Actually graibeard, it was still pretty much winter here when I joined, so I had more time on my hands. I was born and raised in Florida, so although I love living where I can see snow, I do not play in it much as I do not have the gear for it yet. With six kids, we have enough to do providing them with winter gear!! Needless to say, I am inside a lot in winter, and I had the time to spare. Also, I got an almost immediate response to signing up, as Katxena sent me a message, and added me as a garden buddy. This helped to encourage me. I felt very excited when she sent me that message, and surprised. I did not realize how interactive the site could be. Now I try to pass that on to others. I know how it is to live in the middle of no where with no one to talk to other than my own kids, no adults in other words, and to suddenly get a "gardening buddy", which I was not exactly sure at the time what that meant, but I liked it, was really cool. I do send personal messages to users that have not set up gardens yet, but I have gotten a good response. So I think that for the most part, people are not intimidated by that. I think that it is all in how you word the greeting. That said, I think that we live in a busy society, and that people just don't have the time to spend in many cases. They never get their feet wet, so they do not realize what a great site this is. I convinced a friend of mine to join, and she did. She added a garden, a profile pic, about 6 plantings, and one garden pic, and hasn't been on much since. She has 5 kids, she works, and she is going through a difficult time right now, so she has not been here much. I don't think that it has much to do with the site being over whelming, or hard to understand. I believe that everything is explained pretty well. The big one is the original setting up of photo accounts. That seems to be the main issue, but other than that, I think that it is just lack of time, not lack of interest. Also, her lack of time has given her garden the tell tale signs of neglect, so it is not doing very well, and she doesn't want to write about her failings. I have also noticed that some people because of various reasons, join, and you don't ever hear from then again, until a year or two later, and they then explain their absence and become active! There are many reasons why they may not be, but I don't think that it has anything to do with how the site is set up!! :) I also tell some of the new guys to ask questions if they have any, and that there are a lot of people here that have the answers and will get back to them shortly. Hope this was not too long winded of a response to your question!! :) 2009-08-31T21:23:00+09:30 false 12537 2667 2009-08-31T21:23:00+09:30 5779 Good topic for discussion! I'm fairly new. I found set up relatively easy and help was amazing...thank goodness as I tend to be a wee bit shy. When I hit a bump someone always answered my questions and quickly too! I found folks to be helpful, approachable, and just a great group of people in general. I received encouragement from friendly folks and this helped put me at ease and allowed me to feel comfortable and confident when experimenting with features. I don't quite have the hang of all the features, but I'm learning and always seem to stumble upon something I didn't know was there. I make plenty of little errors which I eventually correct. I'm not familiar with all the site features, or how they all work, but it's simply a matter of time and trial. Initial account and profile set up seemed fairly easy. I had difficulty with the profile picture. I already had a Picasa account but there was some sort of lag going on. Also, when adding new photos to journals, it took a bit to figure out. Persistence paid off and I didn't need to ask for assist. At first, I simply thought my profile page disappeared. I found it after accidentally logging out. I can appreciate all of your suggestions...they seem like great ideas to me. I like the "suggest what the new user might like to do first." 2009-08-31T21:52:42+09:30 false 12538 2667 2009-08-31T21:52:42+09:30 9955 @graibeard, I like your idea of that first page being a real HELP! page - as an introduction and as an always there reference if you need it - and yes to all the items you have outlined. @TR, I think Katxena was there to welcome me too when I joined last November. It really was a nice feeling to have someone do that and it was exciting to have a buddy right away. I also think it was easier to join in the off-season, when there was more forced confinement in the house due to weather, little gardening to do, and much more free time to spend at the computer entering the gardens and plants. @Rurality, I agree that setup was easy. But you are definitely right that having "real" folks available to answer questions and offer assistance right away is the real plus of Folia. I have been part of many other gardening sites - gardenweb, dave's, plantswap, etc. - They tend to get very clique-ish and too in-your-face/want-to-know-all-your-personal-life-friendly. Thank goodness, Folia isn't like that at all. But, you have to admit, you have to be really committed to your gardening to stick with Folia. It is not for the casual/feint of heart/throw a few annuals in the ground type of person. And I think that may be what happens to some of the never-seen-again signups. I often wonder if there shouldn't be some way to archive those inactive members...LOL! * I would definitely second the idea of a front page-help page. * I would also offer that maybe we should have a more organized welcome by those of us who have been around a bit, almost like a mentor. Just thinking off the top of my head here... there could be volunteer members who rotated through the new members, welcoming them and becoming their first buddy immediately, answering questions, guiding them through the features and just in general offering support. 2009-08-31T22:12:41+09:30 false 12540 2667 2009-08-31T22:15:19+09:30 4903 @TropicanaRoses, Not long winded at all, you're talking to the master of long winded here :) I'm aiming more at the minimalist accounts that are created, and wondering what's missing there rather than those who start and drift away. They've obviously given it a go and have moved on for good reasons. As you note, life has many demands and priorities. If the meet and greet was a positive for you, then that suggests that points 7 and perhaps 6 may be a plus for new users? It's encouraging that the personal messages works for you, is this before they start creating their home page? I've seen your welcomes and you do it extremely well (seriously), but that's usually after they have fleshed out their pages so they've got over the first hurdles and made the commitment. It's also a big job for one or a few. The buddy thing was a mystery to me at the start and I didn't use it for quite a while. The naming wasn't too intuitive to me (culture differences I guess) and it wasn't until I first used it that it made sense. Maybe I'm not good at reading help pages :) 2009-08-31T22:14:51+09:30 false 12541 2667 2009-08-31T22:14:51+09:30 5165 @graibeard I think we were writing and posting at the same time. 2009-08-31T22:16:30+09:30 false 12542 2667 2009-08-31T22:16:30+09:30 4903 @ graibeard- yes, if they don't have a garden for me to comment in, I wil at random pick a couple of users to send a personal message of greeting to. And the idea of a list of people to contact may be a good idea. Not sure about it, as we have so many helpful people here as Rurality said that answer questions in a timely manner, we may not. But then again, there are those that are shy, as she also stated, that are actually to shy to even ask a stranger a question, but from a list of helpers, they feel better, because they feel certain that they will get a response. :) 2009-08-31T22:52:58+09:30 false 12543 2667 2009-08-31T22:52:58+09:30 5779 @Rurality, Another vote for the personal touch then. I remember you starting, and as I recall you hit the ground running. If it wasn't for the grapevine I probably would have missed it though. Plus I think our timezones overlap enough to make it seem realtime, you guys are waking and we're getting ready for the night but it's enough time to be meaningful. @SneIrish, I think you're correct, two minutes between posts :) And another vote for the personal touch. _want-to-know-all-your-personal-life-friendly_ that's probably a fair description of what the word buddy means (meant) to me, and as I implied before, that's not a criticism but a regional thing. Buddy doesn't seem like it's the starting point, but a later stage. I believe those younger than me here in Australia hold a different view about it now. - and, back to topic. Yep winter or off-season gives time to catch up and helps in this case - myself I miss the rain as it means I don't get to play in the workshop as often, have to go to the garden and play :) Good point about commitment to gardening, perhaps that explains a bit of it - only the serious need apply :) It took me awhile to find time to utilise the site, it was probably after I got back to work and the evenings were vacant (I was on holidays at the time and busy in the garden - midsummer). How do we make it seem simpler and less demanding? _archive those inactive members…LOL!_ It would be useful to know sometimes who is still active, I've come across a few members doing interesting things but they don't post anymore - a last login field possibly or would that be too intrusive? _volunteer members who rotated through the new members_ Another vote for point 7? Perhaps helpers or site members could nominate via a field in their user preferences whether they were free or able to help and their name would then be added or removed from the list that point 7 refers to. A dynamic list that would be generated on each page refresh. @TropicanaRoses, I'd see the list as being an addition to the _meet and greet_, not a replacement. A member would always be free to participate as they saw fit. But if you know that a new member needs help it makes it easier to provide it. This would (should) encourage those to ask for it in the first instance, before they leave, if that is the problem. Spot on about the shyness aspect, every one is different and no one needs to conform to any mold to be a participant or member. As I indicated above, most of us here are over the hurdles - if they ever existed. _Preaching to the converted_ is the phrase that originally came to mind. So how do we help those who are less forthcoming on the keyboard, that are still feeling their way with a computer and the whole on-line thing, that don't want to expose themselves just yet. Softly softly. 2009-08-31T23:49:35+09:30 false 12544 2667 2009-08-31T23:51:41+09:30 5165 I guess I've been a user for over a year now, so I'm not sure how reliable my memory is. But I remember it as being pretty straightforward to sign up and get my information in. However, I was born and raised a computer geek. I have no idea how approachable this website is for the non computer geek. I think graibeard's walkthrough idea could be a good one. A lot of people have mentioned Katxena, and she deserves a gold star. I think she joined a bit after me, but she was one of my first buddies and she probably got me more active than I otherwise would've been. I would've happily just tracked my garden in isolation and not bothered to check the forums if she hadn't gotten me hooked into the community. At one point, I tried buddying all of the users in my immediate vicinity. There are a surprising number of people from my area who signed up at one time or another. None of them are actually active. One of them responded, and I'm fairly certain he didn't _get_ it. He wrote me back a lengthy folia mail describing his gardens and whatnot. I wrote him back and got a response a few months later. He clearly comes around once every few months, but he hasn't entered a single garden. I honestly don't know what his deal is; maybe that's how often he turns on his computer at all and he got an email notification that I'd sent him a message here. He seems pretty elderly so he may just be the guy whose kids set him up with a computer who just doesn't use it very often. At any rate, he clearly isn't interested in daily tracking on a computer. I do know that it's common for people to create one-shot accounts to ask questions in forums then forget where they asked their question or find another answer and forget which forums they signed up for in the first place. I do that all the time. So it could be that some people just don't want to use this sort of functionality. I wouldn't have guessed two years ago that I was remotely capable of being organised enough to keep a journal. If katxena hadn't sucked me in with her buddiness and plantingoaks hadn't provided the best advice I'd ever seen on how a Southern Californian might understand that whole freezing thing and Janietta hadn't been able to identify every single plant that came with my house, I might have lost interest and never come back. So I think a lot of user retention has to do with the community. 2009-09-01T00:20:18+09:30 false 12545 2667 2009-09-01T00:20:18+09:30 1237 At the risk of sounding mean, which is not my intention, there are a lot of computer illiterate people out there. I have noticed that there is a growing trend of 50 somethings and up that are taking computer classes so as to understand how to use their computers for word processing and email, but there are a lot of people that are just getting into computers and are a bit hesitant to do anything more than the very basic things such as email. :) So walking them through would be a definite plus. Let's face it. Computers have only become main stream in the last 15-20 years, and affordable in the last 10. When I was a kid, they were still using 5" floppies. One for the operating system, and one for the program, and mostly only the wealthy and 40 something or younger were buying them. :) So I have only been using a computer since I was in my early 20's (at the risk of dating myself). :) I said all that to say, yes, I do see where there would be a definite use for a list of folia helpers that one could contact for help. :) (long winded again)!! Rabbit trails are my specialty. :)) @ cmagnus- I agree that community involvement is a great way to get people hooked on a web site. I have had great response from many users here. You, Katxena, graibeard, ceae, and many more. I feel at home here, and would not give up this place for anything. I visit at least once or twice a day, adn spend an average of 1 1/2 hours a day here. You guys have more contact with me than anyone else I know except for my kids. I don't know anyone here, and this site has allowed me the opportunity share my fun and failures with other people. I sort of feel like some of you are a little more than aquaintances, if that makes any sense. I hesitate to call anyone a friend that I have not met. I _am_ a bit shy by nature, but I really enjoy my conversations here with you guys. ;) 2009-09-01T00:30:16+09:30 false 12546 2667 2009-09-01T00:36:19+09:30 5779 Goodness! The praise is going to my head. ;) Honestly, I got tired of working on the wiki one day and decided to make welcoming new-comers my personal helper-job, to make up for my laziness about the wiki. I would have said that Cmagnus, Ceae and Wenjomatic (where is she? I miss her!) got me hooked on the folia community. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of people I've welcomed to Folia, and only a small fraction of them become regular users (like TR & SneIrish). The thing about Folia is that it's not enough to just get the web, you have to also get web 2.0. And not everyone does -- even if you walked them through filling out their profiles and entering gardens, not everyone is going to find value in chattering about their own gardens, helping others, and interacting. The experience that TropicanaRoses describes when I friended her is really the experience of learning about web2.0. If people don't get that, or don't have that experience, they will never, ever get Folia. @cmagnus, I'm not sure how comparable the sign-up process is now to when you and I signed up. The profile is a lot more complicated, with many more fields, and without a guide, I think it might be kinda hard to figure out what the most important or useful things to do are. 2009-09-01T02:15:07+09:30 false 12549 2667 2009-09-01T02:19:00+09:30 1713 @tropicanaroses: That's why I'm a poor judge of how welcoming any computer is to anyone else. My first computer ran off of tape... I think it was a sinclair? And my dad brought it home when I was 4 or 5. And now I've definitely dated myself. And my dad thought we all should have computers so one day he came home with about 10 northstar advantages out of the dumpster at his work and scavenged parts to build machines for all 4 of us. So I'm of the computer-as-prosthetic set; everything about them seems intuitive except for things people design to make them more intuitive, which confuse me. I think katxena is right about web 2.0. The fact is, some people love it and some people don't want that as part of their computing lifestyle. I have friends who I would like to see put their gardens on here, but they'd rather not spend that much time on their computer. And it's totally reasonable. I think for any website with a vibrant online community, there are tons of people who sample it and decide it's not for them. Some people just don't journal. My mom and sister don't journal, and they don't have accounts, but apparently they both read my garden journals with alarming frequency. That said, maybe we could come up with content for some sort of walkthrough? 2009-09-01T02:45:20+09:30 false 12550 2667 2009-09-01T02:45:20+09:30 1237 Well, with this much feed back I think that N&N will definitely look into the viability of it. :) I have really enjoyed this conversation. It has given me the chance to voice how I felt about my beginnings here, and how much I enjoy it. Thanks graibeard!! 2009-09-01T03:03:48+09:30 false 12551 2667 2009-09-01T03:03:48+09:30 5779 Here is another quite newbie. I’m Italian and I’ve signed up in July; I don’t remember any particular difficulty in compiling my profile. In the following days I became gradually familiar with the site features (the seed stash has been my latest discovery). It seems natural to me to learn in a rather serendipitous way, following personal threads, reading here and there. Do you believe it? I reached the site while looking for an answer to the question “is it possible to grow tomatoes in containers?” (50 days ago I wasn’t sure). Since then, I’ve learned a lot – and not only about the website features, of course. I don’t know if I’m going to become a “gardening addict” , but I’ve discovered many new things: raised and no dig beds, winter sowing (wow, urbandogsgarden’s photos!)… Lots of projects for the next year… it is exciting. For me MyFolia community represents an accessible and vivid wealth of experiences for people interested in gardening matters, so thank you all for sharing. Furthermore, here I feel a growing impression of learning something about people, their world, mentality, habits. I live in a very small place (I think I understand your situation, TropicanaRoses), but I aim at being an open minded person :). I’ve noticed and appreciate this peculiarity of the site: the operations of creating one’s gardens, adding plants and writing a journal compel a user to built a clear and comprehensive awareness of things he/she’s doing; I like this, and this is a great difference compared with Italian gardening sites I know. My biggest difficulty is expressing myself in a foreign language: in general I’m not so confident with my English. I have to read your texts with attention and writing sometimes is not easy, I’m afraid of being off topic or making mistakes. Yes, surely it’s a good exercise for my language abilities. But, anyway, it is a handicap for me, making the difference between what I wish to do and what I can do! About the point of the conversation, I agree with Rurality when she says that learning to use this site “it’s simply a matter of time and trial”, and with katxena and cmagnus’s opinions about web 2.0. I hope that my post could be of any interest or utility. Even if I don’t participate actively very often, I’m interested in reading journals and forums (since today, last day of my summer vacancies… tomorrow I will back at work - I’m a teacher). (A curiosity about different ways to name veggies, making a little more difficult to understand things: in MyFolia I’ve read about winter and summer squashes, zucchini, courgettes, pumpkins, marrows and gourds, but in Italian there are only two words to name these vegetables: zucche and zucchini, and that’s all!). Regards to all of you. 2009-09-01T10:13:51+09:30 false 12555 2667 2009-09-01T10:13:51+09:30 9381 I also stumbledacross this website looking for something, or maybe it was in another forum? I'm not really sure. Anyway, as far as I remember the setup was straight forward; and as a lot of people have mentioned, I had a bit of time to play around with the features and whatnot. I made some errors, but hey, who deosn't? I'll go with what others have said-someone, (I remember ceae, Katxena and TR being among the first) sending me a welcome note just to say Hi :) made a big difference. Instantly you felt connected. It's also different to other social networks as it has a very specific focus-your garden and its' successes and...otherwise. Other things like your age, social life, husband, kids seldom enter the picture other than in passing as "my So did this....or the Big Kids did that". You don't need to share anything about yourself other than where you are and what you are growing-I like that. Pherhaps a good thing to have would be a description of 'getting started" in a wizard format? Eg. Set up a profile, and create your first planting in your first garden. After that if you were unsure of what to do or if you needed pointers on the next step (e.g. how to stash/harvest from/duplicate/move your planting) there could be a series of tutorials? Based on a FAQ i.e. How do I _fill in question here_? @ cristina - your english is very good :) Don't be shy! And remember, often people use slang or don't type using good English anyway! You can always edit the wiki for those plants to add the Italian names-I have added names in the local languages for the plants that I have added here... 2009-09-02T22:28:48+09:30 false 12572 2667 2009-09-02T22:28:48+09:30 7470 At cristina, Grazzi!! My roots are Cicilian. My great grandparents on my on my dad's side came over on a boat from Italy before my grandpa was born. I do not speak much Italian, but I always tell people that I am Italian because I am proud of that part of me. I am a mixed breed so to speak, Irish, English, Cherokee, and Italian, but I am more Italian than anything. :) As to your English, it is flawless in your writing anyway. I would not worry about being misunderstood too much. And your English will improve the more that you use this site!! I really love meeting new people here. It is really great. Yes, I may not ever be able to travel like I desire to, but if I ever do, one of the first places I will visit will be Italy. I watch the travel channel a lot with Rick Steves. He travels Europe a lot. :) 2009-09-03T00:35:14+09:30 false 12573 2667 2009-09-03T04:16:28+09:30 5779 This is a fantastic post with heaps of great ideas - thanks all! We've been experimenting with lots of different ways to make the site easier to understand at the start (like showing little messages here and there if you haven't yet journaled or added plants, for example). We're really committed to making the site as easy to use as we possibly can, whilst making sure that we aren't oversimplifying for the more advanced users of the site. It's a tricky balance to achieve, and I think we still have a huge amount of work still to do. Showing a welcome page on first login is a terrific idea, as is the wizard style way of filling out profiles and other details - we'll have a ponder on how we can implement these! 2009-09-05T21:39:13+09:30 false 12607 2667 2009-09-05T21:39:13+09:30 1 @ graibeard- on behalf of all beginning computer users, and people that need help with the in's and out's of the site, thank you! @ nic- I am glad that this was posted. It is a great idea, and I hope that you guys are able to run with it. We appreciate all that you do to make the site user friendly, and chock full or all sorts of things to do. While on the subject, 1. Are we any further with the idea of a garden layout section? 2. A couple of days ago I also made the suggestion that it would be nice to be able to see when and if our buddies are logged in, so that we can make the decision to chat where we otherwise would not have even sent a message, if we see someone available to talk. Just a thought. :) 2009-09-06T06:41:26+09:30 false 12613 2667 2009-09-06T06:41:26+09:30 5779 I'm new as can be. I'm wishing I had Tara LB's file to "Do this Next Like This:" . The help group is no help at all. There are a zillion pages and no useful search engine. I went to Group, Help, Search, "Start a garden" and nothing came up to help me learn how to start a garden page. I don't have time to read 700 help questions and answers. Do you start with a plant, a Garden or a Journal? which comes first? And how do you do it. I tried to make a journal, my mini greenhouse with cuttings, listed the cuttings in the comments, and when I came back to it, there was nothing in the Journal. thomas (just another doubter) 2009-10-22T23:36:05+09:30 false 13184 2667 2009-10-22T23:36:05+09:30 11945 Welcome to Folia Poetinwood! Here's a few first steps for you: 1) The first thing you want to do is start a garden. There are several ways to do this, but here's how I do it: look at the top of the page and notice the little house on the left. Click that, then under "add new" select garden. Then fill out all the information. You could make a mini greenhouse garden. Make sure to select "save garden" at the bottom when you are done. 2) The next step is to add a planting. A planting resides in a garden. Go back to that little house at the top of the page, and under "add new" select "planting". Fill out all the information. Notice that under the Garden name there's a little scroll menu to select a garden. If you decide to make a planting for each cutting (or for a group of cuttings), you would then pull down the menu to select your mini greenhouse garden. Make sure to select "save" or "save and add another" at the bottom. 3) Then you can write a journal about your planting. Go back to the little house again, and under "add new" select "journal". Write whatever you want. In the box that says "what's this about?" type in the name of the garden or planting you are writing about -- for example, the mini-greenhouse garden, or a specific cutting in the garden. This links the journal to the garden or planting. Make sure to select "save journal" at the bottom of the page. I'm not sure, but I suspect that this is where you lost what you wrote before -- you have to scroll down to see the "save" button. Let us know if you have any other questions. If you want to search the help group, you can do that in the box marked "search group talk" that's over on the right side of the main help page: http://myfolia.com/groups/217-help 2009-10-22T23:47:54+09:30 false 13185 2667 2009-10-22T23:52:35+09:30 1713 Thanks for the help Katzena, I have a garden and journal going. Now if I can only get photos assigned to my plants. It's glitching on me and won't show my photos so I can choose one. 2009-10-25T01:07:55+09:30 false 13236 2667 2009-10-25T01:07:55+09:30 11945