I feel that this was a wonderful swap and I'm grateful to have been among the fortunately few to participate in the beta version. (I look forward to finding out what the rest of ATP thinks of this swap, too.) This group of people was wonderful and, as Sandy mentioned, I'm surprised how many different types of seeds popped up for such a relatively small number of participants. There were so many seed options that it was tough to wade through.
I still think that there needs to be a unified naming convention, but that is a big undertaking considering it involves the backbone database of ATP and isn't just a small part of the seed swap arena. Until then, though, I love that the search feature helps me find items that I *know* I want but just can't find. In the future, it might be neat to see a feature that allowed us to specifically find seeds well-suited to our zone; or, on the flip side, to warn us of seeds that might not be well-suited to our area.
I feel like the swap is somewhat over and done with only halfway through, but I don't know that that necessarily means that the time frame for swapping needs adjusted. I'm curious to see how this plays out with larger groups of people (or with larger quantities of seeds).
Personally, I agree that there was far more 'fun factor' in this method of swapping than in the 'controlled trading' option I proposed. I hope this method continues to work out and seem fair to everyone because it created a lot of drive for people to participate. I do feel bad for people who were unable to be there right at the 'starting gate' at 7pm during the first several days when the bulk of the trading occurred, so I wonder how that will play out in future swaps; but that might be one of the benefits to having multiple swaps occurring at different times throughout the year...everyone should be able to find one that they can participate in.
