I've had a love hate relationship with forums for many years, For years I've dreamed of creating a new way to have civil discussion with fellow hobbyists. That's gotten harder to do over the years as hordes of casual users have flooded the web thanks to smart phones. Perfectly nice people, but also unwilling to do much is the way of reading thanks in large part to how difficult it is to read anything longer than a tweet on a smart phone.

Now, in the last couple of years, another problem is also becoming an issue for me...the commercialization of people's content. All that is important is getting eyeballs. Getting people to create free content for them so they can profit. They're companies, motivatived purely by profit which is fine, I'm a capitalist too. I don't mind one bit they profit by me taking the time to post content. But I also have a choice.

Being used is OK...but everyone has their limit and I've reached mine. Site owners do as they please with no input from users. They didn't used to, users were expensive to get. Now it's cheap to get users.

I generally use forums as a journal. Always found forum software good for that. As sites have become commercialized I lose that content. Steampunk magazine forum shut. Phoenix permaculture shut. archived and started anew. And now Garden Web/Houzz going through another mess...some of my posts (which I use as a journal) have been cut off. Content lost. Having to learn a system. Can't log in. Lots of bugs. Etc. Yes, I could take the time to try and figure everything out. Yes, Houzz will work out the kinks. But I'm just kind of getting tired of it.

It's not like forums have very many knowledgeable people left anyways. There are some for sure, but less everyday it seems. And in many forums they're being drown out by the hordes. Back 20 years we had lots of professionals in forums, great info, great debate. Most of them have moved on. It was still a mess to be sure, but at least there was something of value.

I don't see the upside. I never needed forums for social reasons...got enough actual humans for that.

So today I'm putting a stake in the ground and am no longer going to post in forums, kind of. This is Cortés burning his ships (or scuttling), Michael Scott, CEO Apple, removing all typewriters from Apple. If I don't allow myself to post in forums I'll have to create my own system...plus I'll have a lot more time to do so.

My plan is to write software, journal type, that will export some content to forums. I'll be able to write once and publish to many forums. I'll have control over my content. It will never go away unless I want it to. I'll only change to a new text editor when I choose to.

Instead of reading comments and responding in those forums I will for the most part only respond to comments in my journal which will be online. That way I can moderate who I interact with. I kind of have been doing that for awhile. I get a fair number of emails from people who say they don't want to post in forums but would like to discuss some topic. I always enjoy those discussions. Trouble is email sucks for discussions, content management is a pain.

I think there is a better way.

See you around. In the mean time if you want to discuss something I'm always happy to do so via email which is on my web site "WaterbugDesign.com".

I use Houzz a lot for bookmarking landscape designs, but have never used the messageboard part of it. I'll just have to get used to this.

wow I can even use my old username which is "raimeiken" since I already have a Houzz account.

Wow, why did they have to change the entire website? I hope this isn't the end of gardenweb.

it'll take some getting used to. What I like about this is that it's much easier to share photos now. We can upload them easier into our own profiles here so other people can easily see them.

"why did they have to change the entire website?"

They didn't "change" the site, they killed it. They did a database transfer to a whole 'nuther shebang and seem to have done a fairly decent job doing so. Some people lost a post or two and they, thinking it's all about them, are taking their ball and going home.

This ain't your Mama's Garden Web any more. That's it. Move in or move on.

:-) CNN is my Home page and they have changed their format more than once. AZCentral too. And yes, it annoys me. But I like the content and I learn my way around the new digs. Same thing when the grocery store decides to re-do the layout. THAT really p's me off. But I learn the new gig, and I move along.

Peace. Change happens.

Not sure what the big deal is... almost looks the same to me. Yeah, its integrated with houzz, but the layout is almost exactly the same - just cleaner looking and maybe even more inviting to those that do not, or rarely (me) post.

T.R....... I am on this site all the time and it does not look or function the same!

that's right, it looks better and functions better. Now move on. The change is for the better, and if you can't deal with it then stop visiting the site. This new layout and being integrated with Houzz is only going to drive in more traffic, which we need. I've been waiting for years for the old layout to change because it was so archaic and clunky to use.

Now can we start talking about gardening instead of complaining, it's spring weather out there for crying out loud.

J.L.....With that rude comment I will be moving on to another site, but first I would like to say good by to all my friends it has been a good ride for the last 10 years. Maybe we will meet up on another site.

Happy Trails..Waterbug, AZtreelover, Marymcp, Fascist N., Lazy Gardens, Grant In AZ, German Star, Toucan, Tomatonut, hope I didn't miss anyone.

Thanks for everthing

Camp Verde Arizona

only thing I'll miss from the old layout is the pic of Grant's garden on the top right of the page :)

Seriously, this layout so much user friendly than the old. Just give it a chance and try it out.

Taking my "ball"...not sure what ball that is...and going home...I'm already home...soooo..whatever. As I said already, I'm sure Houzz will get the kinks out...I'm sure the web site will be fine in the near future. For people who post once in a while I'm 100% sure it will be a GREAT site. The web is being tailored for smart phone users, it's your world, you have the numbers. As it should be. Smart phone users will be delighted to know Houzz is truncating long posts...like mine and a few others.

Being a dick just because a few people prefer a different kind of experience...well Houzz will improve the site no doubt, but just as surely dicks will remain dicks. And that is more than reason enough to prefer spending one's time doing other things.

Sorry, couldn't get this under 140 characters.

looks fine on my phone, I don't see the problem? it could be a browser/software issue on the phone

Houzz is shortening posts???

Isn't that a violation of my civil rights?

shortening?

End of first paragraph of water bug's post above.

On my PC computer (using Chrome), things are exactly normal. When I bring up this post on my android smartphone's (using Chrome), it's also exactly the same. However, when I bring up this post using the Houzz app, there is an extra step involved. Underneath longer posts, it states "READ MORE" in blue. Clicking that allows you to read the full text of a post.

Houzz is not limiting the amount of characters a person can post at a time.

Greetings all, Hey MaryMcP, long time no see. Finally found my way back,
but had to add a couple of numbers to the old username. The old one was
locked out because it was already in use......by me! It was easier to
just make a little change to open a new account. I see lazyG is out
here...anybody else from the deep and distant past?

I had the same problem with my old username so I just merged it with my existing Houzz account, but what I would like to do is what asm198 above has on his/her username. I tried changing my username to add my location and zone but it would not let me at all.

John Luy, what I did was change the "Profile Information" on my account. Basically, my first name is asm198 and my last name is - Zone 6a (MO). You also have the option to just add your zone info under Advanced Settings, but I had already done the first/last name thing and it's working fine.

Hello Jim (jkochan), Nice to see you here. Dave's SW Garden has almost no traffic these days. Everything really splintered after Dave sold the site. I see FishKnees here from time to time but her handle was runs_with_scissors when it was GW, now I've seen her posts (pond pics) as some alphabet soup acronym. Really don't recognize any others, some folks use different handles on different sites so it's hard to tell. I'm getting used to this new format and like it, especially the ease of posting pics. See you around!! Mary

Hey it worked! Thanks for the tip!

How do I search on a topic. I cannot find a search button anywhere.

it's at the top of the page. When you're in a specific forum, start typing whatever you're searching for and it should suggest "...in Arizona garden" below it. If you pick that option, it will only search within Arizona garden. But if you press enter after what you typed, it'll search the entire gardenweb forums.

Hi Jim! It's me Fish knees :)

Try this if you want some semblance of the old look/feel:

http://forums2.gardenweb.com/discussions/2854079/installing-stylish-to-change-houzz-background#14392444

Liking all these new formats and choices. Very inviting, nice style. Happy to be a part of this region gardening sharing.