My first reaction is that it's a good fit. There's a lot of cross traffic among some GW members and Houzz. Additionally, social streams are proven ways of keeping people involved with a site after a particular interest has been filled. I'm only guessing, but I'd think Houzz would want the forums, and want to keep them intact for that reason. It's not whether they have cooking, it's whether bringing in the CF to talk about cooking is of complementary interest to the people who frequent Houzz. There's the whole urban foraging movement, and Williams-Sonoma selling Yuppie chicken coops. I'm sure the Harvest Forum will find traction with the backyard-to-table crowd. They'd be best served by leaving clunky old Gardenweb alone. I've said this before, but the format where most recent reply, rather than most recent thread start or most popular is on top, and old threads fall off the bottom, is most conducive to lively and always fresh daily discussions. There's nothing duller than a forum where the members expect a newbie to wade through 3000 pages of past content to "get up to speed" on that which has been discussed before. Each discussion is a little different, and (nearly) each new person each thread attracts has something interesting to add. This past year there must have been half a dozen discussions of how to make spaghetti sauce! How great is that! It's also great that we're mostly self policing, and members feel free to throw in personal news, minor tangents, etc., without having the topic police editing them. Another great thing is all the white space. Jasdip is spot on about the avatars, animated signatures, etc., that choke most message boards nowadays. The good sized and scalable fonts make it easier to read GW as well. Summary: GW is great as is. :) My big question is was GW spun off or was Houzz acquired by NBC?

If you like you can also choose a profile name that's different from your user name. If you go to Your Houzz on the upper right hand corner of the screen and click on Edit Profile you can type in a name in the FIRST name box below the USER name section. USER name is your login; FIRST name will be what shows up when you post.

We weren't banned, but rather banished to Disney. If you were being punished by Spike and you clicked on any THS hyperlink you were re-directed to disney.com. Sometimes you were never allowed to come back. I remember the only time I got banished. A member went to Spike because she didn't like my answer to a post. Nothing mean, or derogatory. I think she was embarrassed as she was corrected. (There were thin skinned, always-look-through-rosey-glasses, overly sensitive, and yes even rude and know-it-all members then too.) So without discussion I got banned. Several weeks later iVillage took over and my good friend Poohbear went behind the scenes with the truth. I was allowed to return immediately.

I don't know what it is- if it's the white background or what- but I don't feel like I know where the he ... I am. I still don't know how to find the conversation side and I did read the instructions and don't usually feel stupid. I am literate and the only way I can find anything is to put it in the search bar. I really am trying but less and less. I will probably keep checking in here but it won't be my regular path on the web. If it aint broke................ :(