The whole idea of a group swap is the saved postage. Not doing 20 individual swaps and all that mailing.

Delighted that it is set up to allow many swaps to access centralized information. I've hosted several swaps and would be interested in hosting a themed swap sometime. Those of us who are missing hosting and participating in several swaps each year may find a new home.

As I type this the post count on this thread is 143 and still nothing has been decided.

Greene: Too many chiefs and not enough Indians?

Plenty has been decided.

Greene,

This thread is to generate ideas. A new thread will be started later this week to show the culmination of the ideas. I was busy all last week with work and a sick dog. Monday and Tuesday were the days I took off of work to work on this. Please have patience. Rome wasn't built in a day. (Nor was the Piggy Swap, I imagine.)

I thought you said you didn't want to participate ...hopefully your concern about the timeline means you have changed you mind.

Whips, cross posted with you, @Dave

I like the idea of themed swaps. My interest would be daylily seeds, hummingbird and butterfly nectar/host plant seeds, and perhaps veggie seeds (not sure about the last one). All of which could be individual swaps ... or a group swap depending on how large and diverse a giant swap would be. But I will say this again, the bigger the swap, the more work involved by the host/hostess. Been there, done it. For a couple of years, I hosted a swap for about 20 people with probably close to 1000 seed packets total, had to divide them all out, and then mail them out. It was fun, but a LOT of work! If you have never hosted a swap, you might want to wait until someone else does it first, documents the process including photos, and packs them all up in their bubble envies or boxes. (This would make a great ATP article!)

Becky, that WOULD make a great article!

I know I'm not supposed to change the subject on Dave's forums but I just wanted to say I hope DND's dog is ok

vic said:I know I'm not supposed to change the subject on Dave's forums but I just wanted to say I hope DND's dog is ok

Here's the post, Vic. http://garden.org/thread/view_...

First let me say I am generally not a seed swapper. I always have way too many seeds I seem to acquire on my own (perhaps sleep seed buying? ) and I often collect seeds off my plants out of compulsion, not need. I prefer just to give away my extra seeds without taking in seeds for the most part.

I have been glancing over the various threads about starting a seed swap here at ATP. Libby @DogsNDaylilies, I applaud you. You have remained excited and committed despite a less than stellar response from the masses here. The response has actually surprised me. Not the usual ATP encouragement that I regularly see. Now, I am not saying everyone has been a downer. But I have been disappointed in the general overall tone. I certainly have been surprised by members declaring they will opt out before even seeing the framework.

The fact of the matter is that the Piggy Swap is not happening this year. That is a bummer. But someone has stepped up and is trying to get a new swap started. Will it be perfect? No, nothing ever is perfect. Is participation mandatory? Certainly not. Is it a lot of work? I would think so, but I don't know. And I am not willing to run a swap.

So again, I applaud Libby! Thank you for getting the ball rolling here. Thank you to Dave @Dave for generously offering to provided programming to make not just this seed swap easier, but future seed swaps. And Libby, when it comes time for sorting and packing I'm not too far away. I would be happy to come out and help if you need or want it.

I return you to your regularly scheduled programming................

I think this will be a very good addition to ATP once Dave completes the programming end and we get a few swaps under our belts to iron out any unforeseen issues. I do applaud Libby in her determination to host a swap and her work with Dave to create a good format by which to participate in any seed swaps.

jvdubb said:First let me say I am generally not a seed swapper. I always have way too many seeds I seem to acquire on my own (perhaps sleep seed buying? ) and I often collect seeds off my plants out of compulsion, not need. I prefer just to give away my extra seeds without taking in seeds for the most part.

A seed swap would still be a good place to give away your seeds. You could list what you have to give away without asking for anything in return. That way you would only have to send one package to the central organizer, rather than multiple packages to several people with possible more than one trip to the Post Office. You could share your extra seed and save on time, packaging material, and postage.

Jennifer, Becky, and the other supporters (both private and public --you know who you are!), thank you! You're encouragement is priceless and rejouvinating.

Vickie- thank you for the concern about my dog. She's okay. A fever and a bit of old age stuff that is a little sad, but overall she's well and and that makes me happy.

Will watch and see what happens with this. I know I have some tomato seeds I had planned to offer over the winter.

And remember, there may be more people watching this thread, waiting to see what comes of it, than are commenting. I haven't joined in the discussion because right now, I don't have seeds for trading. But I find the idea interesting.

Does anyone think it might be a good idea to make a general announcement when the system is set up? Sort of like a beta testing? Just a thought.

woofie, I think that's a great idea. I am pretty sure Dave was planning to do so once things are set up (and maybe before); he's great at communicating updates and new things, so I'm sure that he'll make it apparent to everyone. If, for some strange reason, he doesn't, I will!

I'm eager about it even before seeing any Offer Lists.

I hope there's enough time between announcing the general theme and committing to an Offer List that I can browse some year-end seed sales and make sure I receive such things before I offer them.

(I'm trying to think of a way to tempt people into a swap if we can't see their Wish List before the swap.)

@Dave, I'm just daydreaming here ... and this may not even be relevant to your multi-swap database design, which I literally can't imagine.

< Insert Wizard avatar here, but6 I'm not at the computer that has that image. >


Maybe there would be some value in giving each member a personal set of trade-related lists that would persist from swap to swap. For example, their personal "Have" and "Wish" lists would logically persist from swap to swap, once the member created them.

That would also motivate members who wanted to include links or descriptive text with seed offers to invest the time. (These personal persistent lists would be separate from, but could interact with, the member's "Offered" list within each swap.)

When a member joins a swap, they would be able to populate THAT swap's "Offered" list by clicking on their personal, persistent Have List. Presumably that would decrement their Have List's number of packets by the number of packets "Offered".

(I'm thinking that would help me avoid offering more seeds than I have!)

Presumably when swaps were over, a member could close out that swap's Offer list by "taking back" any unused packets and restoring them to his personal persistent "Have" list. (Like the "Have" list is a personal inventory and the "Offer" list shows what is committed to that swap. I think of "Accepted Offers" being flagged within the "Offer" list but I bet your design doesn't remotely resemble things I'm familiar with.

These kinds of issues have been haunting me since you said there would be some degree of simultaneous swaps supported. If so, I thought the idea above would reduce the number of simultaneous access conflicts to times when a member transfers packets from his or her Have list to a swap's Offered list. Individual trades within a swap would no longer potentially conflict with trades in other swaps.