For the last two days I've had to go through the login process with username/password every time I attempt to post. That is very new.

They changed site. Now it is all free, so everyone will get ads and pop-ups as subscriptions expire. You also have to go to place in site to "opt out" of having ivillage sell your email and info they've collected about you to other companies. Bummer changes. And no caps in usernames.

If you want to opt out....

Here is a link that might be useful: Opt out

There is something else going on too. A lot of people are getting ads even though they're supposed to have a year ad-free after renewing their subscription. Plus I could not log in for 2 days whether I used caps or not.

Alicia, glad you brought this subject up. I thought at first I had picked up a bug!

Thanks for the info about 'Opt Out', Brenda!
I took care of that one pronto!

Pup, I am have had to log in the past two days every time I come on to post. This a new policy or somepin?
If so, Bummer!

~Annie

Yeah Brenda, thanks for the Opt out info. I've been having to log-in everytime for over a month now. I thought it was because my subscribing membership expired in Nov. Then when I went to renew I noticed that there Was, no paid subscriber renewals. Popups are driving me crazy and having to login everytime keeps me from posting as much. I just read everyone else's posts. Lazy, lazy I know..

thanks for the opt-out link, brenda.
i'm still having to log-in every time.
*sigh*

For everyone who is still having to login each time. Try logging in and making sure you check the "remember me" box. Then, while you're still in Gardenweb, exit your browser. That worked for me. I saw someone mention staying logged in for a minute or two before exiting, but I don't know if that's necessary. I stay logged in now, no matter what I do. Before, if I left Gardenweb for another site, I got logged out. I had to be currently logged in when I exited the browser for it to stick.
Dana

dana, i'd been checking the "remember me" box every time - it didn't work.

good news today, though - i didn't have to log in this morning :) perhaps they've fixed that pesky glitch.

I had been checking the box too and it wasn't working, but other people were saying it was fixed. I tried it again, but instead of logging in and then going to another website or even another Gardenweb forum, I immediately closed the browser while still in Gardenweb. Then it worked for me. I had the idea that maybe the cookie they use to keep you logged in didn't get applied if you left the forum before closing the browser. All this was within the same 15 minutes yesterday morning. I don't know if they changed something in that 15 minutes or if closing the browser while logged in made it work and if so, it might not work with every browser. I used to test computer programs for a living and sometimes the strangest, most obscure things happened or didn't happen because of the tiniest problem with the coding. Glad yours is working now too. Dana

I think they have solved the problem with the cookie that keeps you from having to resubmit your user information every time you come online if you checked the "remember me" box, although I was about to get used to that, and not logging on much lately, anyway, as I've been busy doing some computer upgrades and setting up a new stereo receiver and so forth.

One thing I'd encourage you all to do is is to click on the links of the new Privacy Policy and PARTICULARLY the new Terms of Service... I didn't read it ALL word-for-word, as a lot of the paragraphs were pretty much boilerplate stuff, and you could get the gist by reading the first and last sentence and scanning the rest, BUT the section in the TOS where they talk about THEIR RIGHT to use OUR POSTS AND PICTURES, IN PERPETUITY, ROYALTY FREE, WITH OR WITHOUT ATTRIBUTION, IN WHOLE OR IN PART, well that REALLLLLLY got my attention!!!

This means anything we type or any picture we post after Jan. 24, iVillage may use, essentially forever, without having to pay any of us or even give us credit as the creator/photographer any way it chooses... as part of this or another website, in advertising, as part of magazines, books, WHATEVER! It's a non-exclusive right, meaning we ALSO retain rights to the material, but for those of use who have written and photographed professionally in the past (like me) and who may do so again in the future, well, I'm just going to be very careful what I post from now on -- especially photographs.

Err on the side of caution, folks -- and pass it on,
Jeff

There's been a lot of buzz about the new privacy issues. I wonder if some people who've been posting some of these incredible pictures will be less likely to, or if they won't care enough about the policies not to. It's obnoxious not to even give credit.

so, nevermind my premature joy at not having to log-in. i had to again this morning. it's not that big a deal, just annoying when you read the forum many times a day.

the rights to our stuff, however, is a big deal in my book. not that i ever write anything that anyone would ever use in a publication - it's the principle of their new policy that's irksome to me.

Trust me, Alicia, it will have a MAJOR impact on what photographs I post in the future, and also on the size of the photos I post... I have posted some large in the past (apologies to those on dialup connections for whom this causes slow page loads) because they maybe had some fine details I thought people would want to see or just looked better larger because they were some of my better photos...

If, however, I post them very small, then if iVillage DOES decide to use them, at least it won't have anything but a very small, i.e. low-quality version of them to use...

But I'm going to have to think about even THAT.

I guess it goes back to the old saying of "you get what you pay for," and the fact that iVillage decided to completely eliminate PAID memberships means they see more value to their members from OTHER resources than from membership payments.

That fact, in itself, makes me VERY WARY.

Ditto to what you said Jeff. No more picture posting for me and if I find another site that I like just as well, it will be good bye forever for me!

The other site that comes to mind does not have a Carolina forum in place but I will keep checking periodically to see if one appears. Don't know what would be involved to get one set up but the annual dues are reasonable and might be worth it.

I think iVillage has handled all of this very poorly, and better upfront explanations about the server changeover and the changes in the user agreements would have upset less people. A little consideration and professionalism would have been nice.

It's important to remember that most photos posted here are only high resolution enough to be posted elsewhere on the net, not in print publication. Photos are stolen all of the time already; a lot of people on the roses forum have had that happen. In fact this clause may just be a way for iVillage to cover its butt about not being able to protect users from content being stolen. So many contracts today are very offensively worded, such as "not responsible, even in cases of gross neglience."

Personally I think the worst thing that could happen is if we eventually could not stop the ads, but new software to block ads is being developed all the time.

All of this is such a shame. Those of you with something to protect, should be wary, but that is going to water down this cyberplace and make it not worth visiting.

I'm just wondering if that sort of blanket TOS, etc. would ever hold up in court if pictures and such were taken and used in publication for profit. I dunno, perhaps it's similar to writing a letter to the editor or a gardening article for a newspaper.

How about a response from iVillage? Would you take pictures and information from Gardenweb and use them in a book? Is that part of a business plan? What has prompted these changes in the rules?

People who really do have assets to protect, such as Ann's RRD document and Paul Barden's website, are severing links from this website to theirs before Jan 24th. It's important to remember that most photos posted here are not high resolution enough for paper publication. I hope for that reason people will continue to post pictures, but if they don't, this website won't be worth visiting nearly as much as it used to be. Imagine this website without pictures from jain, gardenbug, david 5311, etc.

well, i for one, will be very careful about what i post from now on. i'm hoping to be able to sell some of my images as high quality framing prints via ebay in the near future, and you can bet if they show up on here, it'll be tiny! i haven't ever posted my best stuff, for copyright/theft reasons, but now i'm doubly wary. i hate that the site as a whole will suffer for these shortsighted policies. maybe they are just covering their butts, but all the same. real shame!! tammy

I agree. I'm a stickler about intellectual property... opposed to Napster way back...seems like there is always someone lurking out there ready to grab what's not theirs. The internet sure makes life more complicated.

For the record, iVillage, I'd rather pay a fee, than destroy the nice friendly place this used to be. Right now posting is almost at a standstill.

I think you may be right, tam, about lots of legal mumbo-jumbo for butt coverage, but you talented folk have butts too. It just makes a place called a "village" start to feel awfully unfriendly.

It's Orwellian.

Welcome to 1989

Naw, Claire, if you want to see "legal mumbo jumbo for butt coverage," go to Photobucket and read THEIR TOS about intellectual property rights, where they assert they're not responsible if someone steals your image that you posted on their webhosting service.

Frankly, I'm just fine with THAT, as they're right on the money with that.

As for posting coming to a standstill, I tend to disagree... there's still LOTS of posting on the forums I've been to lately -- it's just almost ALL about these silly changes! :-)

And Alicia, as far as most of the pictures that are posted not being big enough for anything other than web publication, for the most part that's true, but there ARE exceptions, and I had become one of them, on occasion...

I'd not done too much of it because I didn't want to overburden too many dialup users, but after being pretty satisfied with a couple years of FREE Photobucket membership, except for the fact that they limited my upload sizes to 250 KB and there was a maximum of how many views I could have in a month (and after I decided to make my page public, I exceeded that limit one month), I decided to actually PAY $25 for a membership last August, partly to eliminate the monthly bandwidth limit, but largely to increase my upload size to 1 MB...

Since my camera is a 4 Megapixel, the file sizes are usually about 1.5 MB, and rather than downsize them myself, I let Photobucket's own software do that during the upload process... Under my free membership, that left me with files usually in the 180 KB range. Now it means most of them are in the 800-900 KB range, unless I decide to reduce them after they're uploaded (which I sometimes do, if they're something it would be ridiculous to ever post that big)...

I did this PRIMARILY so I could post some of my better gardening shots at large sizes on THESE forums (still not at their FULL size, mind you, but at 800 KB or so, that's large enough that if iVillage so decided, they'd certainly be big enough to use in lots of publications at roughly half or a third of the screen size, and still be something like 4 x 6."

You can BET you won't be seeing anything like that from ME in the future, unless the photo is poor quality and something I wouldn't care if someone stole... In other words, in the past, when I'd go out at night and take pictures of my bullfrogs (one of which I actually caught sitting OUT of the pond, on the edge, at 3:30 a.m. on Jan. 11!, (didn't get a picture of THAT, but I DID get pics of it floating at the surface Jan. 4 about the same time, when it was only 39 degrees!))... Anyway, in the past, my habit has been to try to pick the BEST shot to post on a forum. With iVillage's new TOS, I'd be more inclined to pick the WORST shot that still showed what I wanted... maybe even one partly out of focus, or something... And of course, every single time I post something that's NOT the best of a series of shots, I'll say it's not and WHY I'm not posting my best shot, so iVillage will be continually getting bad PR about it (and I'm pretty darned sure I won't be the ONLY one).

Of course they could just BAN ME for doing stuff like that, assuming I don't just quit posting altogether, but my guess is that half of their members may leave over this new TOS, and those who remain may post much less, so the value of what they have is about to drop CONSIDERABLY.

iVillageIDIOTS, if you ask me!

And 1989 my FOOT... more like Animal Farm!
Jeff

Dave's Garden set up a Carolina forum yesterday - no subscription required for access to it.
there are three levels of user-submitted photo copyright protection you can select from.

it's a great site, very user-friendly, no ads, lots of extras like intra-site email, plant scout, plant database, botanary, journals, trade tracking, garden terms.

check it out.

Here is a link that might be useful: Dave's Garden Carolina Forum

Ahem, Marsha, I see ya pushin' Dave's Garden hard and well here, and I have to say I've found plenty of friendly and useful information, myself, over there, through the years... I just clicked on your link and then on a general forums link and was quite surprised to discover it has about as many forums as GW does now... The only reason I hadn't gone there more recently is that the last time a search I did returned a result for Dave's Garden and I clicked on it, I was turned away because I wasn't a "paid subscriber," and from the looks of the main forum page, the new Carolina Gardening Forum is one of VERY FEW forums that doesn't require you be a paid member to read (although I think you can sneak into the other forums by going to the Carolina Gardening Forum first, then to the main page, and so forth, or at least that worked for me, this time)...

HOWEVER, I was also somewhat surprised by Item No. 2 of Dave's Garden's MUCH SHORTER and less "Philadelphia Lawyerish" Terms of Service, as cut and pasted below...

"By providing content to our site, you have granted StandardOut, Inc. (the parent company of Dave's Garden) unrestricted use of that material. We do make commitments of your privacy, however. Your E-mail address and full name will never be revealed to other entities by Dave's Garden. (See the Privacy Policy for details regarding the displaying of your city, state, and ZIP code.) We reserve the right to modify, reproduce and redistribute materials posted to our services, both internally and for commercial use. Copyright of all material published is retained by the contributor. The contributor does, however, grant to StandardOut, Inc. a non-exclusive license to modify, reproduce, and re-distribute the contributed content in any manner that it sees fit."

As I read that, it's in essence the same right GW is claiming with its new TOS effective Jan. 24, i.e. that they can take anything you post on their website and use it however they see fit elsewhere without asking your permission, giving you credit or paying you to do it.

That's my major gripe with GW's new TOS, so if Dave's Garden is ALREADY making the same claim, I don't really see a reason to switch.

Do you?

I think the number one reason is that you can visit without having to download special software to block the pop ups! I have the yahoo pu blocker and it works fine for most everywhere I visit on the web but this site. And Dave's has internal email which I like- no worries about handing your email out to everyone you want to correspond with on the forums.
Shari

nahhh jeff, i'm not pushing dave's at all. i happened upon their "levels of copyright protection" page and after having waded through GW's legal mumbo-jumbo, thought it leaned to protection of the contributor. if you say it doesn't, well then i reckon it doesn't! i'm sure you're more adept at interpreting such things, since you're a serious photographer type. there was so much strutting and fretting going on about the new GW TOS i thought i'd suggest an alternative. and frankly, it bothered me to think we'd lose the benefit of some GW contributors' photos and expertise (yeah, you included jeff!) ... hey, at least the carolinas got a dave's forum out of it.

i don't plan on switching ... i've been dealing with the GW pop-ups and spyware just fine. and i certainly don't have any intellectual property rights to protect :) i'll continue reading both forums and "contributing" to GW like always.

I have read all the new rules. The Garden Web/iVillage has to protect their interests. The advertising is very, very, annoying, the rules are as annoying, as other sites, but the site is free!

The advertising is the price we pay for a free web site. If they are tracking our use of this site with cookies; I am sure many other sites do the same thing. That is why the cookies folder fills up so fast!

I Always, after any time on the web, go to.... Tools, Internet Options, then click on each; Delete Cookies, Delete Files, Clear History. It has been a habit that I have used for years. If Microsoft has files hidden in my hard drive, well have a laugh when you read them, I am a pretty boring person!

I guess to complain about a "Free Site" that I have gained so much valuable gardening information from would be useless. If I paid into it, then I would be more concerned. My pictures are nothing special. If I had a "special" picture of some unique plant, that I would be loathe to share with the world wide web, then I do not think I would post it here. We gotta figure that it is a "Free" for all out here.

I am still satisfied with the Garden Web. Call me a creature of habit, or sentimental. I went to Dave's Garden to check it out. It was OK, but I am familiar with the "Garden Web" site and plan to keep learning/lurking/posting.

I am sad to see so many of you ready to leave.......but I plan on staying. I hope there will be someone left when I have a Question??..........Dianne

Stay calm, Marsha, I didn't mean to imply you're on the DG marketing team, or anything, but although their section on use of material is much less lengthy than the one in the new iVillage TOS (as are their sections in pretty much ALL of their TOS, which is about the size of GW's OLD TOS when Spike still owned it), it DOES have the same gist to it, i.e., that they're saying they can use whatever you contribute however they see fit.

It's kind of like some magazines that accept a lot of submissions from readers... For instance, I subscribe to "Birds & Blooms," and I LOVE the magazine... Each issue is FULL of plenty of beautiful pictures and occasionally a useful article or two, as well :) MANY of those photographs happen to be user-contributed, however, through various sections of the magazine where they tell you how you can contribute and in most cases they say something to the effect that "photographs cannot be returned and become the property of 'Birds & Blooms,'" thereby getting a lot of content for free -- or they sometimes will say they'll send you a free "suncatcher" or something similar if they use your photograph (token payment).

That sort of thing is quite common among smaller PAPER publications. The INTERNET, on the other hand, is still a rather young and evolving area, and I think this idea of forums laying claim to perpetual use of all material posted on them might be a growing trend, since I now see it on both Dave's Garden and in the new iVillage TOS...

Prior to this development, the internet, still being very much a sort of "wild west editorial environment," has had forums like these with sometimes experts and even famous people posting on them as just "regular Joes," sharing their knowledge and expertise, perhaps in some cases even relieved to finally be able to have something resembling "public conversations" without having to worry about being swamped by fans, and so forth, or repeatedly asked for free professional advice because people know they actually happen to be Dr. Phil, or Steven King, or whoever.

And NO, I'm definitely NOT one of THOSE people... At one point a few years ago, I had a bit of "local celebrity" status as a weekly newspaper editor, but the biggest thing I've ever published was the cover story for a state-wide public policy journal read by all the lawmakers and public officials in SC...

And I'm not aware of any such folks on the Carolina Gardening forum, but I DO know of at least one Professor of Environmental Sciences at the University of Vermont who is a sometimes (used to be regular) poster on the Ponds forum and wrote that forum's FAQs. He's been featured in pond programs on national programs on Public Television, too. I seriously doubt HE'D appreciate having HIS contributions -- many of which he doubtless gained through years of research and study both in his pond and at the university -- appropriated by iVillage to use for THEIR advertising, without attribution, for free.

As for the photographs, Yeah, I've done a bit of "professional photography." I shot many of the photographs for several of the papers I worked for, and I also shot weddings for a while, and got some really good shots... And today, with digital cameras and the ability to see what you have and keep shooting until you get what you want, I can get even better shots (My theory on professional photographers has long been that the biggest difference between most pros and serious amateurs was how many shots they could afford to take)... So nowadays, I'm getting some garden shots I think are of publishable quality, although since I lost my paper I'm too blocked to get up the gumption to go back to free-lancing again... BUT I'd still like that option.

And I'm sure I'm not the only one... If you want another example, go to the Ponds and Aquatic Plants forum, click on the Gallery and look for the Fall Ponds Photos (10-17, I believe), posted by Cliff_and_Joann. That lady (Joann seems to do all the posting) takes GREAT pictures and has some of the most beautiful ponds with some of the most beautiful koi I've ever seen... and she usually posts them fairly large. She doesn't deserve to have those "appropriated."

No, Dianne. I won't leave (although they may kick me off with all I've been writing, lol). But I may be more selective with what I post and shy away from some of the more humorous or creative posts, or anything I think might look "attractive" to someone looking for something to "appropriate."

And Marsha, I think your efforts on this front are admirable, so please don't think I was slamming you.

I'm not really all that concerned about the cookies and partners and ads and so forth. I just don't like them laying claim to all our "intellectual property."

By the way, it's not just me. I think all of YOU have a lot of "intellectual property" to protect, as well, even if you don't.

Take care,
Jeff

I just checked the Ponds forum gallery and that post with all the beautiful fish and pond pictures in it was still up, so I felt kind of compelled to post a link to it, here, just so you could all see what I was talking about, and because I think EVERYONE should have a chance to see the beautiful pictures Joann takes!

Hope y'all enjoy 'em!
Jeff

Here is a link that might be useful: Fall Fish Photos...10-17-05

I'm not going to abandon GW but I would much prefer the option of a hassle free paid subcription to the commercialization of this site. I used our main desktop pc a couple of weeks ago to visit GW because our wireless access point was down. Just a few days later it caught a virus that took my boyfriend the entire New Year's weekend to wipe off the hard drive and start from scratch to get the pc back up and running. Who knows where it came from but it makes me nervous about all the junk floating around when on GW. Also, I tried deleting cookies the first time someone mentioned it on another thread- came back to GW and it just slowed to a crawl. Had to reboot a couple of times before I could move around normally again in the site. Hassles! All so everyone can get something for nothing? It's very dissapointing to me because I do love this forum and will suffer whatever just to stay in touch with the people who post here.

Shari

Don't bother to delete cookies -- it doesn't help. Here are the cookies facts as Spike wrote them up:

"Cookies are used to make the forums easier to use. For instance, after you have posted a message, your name and email address will be "remembered" in a cookie so the next time you post, you won't have to enter this information again. We could save this information in a central file on our server, but in the interest of privacy, we save it to a cookie, which resides on your computer.
There are many misconceptions about cookies. Here are some facts:

The cookie is assigned by the Web site. It can only contain information known to that site.
When a Web site reads a cookie, it can only read the information that the Web site itself had assigned to the cookie earlier.
Only the site assigning a cookie can read it later.
Drinking milk with your cookies will make them go down easier."

I'm going to put the instructions for installing and using Mozilla and Adblock here for anyone who's interested. Mjsee originally posted this on a conversations thread in the Roses forum.

* download and install Firefox 1.5
* in the FireFox address bar type about:config
* scroll down the list to the entry xpinstall.enabled
* right click on the entry and select toggle from the menu
* toggle as needed to set the value to true
* go to the Firefox website and follow links to extensions
* find the extension adblock and install it
* remember to toggle xpinstall.enabled back to false
* in Firefox select Tools -> Adblock -> Preferences
* use the New Filter field to add the following items:
http://amch.questionmarket.com
http://a820.g.akamai.net
http://iv.doubleclick.net
http://i.ivillage.com
http://m.2mdn.net
http://tste.ivillage.com
http://img-cdn.mediaplex.com
http://ads.vmirror.com
http://cmhtml.ivillage.overture.com
http://ads.pointroll.com
* enable Adblock

The trick with Adblock is to block the domain rather than the specific ad. If you click on Adblock to disable an ad. Select Tools -> Adblock -> Preferences from the menu and then edit the new entry; remove anything that follows after .com or .net. This will block everyting from that source.

Thanks for pointing us in the direction of those amazing fish/doggie photos, Jeff. Pond Forum Joann is something else!

Yes, her pond and fish are beautiful. I saw some of her photos when someone suggested I look at her pond to help answer a question that I had.

Jeff.........Thanks for the pond link.........you were right......... the pictures were beautiful. Do these folks realize that their photos may be claimed by "The Powers That Be"??...........Dianne

I'm not sure if Joann does, or not... She's sort of on-again, off-again, and doesn't go to Conversations very much... I might email her, just in case.

I have email addresses for a great many folks from this forum and that one -- even those without emails listed -- because I'd sometimes send them an email through Gw about something on the forum and they'd email me back, and since I keep all the emails private and don't make a habit of sending emails to most of those folks except when I really have a reason (except for a few with whom I've developed a regular relationship).

To me, one of the few things you can have nobody can take away is your integrity, and I feel like iVillage is corrupting the integrity of GW with these new policies.

Take care,
Jeff