I entered this kind of late and am having trouble finding some information.
Am I correct in that no dates have been set yet?
Is there somewhere for me to start putting together a "want" list from the the other participants lists? Where exactly is that?
I did manage to get my seeds listed, nice database, I'm impressed.

If anyone is interested, I created a post as best as I could with my ideas combined with ATP member ideas that I put into Powerpoint slides and then converted into text and images for display here. (My eyeballs/head hurt now, LoL! )

The thread "My Thoughts..." in The ATP Beta "First Swap" Swap

Just a note, there is one post that is very long...it's the only one. The rest are mostly pictures of presentation slides or short lists that were on a slide that I just copy/pasted.

I hope it gives a somewhat more complete idea of what the swap COULD look like. Some of it is the necessary nitty-gritty that most people won't deal with on a day-to-day basis. A lot of it offers thoughts on how we could work around issues that arise, organize various components, etc. I hope you like some of the ideas that other ATP members--including some of you--and I came up with!

Dee, You can place a wish list in this thread. The thread "What seeds is everyone looking for?" in The ATP Beta "First Swap" Swap

As far as I know there are no firm dates yet.

@Dave...not in a hurry here, but checking and hoping things aren't going to get started by weeks end I will be away for the weekend and may not have internet service (camping in the woods) and I don't want to miss anything

I'm not yet 100% sure when we'll actually be able to open the floodgates and let people start selecting things from each others lists. I'd like it to be late this week but it may be early next week. There are other steps I have to finish programming before I can get to that.

A few members of the swap don't seem to have a list started yet... will we just go forward even if everyone isn't ready?

I hope each member sets up a list but I guess it's inevitable that some will sign up but not follow through with setting up a list. It's hard to get 100% cooperation and participation out of any group. It's a disappointing but true fact of life.

Some will never setup a list. Others will signup but not send the seeds. For those situations, we'll have a feedback system in place so that they might be excluded from future swaps.

Anyway, for this beta, I think we'll go forward even if a few people back out early.

Bluespiral and Lalambchop1 have not posted anything at all.

I have a list started but it's sparse because I just worked on bagging most of my stuff tonight and I have a few left to go. Updates will be tomorrow, most likely.

Still looking to see if there is seed out in the garden.

The excitement is building! I love this!!!

@Dave,

Could we have the 'not public' items appear below the 'not ready' items?

I think it might be easier to work with if the list goes 'Available', 'Not Ready', and 'Not Public'....that way the 'available' list isn't sandwiched in between the other two.

duane456 said:Bluespiral and Lalambchop1 have not posted anything at all.

Thanks for letting me know which ones are currently inactive. I sent them both a tree mail asking them if they intend to participate and, if not, to let me know so I can offer up their spaces to other members.

I've lost track of where the post about adding pictures ended up (I thought it was in this thread, but it's not)...

One thing I'm concerned about is posting misleading pictures. I'm posting pictures of the packets on many of my listings so that people can see, all at once, a picture of the item, the company it came from, and even the planting instructions (on some); but I'm divvying up the packets into smaller quantities so more people can have those seeds. I don't want people to feel mislead when a clear baggie of seeds arrives in their box instead of the packet they see in the picture.

Thoughts?

I also think that a separate column for 'harvested in' or 'packed for' should be implemented. I know this could be added to the 'comments, currently; but it would be a lot simpler, in my opinion, if there was an (optional?) textbox you could fill in for the seed information and the seed swap list would have a space where the year could go that didn't have to be part of the comments. I think that would keep the comments from getting long and keep them looking a little 'cleaner.'

Every field that is added to a form makes the form more cumbersome and overwhelming for the user. There is a balance between giving lots of fields for every conceivable option, and making the form tolerable to the great masses. This is why I often prefer to use general comment fields and only have fields for specific information items that we definitely need.

Dave, I just sent you a t-mail about leaving this swap, just want to thank you and everyone for what you've been building here and wish you all the best of luck:)

Karen

valleylynn said:Still looking to see if there is seed out in the garden.

I was out Sunday afternoon and got one more variety. Yesterday, when birding the back patch (Saw a Le Conte's Sparrow. YAY!) I noticed a cluster of Stiff Goldenrod and had to tell myself "No... no... no... not going to do it!" I like the feeling of being done.

Bluespiral said:Dave, I just sent you a t-mail about leaving this swap, just want to thank you and everyone for what you've been building here and wish you all the best of luck:)Karen

Thanks Karen. This is only the first of many swaps and I hope you're able to participate in another one once we get past this beta.

A few operational questions:

1) Will our swap keep going until all seeds are claimed, or will it go for a set number of days (where each person gets x # of requests per day) and then whatever seeds are unclaimed don't get sent in?

2) Did we come to a consensus on how many requests per day people are allowed to make?

3) Did we agree on how it starts (i.e. who goes first)? Is it first-come, first-served basis each day?

4) @Dave - are you working on any sets of rules right now that will be presented to us for this beta swap? (You are the organizer for this swap, so you get to call the shots.)

Here are my guesses:

1. Fixed end date. We need to know when we'll get our seeds, and will ALL the seeds offered in any one swap ever be requested?

2. Requests-per-day or other throttling methods need to be a special rule for each swap. For the Beta swap? "Whatever".
Maybe no limit. If Dave does set a limit, it should be more to test the way it works than to enforce Beta-fairness.
This Beta Swap is to test the software and RAISE design questions, I think.

But it is an interesting question for each host in each swap! And perhaps "fairness" will be created here more than by being vigilant for Greedy Seeders.

If it were me, I would limit the requests (it's hard to stop saying "Oinks"!) to 5 per day for the first 20% of the swap. Let the cognoscenti duel for the rarest of the rare until those are grabbed up, but then let everyone do what's easiest for them, like do all their "shopping" in one big burst.)

If it were a really specialized and rare-seed swap, you could even stretch it out and make it a real social game, like limiting people to ONE request per day for the first week, then two requests for the second week. That would NEED a dedicated thread for people to moan and crow on!

Perhaps combine it with ongoing lotteries, where you not only requested 1-3 seed types per day, but then had to WIN them away from everyone else who requested that seed. To reduce frustration, maybe the winners would have to sit out one day. Or maybe that would just make people crazy-competitive.

3.
First-come, first-served basis seems to be widely regarded as the only way. I dunno ... but have no counter-suggestion.

If there needs to be way to balance the scales for people with limited online access, maybe issue 5 "flags" or a variation on "Dibbs" to each member. They can flag certain offers as "must have", and then "First-come Must Have requests get served before "Meh Requests".

Dave hinted he had something simmering for "priority" of requests, so I look forward to some exciting and cool better idea on that front. And it might vary from swap to swap.

4.
More rules needed for the Beta? Well, maybe. If they serve the purpose of learning and testing the software.

Maybe a way to get that learning is to pick examples. Have you found any things in others' Offer lists that you wish you could call Dibbs on, or flag "Must have", or would poise with finger over mouse on the very minute that the swap opens so you could use up your first-day-priority oink ? If so, does anything come to mind as a method of dealing with that urgent desire?

I think my first idea is a bad one: allow pre-swap pre-requesting and priority-resolution. Maybe shoe-horn in a phase where the point is not easy-going free-for-all, but rather "see who wants what the most, and negotiate for Must-Haves".

In some swaps, that might also be a "recruitment" phase, where people see Wish Lists and entice peopel to join by offering them "If you join and offer X, I'll add a pkt of Y and pre-dedicate it just for you".

But now "fairness" would need some counter-balance to such one-on-one favoritism.