This addresses the numerous situations that seem to pop up almost daily with using our grou.ps site. No one is more frustrated than I. I sent this message today to the grou.ps team via the young man who heads up this free software effort: Hello Emre, I've enjoyed the potential of our orchard networking site at http://grou.ps/groworganicapples/home. But like so many others, big questions continue as to the ability of the grou.ps team to keep up with functionality issues and feature suggestions. I've made contributions on the support pages... but see most of that as one big mess (which understandably results when many people with differing abilities to stay organized are involved). I have empathy for what all you and the others are trying to offer here... the challenges are recognizably great... but at what point do things finally come together? And so I'm writing you one-to-one. Creating a new support post or making entries on a features wiki page is apparently not an effective way to get messages through. It seems every day I have to "explain" something new to my members as to why "such and such" is currently not working on grou.ps. One week posts are not forwarded, then one can't upload a photo, then one can't change a wiki page title, then one can't edit a misspelled comment, then one can't send in a joining request... and then all those things repeat and repeat and repeat. I would think more financial resources are needed to make reliable staff time possible. I have no idea how or why you core guys are motivated to do this. But I sincerely have to ask one-to-one, right now on an adult level: Are we going to soon have reliable functionality at grou.ps? Can legitmate and intelligent suggestions for simple features and editing ability be dealt with quicker? What would it take that's missing now? I really don't care about grander bell and whistles -- videos and the like -- I just want basic functionality so my members can happily be involved with the community orchard movement that matters to me. I have no intention to put burdens on your shoulders. I simply want you to speak "on the level" with me now. Here. Now. One-to-one. I am at a loss why a start-up "beta operation" can't get beyond the fundamental basics that should be obviously implicit. Priorities should not be that hard to determine for people who simply wish to communicate creatively. Your response will be important to me. Just as you have offered this free service, I have put in many hours offering my free service via setting up our apple grou.ps site. I'm now faced with having to make a good decision if "our group" should continue to stay with "your grou.ps". I admire what you aimed to do, Emre. I need to know that you and your team are indeed capable of pulling it off. Thanks for listening. Michael

This is potentially a fantastic resource but it took days for my initial "sign up" to come live and the site is sloooow. As an aspiring holistic grower I need a site like this to work but initial impressions are that the pace isn't there. How can I help to make this better?

Ya know... sending that "private message from the administrator" about membership criteria yesterday revealed that none of you could email me back directly. And the folks who did reply (via the convoluted pathways of this site) all mentioned some of the frustrations that were apparent a year ago. So where do we go from here? I really like the ongoing nature of our discussion forum. I don't know if Claude would concur as regards the effectiveness of the varietal pages set up in the wiki section. Photos are a hodgepodge to the extent that each of you submitting such makes relevant links in written posts. David asked for a help page to be set up, but to be honest, I think much of the confusion of how to use this grou.ps site has been addressed in posts within this 'Making it Better" category... which isn't to say that someone couldn't set up a wiki page to organize that better. Alex's offer to get involved fell to the wayside as I was out of the loop for a few months, and now, as a New Zealand grower, he's in a similar harvest wayside. (But I'll be contacting you soon, lad!) Basically, if we indeed keep this set-up, we need others involved who are able to deal with the grou.ps lads and hold them to task. Go to http://grou.ps/groudotps if you want to truly see the frustration I’ve faced. I have not revisited that organizational mess since I originally started this thread. We could also look at transferring this community orchard effort to another social networking site. I paid the expenses to set this one up -- and put in mucho time, along with Jim -- so that shift is not currently on my radar. I'm more inclined to make this work but know that if some of the more enlightened growers are frustrated by the mechanics, then we are falling short of our potential. This is an important effort as the communications we are having on the grower level about orchard health don’t occur elsewhere in depth. I may be the “big picture head” on the opening page (not my doing!) but that doesn’t mean I have all the answers to things we need to figure out. This is not unlike figuring the challenges of our orchard sites… only we don’t have any damn deer here chomping our buds!

I am not sure I see things quite the same way as Michael. Nor do I see the issues as simply technical, to be solved by moving to another provider (God forbid!). Rather, I suspect we may be the victims of too much complexity. We have the discussion forum, Wikis, Blogs, Photos and files, all of which may be used to post information. And within the Discussion, there are multiple threads. Messages posted in some places get flagged by email message alerts; others don't. And in the absence of any means of determining where and when information can be found, it is lost. (The very fact that I am typing this here is a prime example of this - I literally stumbled across it, together with the message above from Michael in which he quotes my Private Message to him. I had received no response from him, and interpreted this lack of response as evidence of possible lack of delivery, (I received no email alert that Michael had posted a response in this section). It seems to me that one thing which would help is some guidance (in a place which is obvious to everyone) as to where it is envisioned material of various types should be posted. Maybe a concrete example would help: Claude wanted help identifying an unknown apple. He posted a message (I am no longer sure where), followed by a photo - in the photo section. It tried to respond, but couldn't find where to do so, so posted my response attached to the photo. Claude responded to my response, again in the photo section. I was aware of Claude's original question, because I got an email alert, with the text. I was unaware that Claude had responded, because I received no notification. Michael makes references in posts in the Making it Better category, (which I was equally unaware of until Michael's message above made reference to it), to the difference between this site and plain old email distribution lists like NAFEX, and rather implies (although I am not at all sure this is his intention) that if one cannot figure out how to use the complexities of the HON site, one should just go off to one of the simpler sites and leave the smarter users to play. I am not so ready to dismiss the effort. I would even volunteer to write some sort of guide as to how to use the site effectively, but since I can't figure it out myself, I am probably not the best person to do so.

The randomness of postings being distributed to individual emails has been one of the factors holding us back. But as David just discovered, going within the categories (of the Discussion Forum) and viewing ongoing threads is how you access ongoing dialogue. And since you have to be on this site to interact, the email notification is really more an "extra" than vital beyond all measure. I check this site regularly to see the newest postings and then enter in accordingly. My role as "forum editor" involves keeping thread titles logical and within the right category. Sometimes a reply should be its own message, and more than a few of you have gotten a private email from me asking you to resubmit such a reply under its own title. The big weakness of the grou.ps format is that its aspects are not that well integrated with each other in terms of navigating around directly within the site. When some of you refer to the site being “too slow” it’s this shortcoming that lies at the heart of the problem. (Remember, I say this speaking as one with a dial-up connection!) I won’t be moving us to another site despite such challenges, rather holding onto the hope that the “grou.ps guys” with all their enthusiasm and savvy will someday get it together for our little group of committed fruit growers. I do want to stress that my reference to the NAFEX discussion list serve (and others) in Orchard DIscussion 101 is all about guiding people just starting out to appropriate fruit sites. And not at all about being able to “handle” the complexities of this HON site with all of its social networking options. I’m going to write a separate post about the recent replies to that administrative message about “opening up” our forum… and this will be better explained there.

I vigorously disagree with Michael's suggestion that email notifications are "an extra" which is unnecessary. Humans process knowledge quite efficiently based on cues. The first step is a quick assessment of the relevance of the information being presented, followed by a second, more detailed examination of those items which pass the first screen. Think of driving - one is bombarded with stimuli from all sides. From the multiple cues, one chooses (in milliseconds) those to which attention should be directed. Similarly, one is flooded with cues from the net, from which one chooses those to which attention will be directed, as of interest or importance. NAFEX (or the Canadian Medical Society, or Google Weaving group, to which I also belong) send me alerts with titles, which I use to determine whether the subject is worth my devoting the time needed to pursue the subject or topic in question. In the absence of such cues, and no information on where and when new information has been posted, (as it may be anywhere over a wide range of fora), I will not devote the time needed. (And this is particularly relevant for those, like Michael, on dial-up)

I am all for email notifcation of each and every post. But that feature has proven to work randomly and there's nothing I can do about it directly... though I do register our unhappiness on occasion. I depend on going on the site regularly to see who responded to whatever aptly-named thread. This isn't a philosophical statement... it's just how it is until the grou.ps tech team gets its act together more consistently.