I keep going to this group with the intention of posting but never seem to be able to find the right category and so end up doing nothing. I have written this before but thought I might reiterate it - it is not a criticism but intended as a suggestion as to how activity levels can be made to reach a critical mass. This discussion forum would work much better with no structure at all. Structure of the kind we have here just constricts. Much better to have let the discussion evolve on its own. You will get some off topic stuff but the community will find its own equilibrium and that will work much better than a predetermined filling system. The only organisation would be topic based and topics would be created by users. A discussion would then take place within the topic. Topics that are current, lie at the top of a topic list. The whole becomes a searchable archive over time. Google groups seems to work like this.

I didn't twig to this, but you are absolutely correct. Like Alex, I have never been able to figure out where things are, and I am sure there are all sorts of things buried in some obscure corner which I would be fascinated by, but will never see because I don't know of its existence or location. There is a caution here, though: if one is going to dump the structure, it is critical that there be a robust search function. The NAFEX site is built on "no structure", everything is archived, (and hence ostensibly retrievable), but in the absence of a search function it is just as buried as the data in the HON site.

I don't agree with you two at all. But I'm open to hearing the crowd roar. I admit there's not huge benefit for me personally in spending hours editing some sense of structure into this forum. Nor have I intended to hold anyone back from participating. I truly try to gently nudge the creation of new topic threads around absolutely fascinating tangents. And yes, many aspects of orcharding are interrelated. I try to accomodate that until the point I see discussion within one topic being about another topic entirely. The search engine ability at grou.ps seems totally adequate... leaving me to wonder if either of you have even tried using it! Even so, I have found searching archives elsewhere to be a piss poor use of my time. What's wrong with having one fruit growing site with coherence? Seriously. And David, I am going to highlight your continuing woes about needing to look at the forum index to decide which message threads might hold something of interest. It's a personal choice not to explore what's been taking place because you don't know going in what's inside. The categories and message titles are my responsibility in a sense as "editor" to help make access to ideas clear. I am open to feedback on how I'm doing with that at any time. Additionally, I go through messages and try to place active links where someone refers to another thread already underway. Allowing this to become a hodgepodge in the name of "free expression" or whatever you want to call this proprosal doesn't interest me. Places like that exist already all over the Internet. Here we have the ability to create a "topic" and that in turn simply gets assigned to a "category" so others can better access an ongoing discussion. There are no limts to quickly creating a new topic... which indeed strikes me as loose and free.

In answer to your question about the search engine function in gou.ps; no, I have not used it; I didn't know there was one. I am in complete agreement that "archives" with no search feature are useless. I don't use the NAFEX site for exactly this reason. But I do - and have - used the search function in several Yahoo groups to which I subscribe (in spinning, weaving, and spinning wheels), and have turned up answers to several questions which I had, and which had been answered in previous postings, sometimes years before. Here the thread structure is explicit and graphic. I recognise that you are doing absolutely the best you can within the constraints of what you have to work with (the grou.ps folk). I agree with you that creating threads (which I think is really what you are doing with the categorization, although I am open to being disabused of this notion), makes information far more coherent, and ought to make it more useful. I think the real problem is that I have not spent the time needed to figure out where things are and how they fit together. Site navigation is far from intuitive, and I still have no real understanding of the tree behind where I am, the relationship of the bits to each other, or how one gets from one place to another. But, for goodness sake, don't take this as criticism of you, Mike. I think you are doing an outstanding job. The failure is wholly mine. Or, the grou.ps design. (Usability is an incredibly difficult challenge in anything beyond the simplest software design.)

Michael, I can see you have/are putting a lot of work into this and that's the number one thing. Yesterday when I was posting in the category Fungal Disease , I was interested in scab control per se . I also wanted to find out more about EM. In 2009 scab reality I found your post on EM, Fish, Neem and wanted to ask about that. My query was placed in the message thread 2009 scab reality and thereby by default was linked to your post as a reply . The issue here is that someone coming along wanting to search the archive will not find a thread that has been created organically but a number of disaggregated messages subjectively filed in one of several possible places - I could have posted in the EM category but didn't because I was interested in your post in the scab reality bucket. I then wanted to tell people about my experience with soap/bicarb. Ideally I would have created a new unlinked message and started a thread about this. This issue related to scab but also powdery mildew so the scab reality bucket is only partially appropriate ... and so on. Am I making sense? Anyway, I do think that allowing the natural evolution of threads will be critical if this site is going to work. I have been here before and tried myself to impose a rational structure on a forum and all it did is inhibit the development of the site. You are onto a very good thing here and these comments are simply intended to help make it happen.

Okay Alex. Here we go. I can see now that this site does not work for literalists. So I have to ask the question: Do we opt for anarchy and the proven dysfunction of threads never revisited? Or do we challenge you to loosen up? I can tell you have much to contribute so I hope for the latter. Let's take your story of scab indecision. You want to start a post on "scab control" related to every possible means ever attempted, fine... just do it. You want to start a post on specifically using bicarbonate for scab, fine... just do it. You want to start a post examining my specific suggestions to build orchard health for scab, fine... just do it. I think we have a delightful organic structure here, much like the soil food web. Some of the strands in this web are clearly defined. Yet these merge and divert into entirely new themes. Some are delightful cul de sacs in their own right. What we need is more strands not one big mess. I spent time this morning explaining how the search engine works - what a great tool for pulling together everyone's disparate take on a subject. And yet how great it is that any member can also specify a particular direction and draw other growers in that way as well. Be confident, mon. Start new threads with titles that DEFINE AND PROMOTE the direction you intend. It's okay that a new thread parallels an existing thread. Don't be hung up by a literal interpretation of titles and some inner notion that we're writing a structured book here. All I’m asking is that folks stay reasonably on topic. You want to go in a new direction, start a new topic. This is telling, in my opinion. About ten days ago Emily posted a provocative bit on the Organic Tree Fruit Association’s listserve about stretching the organic rules. Not one response continued the conversation on that site. NOT ONE. I took her “bit” and wrapped it into a thread called Certification Conundrum… and yes, this motley crew of holistic-minded growers took it on and made it shine. Crikey. You can certainly start a new forum and call it the "Organic Anarchist" or whatever you wish. I'll happily check it out. But here we are going to have a multitude of topics defined by the poster's intent that hang nicely in an organized closet of categories. What we have going here is better than anything I've ever seen on the web for fruit growers.

Wow, If you respond to friends like that how do you deal with your enemies? This site has to be a community and you seem to want to run it as a dictatorship. It just won't work like that. There is plenty of precedent.

I have to chime in here. I am a self described idiot when it comes to computer prowess, but unless I have missed something I don't see what all the fuss is about. I have been poking around for months here, and making some entries and I have not had a single issue with the site. It seems far more organized than others i have seen online, makes sense structure wise, and has been alot of fun, frankly. This current thread has had a positive outcome, however in that I will be sending out my first financial contribution to Michael in appreciation for what I see is a great resource. I am sure you all feel the same.

Voltaire, that great French orchardist, said "the better is the enemy of the good". His American twin, T. Bert Lance pronounced "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". My two cents worth from Nova Scotia: both the search engine and the forum index work quite well when I need to look for a specific topic; checking in periodically at the main page news feed often introduces a new topic that I hadn't been looking for but fascinates nonetheless; and the growing accumulation of informed discussions, results from experimentation and different approaches is impressive, probably unique and certainly an invaluable resource for the journey. Thank you, Michael!