That was a long post and I read every word. Thanks for taking the time to write it all. If you welcome requests for trades, then for you it's not a problem so you have no angst. In fact you invite people to contact you as at the bottom of each of your posts you have a notice that you have elephant ears for sale. Also, in looking at your plant list (more EEs than I ever knew existed!), the majority of your plants are listed as available to others.

pirl does not have an invitation to sell plants on her posts. In looking at her (very impressive!) list I only looked at the first 400, but I saw zero listed for sale.

It would be lovely if folks, whether new or not, would obey the rules. The main question was whether or not to report these people to Dave.

I'll stop at that.

A big thank you to Greene for recognizing the purpose of this thread!

If anyone doubts my trading history they can see it here:

wow pirl, you have did a lot of trading!

I have done a lot of trading and now have earned retirement!

greene said:That was a long post and I read every word. Thanks for taking the time to write it all. If you welcome requests for trades, then for you it's not a problem so you have no angst.

Thanks for reading it, sadly I may have more angst than you think!
You see, I'm quite the opposite of the original poster, as such, every time I open my email and I DONT see a request for plants, I get a fresh dose of angst...

greene said:In fact you invite people to contact you as at the bottom of each of your posts you have a notice that you have elephant ears for sale. Also, in looking at your plant list (more EEs than I ever knew existed!), the majority of your plants are listed as available to others.

Yes, they are listed as available, even tho many of them aren't easy for me to part with( I only have one, or it's a plant I've sworn to not sell etc) I still mark them available to create interest, maybe for the right offer they are available!

greene said:The main question was whether or not to report these people to Dave.

I'll stop at that.

Dave specifically said he does not want to be the police, I don't want him to be either!

Just to be clear, I am in my thirties, I have issues with just about every part of my body, Nothing's working right any more... And I'm not just "getting older"
It's not so easy for me to get out and dig up this stuff either, but rather than these health issue hold me back, they're my inspiration to push on... Without my garden I'm not sure what I'd do. I wouldn't have that garden were it not for perfect strangers trusting me to follow thru on my word.
You'll also have a hard time finding someone with less faith in humanity, most folks I see are a walking waste of my oxygen, I generally expect the worse from each of us...it's still not fair for me to judge each and every one as such, that would be a (an even more) miserable existence...
One of my biggest joys in gardening is sharing, and being shared with, again, that's why I'm here, not just to share plants, but to trade tales, commiserate our woes... Even show off a little... I think those are the same for us all.
Sharing/swapping/trading is where all my best plants have come from. And as I said before, good friends too!

This site has grown a lot since I joined, since I really only take advantage of a small portion of atp, it's hard for me to know how much it's grown.
With growth comes change, whether you think it's good or bad, it's happening! Several very large and popular garden sites are on a serious decline, (they should be, their lame compared to the layout and the membership here!)
We are going have to adjust to that, folks we don't really want to talk to will be showing back up, random idiots will pop up and ask questions that make you head spin, and needy and greedy pests will... Well pester you...

It's up to each of us how we react to these things as they affect us.
The integrity of atp depends upon the members.

I'm not certain there's any real difference of opinion here, or at least there is little difference off outcome. I may be wrong.

One person has angst or maybe even a degree of resentment when new people or uncaring people don't see the rules or ignore the rules or get pushy and greedy.

One person doesn't mind saying "no".

Dave's rule is "don't ask unless it's offered", so that establishes what is "proper" for this community. No guilt-tripping!

(I always figured that if someone wanted to sneak around that rule, they would email or post lavish praise and interest, and maybe ask if the owner knows where THEY can go to order a plant like that. It would be pushing the limit to add "Boy, I would trade this or this or THIS to get a plant like THAT ... or pay up to $XX!" Then stop just short of asking for a trade or purchase. Why even break a rule that's so easy to bend? Even jerks, I would think, would understand that polite-and-wistful is more likely to be rewarded than pushy-and-obnoxious. That's why I would assume that most violators are ignorant rather than defiant)

Dave doesn't think it would be good for the site to have "enforcement" unless something gets abusive.

I know one site where many scammers have tried to get free seeds over the years, and the moderator tries to track them through IP addresses, and maintained a list of known aliases. That enforcement does leave a bad taste.

I think we all are at least somewhat irritated by really selfish, uncaring people who want something for nothing and get mean if denied.

Probably most of us wouldn't want to beat someone up for an honest, polite request if they never noticed the warning.

All that said, I see both sides. I lean towards discouraging greedy people from taking advantage of generous people ... but we're all really lucky! Dave made the decision, so we don't even need to think about it.

Swayback, since your posts, meaningful as they are, do not address the original question posed by the OP pirl, might I respectfully recommend you visit a thread on ATP called Happy People - Open Thread. It's a good place to tell folks how happy you are to share your plants.

I don't know that pirl was so irritated that she was asked, per say, but that the person asking was rude in the way they asked and completed their demand with instructions. That would irritate me also, even if I DID have the plants listed for trade. I would decline just for spite I think a real issue here is using curtsey and manners. Be polite, be to the point and accept no for an answer.

I do think (not in pirl's case) that some members however indicate they are interested in trading but then do not do a very good job of keeping their trade list up to date. There have been times I have been interested in a plant someone had listed a year or two ago. Even though it may not be listed for trade, it is obvious they have other things for trade and the list is outdated. I don't see the harm in sending a short polite inquiry asking if they have it available for trade. I think it is important for members to update their list a couple times a year or more often if needed so that other members can tell clearly what is is or isn't available. This would of course do nothing for the folks coming in off the internet through a search or people who just join and ask for plants. But it would make trading a little nicer for those of us who are regular members.

I've never looked at the plant lists before seeing this thread so am approaching this from the position of someone not familiar with how they work and also has never tried to trade or sell on ATP. Also, if people don't make contact via the list from the direct link on the left the following may be irrelevant. But, when I click on plant lists in the left navigation bar I come to a page entitled "Plant inventory, trading and selling lists". That gives me, the new viewer, the impression that the lists are at least partially for trading and selling. I understand from reading this thread that a list even where trading and selling isn't expected can still be useful to others, otherwise I might wonder why have a public one. I might also assume that if someone has marked "want" for a plant/s then they might be interested in some kind of exchange.

Would it be possible to add another column to the plant lists table and indicate therein for each person, maybe with an icon or a yes or no, whether that person is actively looking to sell or trade? Also a note at the top under "Plant inventory, trading and selling lists" that one is only expected to contact those marked as actively seeking to trade or sell and not anyone marked "no contact" by icon or whatever means? Hope I'm not misunderstanding the problem now that I've poked my nose into unfamiliar territory!

I wonder what the lists look like for mobile users?

>> but that the person asking was rude in the way they asked
>> I think a real issue here is using curtsey and manners.
>> short polite inquiry asking if they have it available for trade.

I agreed with everything you said.

>> Would it be possible to add another column to the plant lists table and indicate therein for each person, maybe with an icon or a yes or no, whether that person is actively looking to sell or trade?

Sue, I almost answered: "but that is ALREADY prominent when you go to a person's Plant list - the No-Trade plants aren't even IN that persons "Trade" or "Sell" categories!"

Then I realized that people who jay-walk when requesting plants are almost always NOT going from a person's Plant List. They probably saw the plant in our database, one second after a Google query. We might think they would see the "HAVE" and "WANT" categories.

Probably some people are already saying:
- - - "Want, Have ... that's too complicated, I'll just ask for it."

Would they do much better if there were four lists?
"Want"
"Have"
"Trade"
"Sell"

Yes, it does seem to depend on how one gets to a person's list. This is what one sees if going from the Plant List link in the left navigation bar:

http://garden.org/lists/

All it says at the top is "Plant inventory, trading and selling lists", followed by a list of users with nothing to indicate up front who is willing to sell or trade, and it isn't necessarily clear when clicking on a person's list either.

However, I did discover after my previous post that if one goes a different route to peoples' lists, and now I can't remember how I did it of course, one does get the notice about not bugging people for plants.

Perhaps at the top of a person's page, where it states in boldface type USER A's PLANT LIST, you could type USER A's NOT FOR SALE PLANT LIST. And yes, I know a lot of folks won't pay any attention to that, but perhaps some will and it might eventually lessen the aggravation. and new ATP members will catch on quickly.

Well not to make light of Pirl's concern, but I don't know if anything really needs to BE changed. There will always be those that are rude-will just be rude anyway. I don't know that there has been a lot of members complaining about this as an ongoing problem. ?

I think Pirl was more venting her aggravation than anything. I do think she has a good idea with asking for a member to be removed from the site if they are going around pestering people for plants repeatedly and being rude about it. A warning perhaps? Then banning them. I can see where once in a while a person may come here only to be a trouble maker (troll?) and outright banning those few bad apples who continually harass members would be the only fix for that.

That seems a little extreme.

well it is extreme, if the behavior warrants that. I know on DG we did have someone doing just that. Going from forum to forum begging for free plants and then signing up w multiple user names and just crazy stuff. Setting up trades and never sending out her part. She got banned and came back a while later under yet another name.

Like I said, I don't think we have a problem with that here, at least not that I have experienced. But just saying once in a while that does happen.

I remember that DG one! She was tenacious!

If it's the same one I remember, she told a sad story of being unable to buy plants because she was a poor widow, but she needed plants because she had just acquired 28 acres of bare land. I recall wishing I could be poor enough to have 28 acres.

I also remember her and I was ashamed that she was a moocher from AL. Get a clue woman, you might have a few responses but every time you posted you had your hand out.

zuzu said:If it's the same one I remember, she told a sad story of being unable to buy plants because she was a poor widow, but she needed plants because she had just acquired 28 acres of bare land. I recall wishing I could be poor enough to have 28 acres.

Good one, Zuzu. I've stayed out of this conversation since I really haven't had that experience and I'm not sure what I would do in Pirl's situation. Now that I'm older, I probably wouldn't be as nice about it as she has been. And yes banning someone from the site would be extreme, but being such a pest is extreme and like deserves like. I don't think anyone would suggest this for a first time offense ... some people just don't get it but once it's pointed out, they understand and move on. But if someone is persistent and goes to the extreme that the person you mentioned from DG did ... making up new names, etc., then something needs to be done. That's forcing the rest of us to tolerate their rudeness. You can only ignore someone so long.