Organizing this forum

annafl

Esteemed Member
Thanks, Dean!

My PC has been in the shop the past few days so I haven't been able to respond. An ID area or gallery was Marie's idea which I took to Dean. He is willing to organize it in any way we think would work best for us. This is what he wrote as his idea:

I am open to any suggestions as to how to organize or display.

Note that I believe I can list the topics in alphabetic or numeric order. In other words, if people could list along the lines of CID#101, CID#102, etc. --- then the yet to be named plants would have a reference number, and they would be listed in an order that was easy to find and keep track of to reference later.


My suggestion is that once the croton has been adequately ID'd, as per the poster, he or she would be able to delete the post or photo so as not to clutter the area. That way, only the ones that still needed to be id'd would be displayed.

If the forum continues as is, it's no better than posting in the usual forum, in my opinion. I think a gallery of photos as thumbnails or just photos would be best, and once someone clicks on it, one is able to see who posted, any text, and the next person could post their ideas at the site.

Please continue with other suggestions. I think Dean will be monitoring this to see what he can do to improve it. This is our chance for input.:D
 
I think we should recommend that close-up photos of mature leaves be posted. It is so difficult to ID from a flush of new growth.

We could also organize the posted groupings a bit more by leaf shape or by color.

Sometimes the origin of the plant helps too, i.ei an older home in Tampa, Dominican Republic, etc.
 
I think we should recommend that close-up photos of mature leaves be posted. It is so difficult to ID from a flush of new growth.

We could also organize the posted groupings a bit more by leaf shape or by color.

Sometimes the origin of the plant helps too, i.ei an older home in Tampa, Dominican Republic, etc.

Marie, Good points! I also suggest that a few mature leaf photos be posted with a size reference (ruler) for scale. Sometimes a photo of the leaf underside can help with a ID. Also important will be light conditions (shade, part sun, full sun) the plant is growing in.
 
About the only thing I can offer so far regarding this sub-forum is to give someone moderating rights so they will be able to delete the posts once a satisfactory ID has been made. I can not think of any mechanisms that will allow moving things around and organizing them in any manner other than my original numerical/alphabetical hierarchy. There may be a sort for date of topic origination, but then any new posts to that topic would stay wherever the original posts resided.

Of course the wiki allows for all sorts of customizations, with the sky pretty much as the limit. But I will have to leave these things to your imagination - although I am willing to help and advise as necessary.
 
Of course the wiki allows for all sorts of customizations, with the sky pretty much as the limit. But I will have to leave these things to your imagination - although I am willing to help and advise as necessary.

Maybe we should have the Gallery of Unknowns in the wiki?
 
My concern is that however you guys decide to do it, you will have to come up with some way to temporarily name the plant in question - just so you can refer to it. That is why I suggested a naming protocol of some kind that would automatically sort them. Then by using the forum you could sort and find #101 or #163, etc. And you could keep them all listed that way so in the future you could go back and question #121 easily. Once named you could still keep the number as an AKA - for example Batik (AKA #121)

But the problem is getting people to all do the same thing.
 
My concern about having it in the wiki is that it wouldn't get visited as often. Dean, is it possible to have a gallery of numbered photos or thumbnails that a visitor could click on and read the history and anything else the poster wants to add (scale, other photos of mature leaves, etc)? Maybe there could be a special icon, asterisk or other mark that the original poster could add by editing to signify that it's been correctly identified? Then they could remain in the gallery and people would know which have not been identified yet. Is it possible for the photos to be numbered automatically, in order, by the website? If not, maybe we could just try and see if people could remember to number them consecutively.

Alternatively, if it ends up in the wiki, I wouldn't mind being the intermediary and post them for others and number them. The only thing is that sometimes I am not home for a few days and people might be frustrated if they had to wait.

I would love to start trying something out to see if it would work! What are your suggestions, Dean?
 
Counting on people to follow protocol and label/number things accordingly, or having special symbols to designate things is destined to failure - unless someone is actively managing it. So, it is possible (with moderating privileges) for someone to go back and re-label the title of topics so they would have these numbers and/or signals - as it is the title that can do the sorting in the forum.

You can or course include a link to a wiki page in the topic so it would be easy to get to a wiki page and return.

Or as an alternative - check out the "Albums" feature here - in the green NavBar at the top. You may be able to utilize that somehow to accomplish some things. I haven't explored it that much. But perhaps there could be an unidentified, and an identified album, that photos could be easily moved from posts and between those albums, as it is all within the forum software. If you do explore there, and find it promising, let me know - and I can investigate further, as maybe with moderating rights - more moving and tweaking things would be possible.
 
Dean, personally, I think the Album feature could work very well. The only thing missing is that there's no possible interaction with others. In other words, those that view each photo cannot post a guess at the site. They would have to come to the forum and post there. I think it would discourage people from giving their suggestions. Is it possible to make it interactive?

Other than that, the moderator could number the photos in the title area, the album cover could be the main plant photo, and when you click on that, the poster can post as many views of the plant available, even over a period of time, and single mature leaves, seasons, etc. The poster could also put comments in the description area. The poster can edit the photos and the description at any time. As I said, the only thing missing is the ability for other viewers to add comments/guesses at the photo site. Can this ability be added?

Also, the moderator could place an icon of some sort by the title once it is identified correctly.

Please let us know if the interactive ability is possible.

Ana
 
What I was hoping for when this was originally proposed was a place to post pictures and information of those crotons that we have not been able to identify - an archive like the wiki. I think when forum members want to post a picture for an ID, that should go in the regular forum - that's a lot of the activity there anyway. A Gallery of the Unknowns would be when we've been unable to give an ID but the croton looks like it would have been named ( in other words, it's a winner ). The croton that's now in the wiki as Tim Anderson is an example. That's not its name, it's a place holder. Yet the plant is superior and probably was named at one time. To have such a gallery would allow us at some point to show it to Bob Alonso, Mark Hooten, Johnny Shelton or any other expert to see if they could shed any light.
 
Note that each photo in an album has a place to add comments. I know it would be better if there were only one place to leave comments for an album, if an album was designed to have multiple pics of the same plant. But an alternative would be to add a description to the first photo (each photo can have a description) asking that all comments be made there.
 
Notice that I have renamed some of the ID topics in an attempt to demonstrate a possible solution.

If you check down near the bottom in the forum listing, you will see an option for displaying the threads/topics. Note that the default is by last post time. This is how you are familiar with displaying. But if you change that to Topic Title, and click the Ascending option, then the topics will be displayed alphabetically/numerically with the "-" symbol superseding any letters or numbers.

So if you set the forum to those options, then everything would be grouped as I have demonstrated - starting with -UK101 (Unknown 101) and so on. You could then change that to -TID101 (Tentative ID 101) when you have a tentative ID. And even a -PID101 (Positive ID 101) when sure. This way all -UK, -TID, -PID, would be grouped at the top of the page, and in order according to their number. And everything would remain in a format everyone is familiar with. A user could shift back and forth between the display options if wanting to view as the latest reply/post instead, so as not to miss any new comments. In addition, for those that don't know, there is also a way to check new posts by using the "What's New" option in the green NavBar.
 
Dean, I think that would work. So each person could edit their own post to reflect TID or PID? They also wouldn't need to remember what number their post is, it would automatically be done for them?

Marie, I see what you're saying. If someone just forgot what their plant is, or has a plant that is nice, but may not be naming material, it should be posted in the regular forum. If one has a plant that one is pretty sure is named, but that person doesn't know the name, it would go in this forum?

I wish others would give input to this forum. Of all people, I don't think I should be the one to decide anything. Do people think this forum is not a good idea? Anyone?:confused:
 
Marie, I see what you're saying. If someone just forgot what their plant is, or has a plant that is nice, but may not be naming material, it should be posted in the regular forum. If one has a plant that one is pretty sure is named, but that person doesn't know the name, it would go in this forum?:

Not quite. A photo would go in the Gallery (wiki or forum) after our attempts to name it have failed. That way we would have a photo record of those not named. Just like a photo moves into the wiki after it is named if it's a new cultivar.

A lot of this is sounding way too complicated and I fear impossible to maintain if we number and record all ID requests.
 
An example of other cultivars that could go in this gallery would be the ones only known as a Davis hybrid or Davis estate. Right now they are not in the wiki but are known to be part of the Davis collection.
 
Here are my thoughts. A photo is posted in the reg. forum for ID as it has been done in the past. After those attempts have failed (put a time frame of 30 days or so) the Croton in question is moved (by the orig. poster) to the "Name That Croton" sub forum. If all attempts fail in the sub forum (time framed 30 days or so) then the Croton in question is placed in the Wiki category of unknowns. When the Croton is moved to the Wiki category of unknowns the thread is then removed from the "Name That Croton" sub forum. A quick link to the Wiki unknowns pinned in the "Name That Croton" sub forum. Once in the Wiki of unknowns all discussion for ID can take place on the unknowns Wiki page. Once a ID is made it is then placed in its rightful name place in the Wiki.
 
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