One aspect of Cubits which I will sorely miss is organization of information. I liked the ability to visit a Cubit (forum here), hone in on a Forum/topic (missing here) and see what the latest offerings are, as well as what past offerings were. Even with that additional layer older posts still get lost in the mists of time.

I miss that too. Those who start threads will have to really make sure their titles are very clear.

Yes, we need more ability to add layers like in Cubits so each category of plant can become an organized unit. This seems too disjointed.

The layers at Cubits are often cited by some people as making the site too difficult, too complex, and too many clicks to get to the threads.

ATP is designed to be more simple.

Also, as we add in tagging and other features, it will become more combined.

How will that work, Trish?

Mum's the word!

Can't tell all of our secrets and good ideas before they are even implemented!

Just trust that if Dave is working on it - it will work smoothly and in a great way.

Can't wait for your rolling out tagging. I find other unorganized, lump everything together web sites frustrating, needlessly cumbersome wasteful of time.

Yes, one of my Forums has quite a list of threads now.
We had a Nursery Forum, A miniature plant Forum and several others that made it fast and easy to see where it was you wanted to go on the site.
Will be interesting to see how the new surprise works.

I hated the layers at Cubits. I love the format here. Cubits was too confusing and you never knew were to look or were to post. Here it is a snap to check new threads since your last visit plus make new posts.

Maybe, instead of an extra layer, a site map that lists related forums together.
Like:
gardening
plants
regional gardening
not exactly gardening

A lot like this - I think i'll suggest it to Dave:
http://garden.org/forums/


My theory is that, as the number of forums grows they will become more focused with fewer "live" threads each.
For example, "seeds" is too broad for my taste, but I tend to be a 'splotter" rather than a "lumper".

This would be much too sub-divided:
Seed Trading
Seed Collecting
Ninja Seed Snatching
Polite Seed Snatching
Seed Cleaning
Seed Storing
Mailing Seeds
Buying from Seed Vendors
Becoming a Seed Vendor
Seed Identification
Breaking Dormancy (Stratification)
Winter Sowing
Seed Germination Indoors
Direct Sowing Annuals
Direct Sowing Biennials
Direct Sowing Perennials
Direct Sowing Tropical Perennials

Finding a middle road will presumably be an ongoing journey, like dividing and pruning a perennial.

Corey

Layering was great and easy to use and understand once you had the concept. Just think of a file cabinet (cubit). Inside the file cabinet are the folders (forums), each one labeled with what's inside the folder. Inside the folder contains all the information (threads) pertaining to the label on the folder. If you were looking for a thread about apples, look in the "fruit folder".

The problem was that some cubit owners may not have been completely organized or could have been more organized when doing their cubits. I too had problems tracking information in some cubits because they weren't organized and were pretty much a jumbled mess.

I liked the format at cubits. True, people tended not to visit all the cubits, but within a good cubit, all aspects of the subject could be hit. In Rick's example about seeds, within the seed cubit we had forums dealing with many of those topics about seeds. The good thing there is that if you're not interested in wintersowing, you just don't open that forum. I think that here subjects will be more jumbled and threads eventually buried pretty deep. The only other option is a sticky or searching.

Another example:We had threads about tomatoes in the seed forum which are now in the vegetable forum I think. I suspect we'll have new threads about tomatoes in the seed forum here. Why? We discuss growing from seeds, and we grow tomatoes from seed, too. We discuss growing them under lights, wintersowing them, choosing types by DTM for your zone... all kinds of stuff. Conversation will naturally drift to which is the more disease resistant, or which have better flavor, but the subject at hand is growing them from seeds. I won't frequent the veggie forum I know. I'm not interested in what a farmer in Idaho is growing on his farm, or how to grow corn. I only grow tomatoes, and I grow them from seeds. That's my area of interest.

Karen

You mean this is all you're interested in?
But, there's so much MORE!

Hey Linda! You're back. Good to see you girlfriend.

Not at all. I'm interested in wintersowing too But really, I'm not interested in veggie gardening in general. I like pretty flowers and tomatoes. And seeds. And coleus from cuttings. And new hybrid echinaceas. You get the ideas.

But I'm not interested in your cabbage, or someone else's onions... Usually the only time I visit actual veggie forums is for information about a specific problem with tomatoes, something like that.

Karen

Hated the format at Cubits. Haven't been back there since ATP was launched.

Simplicity is the way to go.

I think the problem with cubits was that there were dozens of cubits each with a forum or a few (mostly-empty) threads about any given topic like 'seed germination".

Corey

Well, we're here now

Let's grow!