Old members

A place to post thoughts, errors, praise, or other comments about CactiGuide.com
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Aiko
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Joined: Mon Jan 24, 2011 5:26 pm
Location: the Netherlands

Re: Old members

Post by Aiko »

ElieEstephane wrote: Sun Jan 14, 2018 1:34 pm Regarding the new members... i'm a member of the french forum cactuspro.com and they have a handy little feature. If you're just looking for an ID, you can post without joining the forum. You just need an email.
How is that helpful to anyone but the one doing the identification request?
That's lowering the bar for more one-off visits to get what they want and run off again. At least let them do the effort of signing up...
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ElieEstephane
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Joined: Tue Dec 13, 2016 12:10 am
Location: Lebanon (zone 11a)

Re: Old members

Post by ElieEstephane »

IMO it keeps the member record accurate. You know how many real members there are and not the ones that just come in for IDs and leave. In addition, when you see a topic posted by a member as opposed to anonymously, you'll know that it will potentially be helpful or give you some info you don't know. Anonoumys posts would almost exclusively be about ID or care and you can skip them if you chose to. I think it's a good way to sort topics and discussions
There are more cacti in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
One of the few cactus lovers in Lebanon (zone 11a) :mrgreen:
daiv
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Re: Old members

Post by daiv »

Hello all!
I have to agree with this comment:
mmcavall wrote: Tue Jan 09, 2018 11:05 am I have the impression that the forum is experiencing a bad moment.
My absence from the forum has definitely been the biggest contributing factor to this situation. The forum has been strong enough to coast along, but this is not a good long term situation. Unfortunately, changes in my work routine required me to invest my time in other areas. While my previous work allowed me a lot of free time to be on the computer, I now have very little time "on-line". That said, I've not let Cactiguide.com out of my site. I have been anxious to get back to work on it!

I'm very thankful for ElieEstaphane stepping in to help do some much needed administration work around the board.

I really got to know a lot of the "old members" personally and I'm sad that I haven't had a chance to know the "new members". There are always people cycling in and out of the hobby. There are people on and off the forum. That's OK.

One thing that isn't OK is the technical problems (malware, etc.) that have hit hard recently. I am giving some serious focus to the site and will be making some major improvements. I've already started on this. Unfortunately, we are likely going to have a few more bumps in the road ahead. I'm afraid there will be a little more down time before this month is over. However, on the other side we should emerge with a nice clean, stable, and reliable site. That is referring to the forum.

I've also got lots of great things lined up for the main part of the site including thousands of new images that are just waiting to be added. I am very excited about this new year. Thank you to everyone who has been hanging on through the mess!

Keep growing and stay tuned!

Daiv
All Cacti are succulents, but not all succulents are Cacti
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yann
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Joined: Mon Jan 15, 2018 12:15 pm
Location: France
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Re: Old members

Post by yann »

Hello,
ElieEstephane wrote: Sun Jan 14, 2018 1:34 pm Regarding the new members... i'm a member of the french forum cactuspro.com and they have a handy little feature.
Thanks for mentionning this Elie. I am Yann, the creator of cactuspro.com. If you have any question about our forum (it is mainly in French), do not hesitate to ask.
People are asked an email to participate without creating an account... but they could use a false one, there's no check. The server stores the IP address, that's automatic and done everywhere, but that's the only thing which prevent me to say that forum participation could be 100% anonymous.
Aiko wrote: Sun Jan 14, 2018 1:42 pm How is that helpful to anyone but the one doing the identification request?
That's lowering the bar for more one-off visits to get what they want and run off again. At least let them do the effort of signing up...
Yes, that's the point: being helpful to people in need of information / help. Lowering the bar so they can come, and not get stuck outside.
Why would I make them do the effort of signing up? Which value would we get out of this? With the experience, I can answer: not much. People who have a quick question / an ID can get an answer fast, and never come back. Those who come back (because they see we are fast to answer, polite, fun, etc.) often create an account later. The number of accounts advertised on the front page of the site (15.000) is missleading, as some did not connect for a long time.

But actually, if I allow anonymous participation on the cactuspro.com forum, that's because I am a strong believer of openness, freedom, etc. I use and produce free softwares (free as in "free speech", not "free beer"), and information should be free too, IMHO.

The only problem is spam, which is harder to control. We have a spammer maybe once a week, so we have to do some cleanup... But as I have 3 active moderators to help me, it is quite manageable.

Any questions? ;-)
Au Cactus Francophone: https://www.cactuspro.com
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ElieEstephane
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Location: Lebanon (zone 11a)

Re: Old members

Post by ElieEstephane »

Welcome Yann! I'm enjoying your forum very much!
There are more cacti in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
One of the few cactus lovers in Lebanon (zone 11a) :mrgreen:
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Aiko
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Location: the Netherlands

Re: Old members

Post by Aiko »

yann wrote: Mon Jan 15, 2018 12:46 pm Yes, that's the point: being helpful to people in need of information / help.
Being helpful is one thing. Taking advantage of is another.
I see the latter happening up here quite a lot (not something that happens on the BCSS forum, for instance).

I help out anyone (when I can) who have shown they are here for more than just trying to get others to do identification work for them.
Pushrestart
Posts: 244
Joined: Fri Jul 17, 2015 4:11 pm

Re: Old members

Post by Pushrestart »

Hi everyone,
Haven’t posted myself in awhile, life can get incredibly chaotic, but had a few thoughts about this forum. I visit a few periodically and find this one moves a little more slowly and feels somewhat dated. More people are shifting to Instagram and FB for plant dialogue and community, for better or worse social media is creeping imto every facet of our lives.
If there’s a way to create a chat option or a more condensed forum ala reddit it would be easier to engage. It’s a horrible thing to admit but many of us don’t have the patience or attention spans that we used to.
The quality of information and involvement by its members are what make a forum an enjoyable place to visit and revisit. There are different types of forum users, some seeking basic ID, others looking for a sense of community, and others still looking to learn. A lot of everything out there, hope this place can continue to grow with the needs of it’s users. Cheers.
kuni1234567
Posts: 87
Joined: Mon May 01, 2017 4:36 am

Re: Old members

Post by kuni1234567 »

I have been growing cactus and succulents for more than fifty years and think that I qualify as an old member but I started at ten years old. I really started to collect plants in 1981 and visited many cactus and succulent nurseries in Southern California. I met many older collectors and unfortunately most of them have passed away. I do not see very many retail cactus and succulent nurseries anymore but, see many wholesale or specialized nurseries located in rural areas. I think that most of the collectors that I have met tend to be over fifty years old and that is not good for the hobby.

I hope that younger people get involved in growing cactus and succulents so the hobby will continue.

I live in growing zone 11a and can grow many cactus and succulents without using a greenhouse. The main problem I have is winter rains but the average rainfall is 14 inches per year.
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ElieEstephane
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Joined: Tue Dec 13, 2016 12:10 am
Location: Lebanon (zone 11a)

Re: Old members

Post by ElieEstephane »

kuni1234567 wrote: Fri Jan 19, 2018 6:27 am I live in growing zone 11a and can grow many cactus and succulents without using a greenhouse. The main problem I have is winter rains but the average rainfall is 14 inches per year.
Did you find anything that is not hardy to zone 11a?
There are more cacti in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
One of the few cactus lovers in Lebanon (zone 11a) :mrgreen:
DaveW
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Location: Nottingham, England/UK

Re: Old members

Post by DaveW »

I have always found that a few old members tend to drift away from general Forums to more specialist ones, or now even just simply email others sharing their interests. The same applies to Societies and Journals. Pre the Internet many Succulent growers started off reading the few articles on cactus and succulents in general gardening magazines, then finding 90% of their content was of no interest to them moved to more specialist Societies and their magazines. However after a time they often began to specialise in a particular group or genus and though that journals contents were on cactus and succulents found again 90% of their contents were not of interest, particularly articles on basic cultivation. Therefore then moved on again to more specialist Societies catering for their needs such as The Mammillaria Society and others.

The problem is that robs general Forums and Journals of the more experienced members who can answer beginners questions, or write authoritative articles and provide pictures of the more uncommon plants. Therefore it is a hard balance for editors to include enough basic stuff to satisfy novices and yet include enough technical and specific material to keep advanced collectors still subscribing. I now know a few specialists in particular genera who just correspond with friends, since they say Forums and Society Journals now have little content to interest them and repeated beginners articles are a turn off for them.

That is sad because we all were beginners once and wanted to learn, so relied on others more experienced for information. Therefore loosing the "experts" in any particular group or genus means their information is no longer generally available. Beginners can find technical articles a turnoff and in my experience you always have two groups of collectors in any Forum or Society:-

First "The Gardeners" who grow the plants for their flowers and shapes and have no interest in their nomenclature or relationships and geographical distribution. At their extreme these are often also the Show People who cultivate only plants that will win shows and the ones where a fancy pot is just as, or more important than the plant it contains.

Second "The Botanists" to whom their distribution, morphology and nomenclature is a principle interest and a few marks on the plants do not matter, it is the genetic material that is important.

Most of us usually fall somewhere between the two, though tending to graduate from the first to the second group the longer we have been in the hobby. The first group seldom bother to buy authoritative books to identify their plants, relying what are essentially superficial "Coffee Table Books" with plenty of pictures for identification purposes, or these days the Internet. Whichever you choose to be is your choice since we all choose to enjoy our hobby in different ways. But the rough division above is one I have noticed from 57 years in the hobby, and one group often tends to drive out the other from general Societies of Forums.

However with specialist and non specialist free journals now appearing on the Internet each group is now being catered for more than in the days of print when it was too expensive to print real minority interest journals. The information most want is now available on the Web. The problem is most beginners do not know what to look for and where to find it, therefore the more experienced collectors on Forums need to point them in the right direction to solve their queries. After all somebody originally did it for us.
samreu
Posts: 39
Joined: Tue Dec 19, 2017 8:54 pm
Location: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Re: Old members

Post by samreu »

I am a very new member, came on board in December 2017.
My hobby background was aquarium fish for over 30+ years. DaveW's post above is a strong parallel to the fish forums I frequented. Insert "fish" into Daves' notes and you have what is today the issue with the "fish hobby" forums described to a T - ID issues, beginners vs experienced keepers, repetitive submissions boring experienced keepers, 2 groups of collectors - exact parallels, specialist sites dealing with certain families of fish vs generalists sites.
After all my time in the fish hobby and the responsibilities of daily feeding, water changes on multitudes of large aquaria every 5 days, etc, etc- I decided to move on (reluctantly) to find some new hobbies that would be less taxing time wise and allow me more freedom to travel, weekends away, etc . Like Dave I had lots of hobby books which I haven't been able to give away to younger hobbyists - which seemingly from some comments above, mirrors the situation in this hobby - the challenge of attracting younger hobbyists. I won't get into all the reasons but they are probably similar.
Back to this forum - at this early juncture, I have posted a couple of times, only, looking for some ID and some cultivation issues. I had some experience in my earlier life with plants and wanted to come back to cacti and succulents. I am certainly not contributing much at this time but look forward to doing so as I get some more experience under my belt. I am hoping/thinking of focusing on a small select group of plants to gain some deeper experience rather than trying to grow everything under the sun - I'm still sorting that out. Similarly, in fish keeping you had/have many people that kept aquariums with many types of fish and you had specialists - keeping species only tanks to observe behaviours, mating, care of offspring, etc - but this gave you a much better appreciation for the animal than just having it in a tank to look colorful like those hobbyists that would look for a yellow fish because it would look good against the blue fish they had.
So far, I have found the forum here very useful - and have gotten responses very quickly - thanks to those contributing. I live in Canada and spring will be here soon and the hobby for me should take off with some new acquisitions - and the site is proving very useful in learning - in addition to some of the books I have purchased.
Thank you to all the contributors here and don't sell short the value of this forum. I have also noticed other Canadian hobbyists on this site so that could be useful, however, given the geography of our great country, a grower in Alberta is going to have a very different growing situation than one in Ontario with the different moisture and sunlight realities.
Just my .02.
DaveW
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Joined: Thu Dec 20, 2012 2:36 pm
Location: Nottingham, England/UK

Re: Old members

Post by DaveW »

One thing that has happened in the hobby over the years in the UK is specialist Weekend's or Conventions which tend to be aimed at those past the beginners stage and are held from midday Friday until Saturday evening. Usually held in Universities who provide the accommodation, meals and lecture room whilst the students are on holiday.

The speakers have almost all visited habitat and mostly specialising their presentations are packed with habitat slides and information. Most Weekends or Conventions now import a couple of speakers from abroad, paying their air fare and providing their meals and accommodation free.

The first to do that in the UK was a now defunct organisation called "The Chileans", which in spite of it's name covered all S. American cacti. It was later taken over by "The Cactus Explorers" group which broadened it out to include N. American cacti as well. The first habitat slides I ever saw were at the first Chileans Weekend in the 1960's by an imported speaker on Uruguay. In those days no collector from the UK ever thought of going to habitat to see the plants, now some fly there on habitat trips every year, and are some of the very same people now finding the new species we all crave.

Some of the established societies eventually took up the idea, including importing specialist speakers from abroad for the weekend. At the moment we have the "British Cactus & Succulent Society Convention" which happens every four years and "The Cactus Explorers Weekend" which is held every year. Both come together this year as in the links below. Woody Minich from the USA was one of the speakers at the last BCSS Convention four years ago.

Obviously in the beginning it was down to one or two individuals to drum up enough interest for such gatherings and organise them or they never do get started, just as it was up to Daiv to organise this Forum initially.

http://society.bcss.org.uk/index.php/in ... ntion.html

This one has yet to be updated for this year.

http://www.cactusexplorers.org.uk/meeting13.htm

Whilst Britain is not as big as the USA or Canada regarding travel distances, people do come from all over the UK, since being a weekend with live in accommodation they do not have to travel back the same day. Also apart from the invited speakers the Cactus Explorers have a couple of participants from the Continent who fly in every year to attend it. Both events usually attract around 60 attendees.
kuni1234567
Posts: 87
Joined: Mon May 01, 2017 4:36 am

Re: Old members

Post by kuni1234567 »

There are many desert cactus that do not grow well in Zone 11a because the summer temperatures are not hot enough and the winter temperatures are not low enough. The cactus that do grow do not have the good long growing spines or might not flower. I have a number of Echinomastus johnsonii cactus and will see if they can grow in my conditions. They get winter rains and some summer rain but, the yearly rainfall is only about five inches per year.

I go to some cactus shows in the Los Angeles area and probably should join CSSA again. I used to go to local cactus club meetings but, only go to a few cactus shows and visit cactus nurseries in Southern California. I mostly see older people at the shows and most nurseries have very few cactus or succulents for sale. I tend to think that the cactus and succulent organizations are full of older people and it is difficult to attract younger people. I often wonder if the internet is part of the reason why the number of collectors is decreasing.
DaveW
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Joined: Thu Dec 20, 2012 2:36 pm
Location: Nottingham, England/UK

Re: Old members

Post by DaveW »

That's why we have greenhouses in the UK, our winters are not as cold as some habitats, but cold and damp and cacti will not stand the freeze thaw freeze thaw conditions of our winters, also our summers are not that warm either. It depends if you have space for some form of greenhouse structure to keep those that don't suit your climate warmer in summer?

These days if you cannot do it on a mobile phone or I-Pad youngsters do not want to know. However we never attracted a lot of youngsters in the past in the UK. Cactus collecting was usually something people did when they first got married and bought a house with garden having room for a greenhouse and stopped going out on the town every night as when they were single. New houses usually have smaller gardens (yards) in the UK since most new urban housing is often built in the large gardens of older houses, therefore people have less room for the large greenhouses many older collectors had.

People also have more hobbies and entertainment available nowadays to choose from. Also the cost of heating a greenhouse increased significantly over the years in colder climates like the UK, where you cannot really grow our plants out of doors. Strange to say we did have a bit of a pick up in members recently, but all aged over 50, though nothing like the numbers when the hobby was at it's height in the late 1960's early 1970's.
the_cheshirecat
Posts: 96
Joined: Wed Nov 15, 2017 8:44 am
Location: UK

Re: Old members

Post by the_cheshirecat »

As a new member, I have to say that stepping into a specialized forum can be a bit intimidating: I am an "expert" in my field, so being the latest dork in something else is quite humbling.
We often start with the odd cactus from the supermarket, and before we know it we're hooked with a dozen weird plants, and if you google pictures they all look very samey.
So, as annoying as it is, ID or advice on a moribund plant will be how a new member steps in.
And whilst some will disappear, some will stick to it.
I'll leave it to you to decide whether it's a good thing or not...
Ty the cheshirecat
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