>> but I also think that is adding what might be an unnecessary layer to the complexity of the swap.
Yes! Most ideas I have are subject to that criticism. "Maybe convenient for some purposes ... but not useful to everyone and more complex for everyone."
I think Dave will filter out the least useful, and hopefully the marginal or specialized ones can be invoked or turned off for different swaps.
Certainly we should strive to have some swaps each year targeted at first-time members who do NOT want to learn many rules or even how to use too many features.
Which reminds me - often I would like to show someone how to do something. Usually it's as easy as "Click HERE .... and now HERE ... then fill in that area". But doing that with screenshots pasted into JPGs, and then annotated and posted ... hard work.
Is it totally and 100% crazy to think about a way to let a new member give PC control to another member, when both were online at the same time, so the more experienced member could move the mouse around and type (or say, with a microphone) "click HERE next!".
I think we could teach a new member the most complicated imaginable swap features in nothing flat if that were possible.
But it would be asking ATP to support some kind of remote desktop, and keep it from being used behind someone's back to extract their private data and install viruses.
Perhaps some way to limit the shared functionality to driving around inside the ATP website.
Maybe all the value of that wacky idea could be had without the drawbacks if someone volunteered to make a "video" of how to use some feature, or do some site-related action like first add a plant to the database, then add one from the database to your own plant list, then add something from your plant list to a swap list, then activate it.
A video like that could be just a series of screen shots with a voice-over. Not movies of people's faces, just the ATP website and a big mouse cursor moving around and doing things while the voice-over explains.
I mention this because I read that "many" people avoided a certain manual seed swap that I thought was very simple, "because it was so complicated". Possibly they would find "add a plant to your swap list" complicated. Especially if they don't yet have any plant list of their own, or any "haves" in the Plant Database, or any experience finding things int he Plant Database.
If they saw how easy it is to just type in a common or idiomatic name from scratch once they reach their own swap list, they might not find that complicated, but I'm going to guess that we'll lose some potential traders if it takes 3 clicks to reach the swap area.
Hence there might be a "market" for something to simplify using what we might think is already very simple.
For some reason, names of screens seem not to sink in. "Just go to the Blah-Blah Screen" may be puzzling the first time for many. But if they saw a mouse pointer zoom left, hover over "Beta Swap" and then click, that doesn't puzzle anyone.
And once they SEE "that page that includes links to ALL tradelists and MY bought & sold list & ...", they will have one location they know how to work from.
