do. If you don't like the playground, don't continue to play in it - how hard is that to figure out? But don't stand on the sidelines complaining about the "unfriendliness" when you never bother to enter the game in the first place.

btw, the initial post to this thread was inquiring where many of the long time regular posters - not lurkers - had disappeared to. The responses from those few who do remain or reappear from time to time have made it pretty obvious - there are better places to spend one's time and expend one's efforts and without the whining or the repeated criticism for what they do offer. It's no wonder the forum has become less active - there's very little substance left and the 'technical and aesthetic issues of landscape and garden design' rarely enter into any of the discussions.

At least we should give credit to Ink and laag and a few others (wellspring, karinl, saypoint, etc.) for attempting to promote some meaningful discourse, although it seems often to fall on mostly deaf ears. Too bad.....this used to be a vital and active place with a wealth of information given freely and generously but crap like this has driven too many away.

Nandina - Most people who come to this forum looking for advice are extremely grateful and express their thanks even after being insulted, etc. I don't believe anyone has asked for free advice on this particular thread however.

I've only posted a question once here myself, and received excellent advice (thanks Saypoint!). I think most of the regulars are great. It's just a few who create a hostile environment. I'm not sure why this is, but I think it must have something to do with the anonymity the internet provides.

My other thought was that maybe the male dominated forums are just a little more adversarial in general, but then again some of the more shockingly rude here seem to be women (I could be wrong about that).

You cite the names of a handful of your buddies who have been driven away by whining and "crap" like this" and we are all supposed to feel bad.

How many SCORES of other people have been driven away or into silence because of the snobbery here? I see LOTS of jokes and comments on other garden web forums about what a scary place the design forum is.

I myself have been a member of the forum for around 7 years. I was registered just as Kaillean, but somehow after a hiatus I was never able to log in under that ID and had to re-register under a modified user name. I have participated in this forum in the past, but find lurking is generally better for my blood pressure.

(FWIW of those you mentioned, I always read Wellspring's comments with interest as her honest observations don't generally come along with sarcasm. Saypoint, while always blunt, has been generous with photos of her own garden and concrete examples, rather than just criticism.)

kailleanm, Do you have a little resentment?

Hmmm... I think we've all been made a bit grumpy by this interminable winter!

I think I'm most surprised by nandina's comment above. I have always found her(?) posts to be relevant, practical, useful, polite and to-the-point of the poster's issues, often on posts ignored by other 'regulars'. I was sad to see her post above where she whines about others whining...

Nandina, I will miss you.

I'm sure Kailleanm speaks for many of us. Do all of the infrequent posters annoy the regulars?

This site is set up so that gardeners may offer each other "free advice". If the professionals do not wish to offer free advice, they shouldn't give it.

Yes, people often only want to hear what they want to hear. But often there are monetary or practical considerations that stand in the way of what a designer may suggest.

I only asked one question here myself, and I got two kind answers. There are other questions I'd ask, but am afraid that I'll have to explain too much about WHAT ELSE may show in the picture:

Why do you have that pile of junk in your yard? (That's my car)

Can you get rid of that oddly placed arbor? (no because my husband made it for me, and he has feelings)

Why is your fence falling down? (The neighbors plan on building a beautiful, extremely expensive fence, but not until next year, so its going to have to stay like that for now.)

But that's LIFE.. Some of the regulars would say that I am full of excuses, or that I am whining, but that's just how life goes at an old house on an odd lot with children running around.

And as long as you don't have odd children running around, probably nothing to worry about.

Sounds like lots of the interesting people who use to post here now have blogs. Gardenweb is the model T.

I hope you don't go away forever Nandina, your posts were always amoung the best.

Some posters enjoy a good wrangle. Some don't. And those that do like to wrangle get testy when no one wants to play but gets their feelings hurt.

What have you got against odd children, bboy? They're among my favorite kind!

:)

Lots of interesting people still post here and lots of newer and interesting people are posting as well. It just seemed like a lot of regular posters, newer and older, had stopped posting. I see some of them did not disappear.

This was not meant to be a thread about this being a worse place to be than it used to be. I think it is just as easy for one person to read an arguement or hostility into a post as it is for the next person. I just read through the entire thread. It is not hostile when you read it with a calm voice in your head. That is the nature of open participation on public forums.

I'm missing a lot that has gone right over my head with all of these references to hostility that is always kicked around. I'm either pretty dumb, or more thick skinned that I think I am because I don't see a lot of hostility. I keep reading about how everyone is scared to post here. I hear that all the other forums talk up how bad it is here. Sometimes people lead in stating that they heard it was a rough crown when they post for the first time. I wonder how much of the hostility is being preprogramed from somewhere else and is making people prepare for battle at any critique because they are expecting bullying rather than simply the critique that they asked for.

I'm not upset or tweaked that I asked if anyone knew why we have not heard from a number of regular posters and got a whole lot of other critiquing laid out in front of me to think about. Like someone else said, sometimes you post a picture to support a particular question and somebody picks apart another item in the photo. Is that not what happened here? I'm not saying that it is bad, or mean spirited, just that it is the same thing.

Those that have the notion that the regulars here are very hostile and quick to the fight, please calmly read this entire thread. You'll see a lot of direct criticism and some indirect of the regular posters leveled down several times. I'm not sure that I saw any hostile counter punches thrown by this group of people who are supposed to be so mean spirited. I think it is unfounded.

It is true that many people, myself included, will take a position on an issue and will passionately defend it when challenged. Typically we make are points and will try to support them as necessary. Sometimes we'll have an experience with situations that other are suggesting and will point out where we believe that the expected result will be contrary to what is expected or hoped for because we found out the hard way (even if we leave that part out of it).

It is also true that some of us who do this for a living will be rather thorough at pointing out why someone may not have had the greatest experience when they dealt with a design professional. This is generally reserved for the few that start their thread by announcing that they called several landscape architects and designers and they were all snobs or too stupid to do their design .... as they are posting to a bunch of people who they don't know, aren't paying, and are far away who of course will solve their problems in a minute.

Please, everyone, do the best you can at reading all the posts hearing a nice calm slow talking voice behind all of the words that you see. Try not to read them with a preconcieved notion that everyone is trying to attack you. Sometimes a subject matter inspires great discussions of other issues than that of the OP ... kind of like this one. That does not mean someone punched you in the mouth.

Anyway, I'm glad to see that many of the missing are accounted for. They are not better than anyone else, but they are familiar and we all have interest in people we are familiar with, that is the reason for the OP. .... or maybe I wanted to box their ears?

Yes! That's it! They're hiding form you, hands over ears. It's nice that you are interested enough to compose and put up this heartfelt post but you know I've come to think lately that there is a certain tone present on internet forums generally, a certain mindset that pervades and if someone doesn't want to play that game then it's not for them. Apparently a great many do not, as the amount of activity (at the few I frequent anyway) has to represent a minuscule percentage of the potential.

Except for the Antique Roses forum here the only other one I check frequently that hops is Hot Topics. That, I think, says a lot. The regulars there constantly spar and seem to have boundless capacity for paragraph after paragraph, page after page of opining. In fact, I have found that brief comments tend to be ignored, resented or even dismissed as not good enough.

And very little of it has anything to do with gardening.

On the other hand, this forum seems to be picking up a little this week.

As with some of the more active forums, Hot Topics seems to be carried by a group of eight or ten regulars who pay attention to eachother, and no one else - and can make a contest out of who can cut and paste the fastest to illustrate a point. The real charm there is no one cares what YOUR (using your as a generic) opinion might be.

Yep.

Your brief comment will not give rise to a response from me, even though I believe it to be heartfelt and arrived at with much reasonable mulling.

Andrew I hope this doesn't sound patronising, but I guess you know me well enough to dismiss that possibility, your above post is excellent and with only one spelling mistake too. I hope you and the family have a happy Easter although it is more like Christmas where I am snowwise. Dreaming of a white Easter anyone?

Well, it is easier to find the colored eggs.

And you don't have to spend the day digging up dandelions!

Andrew, I do believe that you have phrased the issue of the forums well, and it's something that I think has been brought up every time that there is a discussion over hostilities and etiquette on the forum.

It is the very nature of internet forums to allow for misinterpretation. Text-based dialogue does not allow for the poster to inflect emphasis or attitude, and allows for a wide range of different interpretation on the reader's part. Not to mention the fact that the responses are devoid of body language, which typically plays a huge part on conveying meanings.

If you are slightly riled up or on the defensive, it is easy to interpret posts as being critical or harsh. I have sometimes been in such a situation, and it is easy when you are putting your own work out to be judged, but it is also easy to step away from the keyboard, relax a little, and to re-read before responding.

- Audric

Yes, laag, well done. I was thinking of writing "blah, blah, blah, blah" but thought it wasn't constructive. You are ever so much more articulate.

I have posted less because we seem to have two audiences here, and I belong to neither. One group is the clueless newbies, and the other is the purist, elitist artiste. What happened to the middle of the road folks??

Let's see

Youth Group on Wednesday, we were stuffing Easter eggs.
Thursday night, led Maundy Thursday service.
Tonight, got back a while ago from a community Good Friday service
Two services to go on Sunday.

My focus recently has been on my interim ministry which is coming to a close. I've managed to work myself out of another great job. Happy for the congregation, but personally spending much time on what I'm going to do now. There aren't any new positions near here, so I'm re-inventing my workor, at least, that's my story.

The point here is simply that sometimes we have stuff that happens. Yet I find myself wanting to be able to drop in on discussions and exchanges that feed my soul and make me think about this design thing in the landscape. It is a pleasure to encounter familiar folksI don't know if it takes any longer here than on other sites, but once you know some of the people here, you know that they will give you straight answers.

Clubby? That part I don't get. I visit other forums, and they interest me, but for some weird reason I seem to "belong" here. I don't get my nose bent out of shape by not feeling that way on other forums. I figure that if my passion were different, I'd hang my hat in a different place. And I hardly qualify as a "landscape crony"--not here all that long, not an expert

So after I got home and saw several threads with great subjects, I thought "What a great treat. Sip my wine, kick back and see what people are saying about this thing called design that fascinates me for some reason."

So now I am off to open those threads.

Wellspring

Based on years of observation and not just of this forum I think when my friend said that the problem was that the advice here was free I think they nailed it - as far as the rift goes anyway. Experienced people helping novices expect to get some appreciation for their efforts, some respect and there is a tendency for it to be lacking - and not just here, but all sorts of places where assistance is being asked for - or demanded. If those attempting to help appear to be startled or miffed by what may have been seen as pushiness or irritability then they are condemned as snooty or "elitist".

Maybe it's the consumer culture. Everyone's a power shopper, lining up for their share of the goods.

Very upbeat Welly, Maundy Thursday you say? Boy I remember that.

But bboy I don't know why you chose to bring the tone back down again because the advice given here is not free but freely given which is different. Plus, as Iron Belly used to say the correct answer is "well that depends" and people get to decide what to do from the variety of input. When someone asks if they can make a patio by just throwing stones on the dirt what advice do you give? You could describe in detail the right way knowing that it is not the answer the OP is wanting or you could say something else. Another point IB made was that there may be others with the same question who would benefit from a wider perspective. Also there are discussions that are not looking for advice which fall outside you criticism. In short, your notion of regulars being absent because they no longer want to give free advice is a straw man.

When I was a kid the four coins that constitute Maundy Money sometimes found their way into peoples pockets but the old ones that were made from silver were usually kept and added to Christmas pudding.

Then there is being told your posts aren't good enough. Probably about as appealing as being told your garden isn't good enough.

So let's try to bring it back bboy rather than keep on with the negativity can we? You and I don't agree on the approach, you don't like what you call "hair pulling" discussions and I don't always find one liners contribute anything. What is sad is that I know that you have a lot of experience and knowledge, not about design per se but certainly about plants and you rarely share that here. I often ask you to expand because I am interested in your point of view and today was the first time you ever responded. What do you think?

And a Young Man shall lead them...

"It is the very nature of internet forums to allow for misinterpretation. Text-based dialogue does not allow for the poster to inflect emphasis or attitude, and allows for a wide range of different interpretation on the reader's part. Not to mention the fact that the responses are devoid of body language, which typically plays a huge part on conveying meanings."

Well said, Audric.

Hope all had a happy Easter!

Mama Mel

Is that where they have the cocktails?

This forum already does a fairly adequate job in assigning "passengers" to their appropriate decks. I really don't understand the need to be even more elitist with the kind of salon atmosphere one poster seems to long for. Sometimes even the biggest cheese snob has to admit Velveeta exists.

There are always extremes: "here" where theory is exciting and designed - and I think designed quite deliberately - to be exclusive. And then there is "there" where no end of people will express an opinion on the arranging of a box of Kleenex on a toilet tank, and will photoshop it for you, too. Both here and there have value; if no one participates, we all lose.

You know, it really must be spring everywhere else in the world except here, judging from the latest postings on this forum. I especially like the gutsy feel of "can you photoshop me a picture of all the free professional advice you gave me?" and the very basic misunderstanding of "My MULCH BED doesn't drain well." At least we can see pictures of what a mulch bed is now...

To the cocktail lounge everyone!

Im on this thing everyday. It is fun if you don't taker it 2 seriously.

I found this web site about the time we were moving into our newly built home with my blank yard. Somehow I always managed to plant things and make them look like they belonged, but with this yard, I was at a loss. It was so big, I just didn't know where to begin. Then I found this forum and I was soooo excited and couldn't wait to post some pictures and ask for advice.

Then I started reading on here and would see people get castrated for asking anything. It began to look to me that all people wanted here was to boast about what great "landscape designers" they were. Some even insulted each other. I saw remarks made about how people shouldn't ask or expect "free" help. All I could think was that this was a "landscape design" forum and I couldn't figure out why people couldn't ask for help, after all people ask for opinions and ideas and help all the time on the decorating forum and the responses they get are so helpful and nice. They are getting free "decorating advice", so why can't people get free landscaping advice or opinions here? I just didn't understand it.

I pretty much stay away from this forum, but once in a while I will lurk over here just to see if anyone posted any pictures so that I could possibly "steal" an idea or 2 from them. I pretty much have landscaped my yard through trial and error without any advice or opinions from here.

It is nice to see that there are some people on here that are very helpful to those that post and seem to be able to answer a question or offer advice without insulting the person. I hope those of you that are kind with suggestions continue to post over here. From what I have read on here lately, the "atmosphere" here has changed for the better.

Speaking of people who are often rude but who can brilliantly extract and address the design issues from otherwise amorphous discussions of plant selection and gardening, where did Inkognito go? I took a little break from the forum myself and haven't seen him since I got back.

KarinL

A disgusted departure was announced awhile back but I think there may have been one or two posts made on Hot Topics since.

I have announced my departure before and have been lured back because I believed in the medium as a way to connect with like minded people and there are many of those who read here, people who see not just digging in the dirt but something bigger. How big, how broad? Over the years I have found friends, I sadly miss Cady and of course Michelle, Ginger and Nandina with more depth than this medium will allow. I have battled with Eric and suffered the ever so clever one line non committal, the duo-ronron I have been called names and always been set against an invisible opponent who never says what they think only takes me to task on what I think. Now someone uses my pseudonym slightly misspelled and it is time for me to let it go

Thanks for the update, BB. I missed the imposture as well as the aftermath. My own break actually turned out to be a healthy thing for me, so I hope it is for Ink too.

KarinL

Well, I have to say that it is gratifying to be missed. I haven't gone away deliberately, but rather life has been so busy that I haven't had time to spend on the forums. My garden is a mess, too, but I'm hoping to get it back under control this season.

My husband and I bought a business in March, after months of due-diligence and negotiations. I'm also busy with my involvement in small breed dog rescue, including fostering and admin work.

Now that things have settled down a bit and we're up and running, I hope to have more time to read and post. I've missed it.
Jo

OMG! (As my kids would say) I am so happy to see Jo back here! I feel like I have learned so much from her over the last few years (not the least of which is using evergreens as a backdrop for a fantastic mixed bed).

Welcome back!

"OMG! (As my kids would say) I am so happy to see Jo back here!"

As am I. Glad that everything's going well, Jo; I'm looking forward to your posts!

Where you'd gone was my unasked question, Jo; nice to see you.

KarinL

Aw, shucks. Thanks for noticing I wasn't here, LOL.
Jo

I've been working a lot at the Garden Center...I'm hoping my hours will be reduced soon. This last week of high 90's and 100+ heat darn near kilt me. (As my grandmother would have said.)

I've acquired some new Japanese Maples...it's a disease I tell you!

I've missed you all...and hope to get back into the swing of things shortly. Now I'm off to bed...another day in the GC awaits!

melanie

In your case it would be a skirt rather than a kilt.

Japanese maples and disease in the same sentence? Kind of a common combination these days.