On 27/1/08 21:27, in article ,
"Peter Robinson" wrote:

wrote:

I could also point out examples where I've been frustrated to see
answers given to a query regarding growing a veg, on this occasion a
'tip' on an allotment because seemingly nobody had a clear answer -
out of 8 posts 2 had valued comments, and those were from
allotmenteers whilst others simply said that they had no experience
but 'they had heard somewhere' ... and one post might have been
misleading because the poster tentatively tried to give an answer
without any knowledge.

Such is Ueenet. People have to make their own minds up about what
advice is worth listening to; you don't have to read a group very long
to get a pretty good idea.

I don't recognise the thread you're talking about, but IMHO the level of
advice available in here is pretty good.

A group for allotmenteers would be an absolut gem as it will avoid
confusion, will be straight from experience gardeners with a single
aim, growing food on allotments.

Where will all these posters come from? If they're in urg already, how
come they apparently aren't giving out better advice right now? If
they're allotmenteers and likely to use Usenet, how come they're not
posting in urg already?

Peter

People growing vegetables in their garden are no different to people growing
veg. on their allotments, so why the need for a split?
--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
(remove weeds from address)
'We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our
children.'

On 27/1/08 19:12, in article ,
"David in Normandy" wrote:

Sacha says...
I can't really see the point in an allotment group. People who post here
that grow vegetables or flowers for cutting, don't always use allotments to
do so! Allotmenteers would lose their experience and tips and vice versa,
it seems to me. An allotment is just another garden, after all.


Another issue would be "grey areas". For example fruit
trees, gardening tools, propagators, seeds and seedlings,
pests and diseases. Should they post to URG or to the
allotment group? They could always cross-post I suppose,
but those of us who have a news reader set to block cross-
posts would not see such posts at all then!

My view is what's the need for it? Right now, we have a number of people
here who grow veg. on allotments and in their gardens. They pass on or
discuss precisely the subjects you cite above. Many of the 'rules' applied
to growing veg and fruit trees apply to other plants, too. I can't help
feeling that a pooling of resources here is of more benefit to all in the
long run.
--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
(remove weeds from address)
'We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our
children.'

On 27/1/08 18:27, in article , "K"
wrote:

Isn't this a repeat of the same request from the same guy a couple of
years back?

snip

It's certainly been tried some years ago but I don't remember the name of
the person suggesting it. IIRC, it wasn't a popular proposition.

--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
(remove weeds from address)
'We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our
children.'

On 27/1/08 21:27, in article ,
"Peter Robinson" wrote:

wrote:

On 27 Jan, 19:12, David in Normandy wrote:

Should they post to URG or to the allotment group? They could always
cross-post I suppose, but those of us who have a news reader set to
block cross- posts would not see such posts at all then!

I thought that the new forum would be 'crossposted' or linked somehow
with urg. Will it?

No.

People could choose whether or not to crosspost. It wouldn't happen
automatically.

Perhaps I'm thinking of an ideal here - urg extending to encompass
allotments in some ways.

Doesn't it already?

Peter

Yes. It has, always.

--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
(remove weeds from address)
'We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our
children.'

On 27 Jan, 21:27, (Peter Robinson) wrote:
Such is Ueenet. *People have to make their own minds up about what
advice is worth listening to; you don't have to read a group very long
to get a pretty good idea.
I don't recognise the thread you're talking about, but IMHO the level of
advice available in here is pretty good.

Oh I don't deny that. Never did and never will. Perhaps I put it
wrongly. As an allotmenteer myself and for many years, I recognise
perhaps a handful of people here from allotments. Yes, they are
different. Allotments are within cities, they are urban and if you
look at allotments website and newsletter you'll understand what I
mean. I just wished they were more people attracted to this forum from
city farms and urban community gardens etc. It doesn't seem to
interest many people here and I just don't know why. Perhaps you know?

Where will all these posters come from? *If they're in urg already, how
come they apparently aren't giving out better advice right now? *If
they're allotmenteers and likely to use Usenet, how come they're not
posting in urg already?

I don't know!

On 27 Jan, 21:27, (Peter Robinson) wrote:
Perhaps I'm thinking of an ideal here - urg extending to encompass
allotments in some ways.

Doesn't it already?

Yes, maybe you're right. Urg however, I feel, doesn't represent the
hundreds of people I know out there and that's perhaps why I thought
having an 'allotments' forum would perhaps bring them out of their
sheds!

On 27 Jan, 22:13, "shazzbat"
wrote:
URG is not the busiest NG right now, because it's seasonal. I haven't
checked out statistics, but I think they would show an increase over the
last week or two. And the pace always picks up as the growing season
commences and the newbies start wondering which end of the spade to use.
Football NGs are very busy right now, but F1 NGs are not, all for the same
reason.

True off course. Perhaps the plot holders are suffering from this and
perhaps, like I did, they thought setting up a group would prolong the
season somehow )

Having said that, I supported the setting up of the allotments group a
couple of years ago, and I said then that "if the noes have it, I shan't
whine". They did, and I haven't. With the benefit of the intervening time,
this time round I shall be one of the noes.

Interesting that. I didn't know it had been tried before. But if we've
had that group, I'm sure we would have shared our wassailing
moments ;o)

On Sun, 27 Jan 2008 22:13:53 -0000, shazzbat wrote:

URG is not the busiest NG right now, because it's seasonal. I haven't
checked out statistics, but I think they would show an increase over the
last week or two. And the pace always picks up as the growing season
commences and the newbies start wondering which end of the spade to use.

I've been following uk.rec.gardening for over 10 years. It is not in anyway
as busy as it was in the old days - it was *very* busy then - it isn't now.

I think I know why the group isn't so busy - I'll just say that I think a
few non-gardening nutters posting here have put off some nice gardening
people from posting here :-(

Bring back the old days :-)
--
Regards,

Hugh Jampton

I just wished they were more people attracted to this forum from
city farms and urban community gardens etc. It doesn't seem to
interest many people here and I just don't know why. Perhaps you know?


That is certainly a valid point. In conversations I've had
with others, most are oblivious the the existence of Usenet
full stop, not specifically URG. To most people the
internet simply means web pages viewed through internet
explorer or firefox. Usenet - what's that - never heard of
it?

When you think there are many thousands of gardeners and
allotment holders the percentage that actually discover URG
is incredibly small. An observation I have made over the
years is that a lot of people who do use newsgroups are
either current or ex professional computer people,
programmers etc.

--
David in Normandy

On 27/1/08 23:48, in article ,
"Hugh Jampton" wrote:

On Sun, 27 Jan 2008 22:13:53 -0000, shazzbat wrote:

URG is not the busiest NG right now, because it's seasonal. I haven't
checked out statistics, but I think they would show an increase over the
last week or two. And the pace always picks up as the growing season
commences and the newbies start wondering which end of the spade to use.

I've been following uk.rec.gardening for over 10 years. It is not in anyway
as busy as it was in the old days - it was *very* busy then - it isn't now.

I think I know why the group isn't so busy - I'll just say that I think a
few non-gardening nutters posting here have put off some nice gardening
people from posting here :-(

Bring back the old days :-)

There is an element of that but I think there are other factors involved,
too. Some long-ago posters became a bit tired of the business of repeating
themselves over and over again. By its very nature, a gardening group is
bound to be a bit repetitive because not only is it seasonal, we have new
people taking up gardening and asking the same questions - which are new to
them - over and over again. That isn't a criticism, BTW. As I say it's
inevitable.
Other factors are things like people simply becoming more busy, changing to
more demanding jobs, having children etc., or perhaps becoming interested in
a different type of gardening, such as more exotic or tender plants. One
valuable poster had a really bad accident and hasn't, I think, posted since,
another wrote a book, sold up her business and moved, another felt
physically threatened and intimidated by someone here, so has stopped
posting, others just feel their time on a group has run its course. Some
dislike the permanent trolls who make it their mission to be rude to certain
people, so they just quietly leave, as you seem to be saying above. Some
have been pounced on too sharply when first posting, so they don't post
again but lurk. Some have been bereaved and have undergone big life
changes, so they become interested or involved in other hobbies or needs.
All these are things that I know of personally but there may well be other
reasons, too.


--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
(remove weeds from address)
'We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our
children.'

On 28 Jan, 08:51, David in Normandy wrote:
That is certainly a valid point. In conversations I've had
with others, most are oblivious the the existence of Usenet
full stop, not specifically URG. To most people the
internet simply means web pages viewed through internet
explorer or firefox. Usenet - what's that - never heard of
it?

Isn't it! I also think that it depends of your situation. Retired
people or having a business/hobby involving daily computer work would
account for most of us here, and a few visitors with a specific query
popping in. There's lurkers also, reading but not participating.

Last night I did a session on our Allotment newsletter, we have
decided it would be a waste of time to do a website since most people
didn't have access to computer or used one, and the gardener I work
with on this told me to bring the text size to 12 as most people in
the allotments won't be able to read below this ... ;o)

When you think there are many thousands of gardeners and
allotment holders the percentage that actually discover URG
is incredibly small.

When I mention URG to people they are surprised that they haven't
heard of it (my enthusiasm is perhaps showing). Many talk about
Kitchen Garden something - which I don't know what it is, nor have I
heard of it. A question from a naive computer user:- why are all our
posts shown on Garden Banter?! I don't understand this at all. Why the
upset of it from many here and why the 'allotment' group proposal
couldn't work similarly like urg/garden banter?! (And I did say escuse
my poor computer knowledge ...!).

Sacha wrote:

On 27/1/08 18:27, in article , "K"
wrote:

Isn't this a repeat of the same request from the same guy a couple of
years back?

It's certainly been tried some years ago but I don't remember the name of
the person suggesting it. IIRC, it wasn't a popular proposition.

I have an archive of unnc going back quite a while before then. I've
just re-read that thread. The proponent was Gary Poston. He did post a
few repetitive responses, but without really addressing the issues. He
did at least manage to post a proper RFC back then though

I'll be charitable and say no more than that his summary of discussion
in the Call For Votes stretches the truth. In the end, the vote was
26:12 against. New group creations in uk.* need a +12 margin to win, so
he needed more than 3 times as many YES votes than he actually got.

The 2004 RFD:


http://groups.google.co.uk/group/uk....e_thread/threa
d/4ae9a455f475fb53/90fe781a02ed4c36?q=%22RFD%3A+uk.rec.gardening.allo tme
nts%22&lnk=ol&

The results:
http://www.ukvoting.org.uk/results/r...g.allotments-2


Regards,

Peter

wrote:

I just wished they were more people attracted to this forum from
city farms and urban community gardens etc. It doesn't seem to
interest many people here and I just don't know why. Perhaps you know?

I don't know, but I'd had the impression that allotmenteers were fairly
well represented here. Perhaps even disproportionately so.

Pulling a figure out of the air, what, 50% of all 25 million UK
households have access to a garden? How many allotments are there?
250000? On those made up figures, 1 in 50 posters on urg could be
expected to be an allotmenteer. I'm sure you're doing much better than
that

Where will all these posters come from? If they're in urg already, how
come they apparently aren't giving out better advice right now? If
they're allotmenteers and likely to use Usenet, how come they're not
posting in urg already?

I don't know!

I think those who would post to urga are already posting to urg.
Usenauts are a tiny and shrinking minority amongst people on the
internet. Allotmenteers are a minority of "gardeners". A shrinking
minority of a minority does not make for a successful newsgroup.

Peter

wrote:

When I mention URG to people they are surprised that they haven't
heard of it (my enthusiasm is perhaps showing). Many talk about
Kitchen Garden something - which I don't know what it is, nor have I
heard of it.

Nor me.

A question from a naive computer user:- why are all our
posts shown on Garden Banter?! I don't understand this at all.

Usenet works by all the posts being shared freely amongst a number of
computers on the network. Some of these servers are very large,
transferring overwhelming amounts of data every day. But most are
smaller. It's more or less an anarchy - anyone can set up their own
server, and anyone is free to exchange messages ("peer") with anyone who
will have them.

By its nature, all the posts are public, and there's very little control
over where they go. Garden Banter is just taking them, and putting them
up on its website. Presumably they make money from the advertising.
Whether you like it or not, and by and large I'd rather it went away,
they're free to do what they like. It's not really any different from
what Google Groups is doing, except that Google doesn't index Google
Groups on its web search.

Why the upset of it from many here and why the 'allotment' group proposal
couldn't work similarly like urg/garden banter?! (And I did say escuse my
poor computer knowledge ...!).

It's not a technical issue - technically it would work just fine.

I don't believe it would attract any more people, and either all the
traffic would end up crossposted to urg, people would have to read both
groups.

In your ideal scenario, you get a thriving, active core or regular
posters on urga talking about groving veg on their allotments. Someone
like me comes along and wants to know about growing beans in my garden.
Where do I post? To urga even though I don't even have an allotment?
To urg and miss out on the expert advice available in urga? Cross post
to both?

I just don't think the division makes any sense with the current level
of traffic in here.

Peter