Update from Internet Brands

To members and visitors of Dave's Garden,

I would like to apologize on behalf of Internet Brands for the frustration caused by the recent changes to the forums.

We are aware that redesign was launched with an unacceptable number of bugs and insufficient notice to the community at large. While we are committed to improving and modernizing the site, these changes cannot come at the expense of our longtime members.

All future design changes to the site have been put on hold until our issues with the forums have been addressed and we create a beta-testing system to better predict how design changes will affect real members and perform on the live site. To improve communication, we are also currently working on adding DG update threads to all members' watchlists by default and we will be making consistent use of the sitewide announcements at the top of the page for future roll-outs.

To apologize for the inconvenience and disruption, we have added a month extension for all Dave's Garden paid subscribers. If you are a former member whose subscription expired in December or January and would like an extension, please contact us at the Helpdesk and we can apply the free month to your account.

Finally, we would like to acknowledge our site administrators, Terry and Melody, for handling the site changes and intense feedback with patience and grace. The problems with the forum came as a surprise to them as well, and they have been instrumental in getting your concerns heard and prioritized by the tech team.

Once again, we are sorry for the mistakes and will be taking your feedback to heart for the future of Dave's Garden.

Alison Govelitz
Community Manager - Home Division
Internet Brands

[Edited to add helpdesk link]

Thank you!

Helpdesk? Where is this located?

Alison, I'm certain you will receive a barrage of "too little, too late" comments from many but I appreciate this recognition of the serious site problems and their causes and your assurance that they will be properly addressed. Melody and Terry have handled everything as best they could under the circumstances and have done so with courtesy and respect for the membership.

Thank you for publicly addressing the situation and acknowledging the mistakes that were made. Putting further design changes on hold until current issues are resolved is certainly necessary and a solid beta testing system may prevent such a mess from occurring in the future. I'm not leaving and will look forward to seeing corrections and improvements unfold.

greenthumb99, Helpdesk requests can be submitted at http://davesgarden.com/helpdesk/

Thank you. Is this link somewhere on the Dave's Garden website? Just curious.

Edited to say:
I now see that that link takes one to the "Contact Dave's Garden" page. Would be less confusing if you referred to the page by the name we see on the site.

This message was edited Jan 28, 2016 8:27 PM

:)

Really, Terry and Melody are unsung heroes here. Internet Brands should invest more than a month's compensation for their brilliant and tireless representation of your product.

Curious as to why, given your title, it's taken this long for a response from Internet Brands. If anyone is owed an apology it's Terry and Melody. It's not as if folks can't find reviews of the company as employers.

thank you,

and well said MayPop, it did seem Terry and Mel took a lot of heat/flack but did a great job.

Terese

This message was edited Jan 28, 2016 9:28 PM

Can we just be happy that they responded? We don't know what interaction they have had with Melody and Terry. I'm going to stop watching this thread...it was nice to see something positive but let the complaining begin....

Had this happened at the beginning, people would have been understanding. Instead you left us floundering and people left in droves. Most permanently.

I'm staying, I have stayed and suffered through all the mass confusion.
What is sad is the fact that I have lost many dear friends.

Alison. Thank you so much for your acknowledgement of the errors and the problems that have occurred with the changes intended.

I am a long time subscriber, and appreciate that Terry and Melody have done the best the could under the circumstances. I appreciate them more than I could ever express.

If and when other changes are made, and you need beta testers, I will volunteer and give honest input to the changes and how they may be or may not be well received by the population.

This is a great site, and the plant information that you can find is informative, but the community sites are also held in high regard by long time subscribers. I have made many long time friends, many of whom I have never met in person, but feel the friendship that one would have with a neighbor across the street. Had it not been for Dave's Garden, I would be poorer, as I would not have my cyber friends.

Please know that I am here for the long haul, and I hope that whatever improvements that are made will be well tested before implementation.

Thank you.

I thank Terry and Melody for their continuous and arduous work on this website. I too feel I have lost a lot of valuable friendships with so much information they shared about their gardening experiences and knowledge. It's too bad and sad.

Thank You Alison!

Thank you for the free month. It's a nice gesture for the inconvenience.

Ditto the kudos to Terry and Melody, who served valiantly on the front lines.

Thanks, Allison, for a professional response to the recent situation. That IB acknowledges and apologizes for a buggy roll-out is appreciated; that you are taking steps to avoid such problems in the future is even better. I'm especially happy to hear that a beta-testing system will be implemented. I've been disturbed by the way that IB seemed to be (as one member succinctly phrased it) crowd-sourcing its beta-testing for updates and changes, putting both the DG admin team and the programmers into crisis mode trying to handle complaints and bug reports. Better communication will help, but decent beta testing will pull Terry and Melody off the front lines and let them get back to their regular jobs -- which are challenging enough!

Alison, thank you for the opportunity to provide feedback regarding the redesign activities at DG. My sense is that a flood of members have left the site, and it remains to be seen how many, if any, will return. It is incredible to me that no one appeared to anticipate this by beginning with a general pre-design statement of intent to the membership. This displayed an arrogance and total lack of respect for the membership who use the site. One of the most frequent comments i heard is that obviously gardeners are not involved in the decision making and this is no longer a site by gardeners, for gardeners. This is becoming increasingly clear.

In addition to the members who participate in the forums, I consider (used to consider) the Plant Database as a useful tool and real draw for DG for all online gardening communities. I don't know when the format changed, but recently i searched a plant on this database, noticed that the format had changed, and wondered where the information was, searched a couple more. I used to consult these plant files frequently for information about soil requirements, water and sun requirements, and a variety of other information that apparently has been omitted during a re-design. The Plant Database appears to have been gutted. Now, quite frankly, i do not use the DG Plant Database nor do i add to it. I go to various other places where i know i will find the information i need. I consult the ATP plant files where there is good information, i consult the Top Tropicals site knowing i'll find the information i need, and various other sites but do not bother with the current DG Plant database. I don't think i am the only one. IMHO, this was a disastrous and hasty decision lacking in forethought.

Another gem at DG that many outsiders use is the Garden Watchdog. I believe it is quite unique to DG due to the enormity of the reviews and number of vendors reviewed. This is a reference i always use when thinking about ordering from a vendor new to me. I held my breath, and took a look. The Garden Watchdog appears to be unscathed (after a brief perusal), and i hope the decision makers will exercise some forethought before putting it under the chopping block. It is too late to save the Plant files which generated a lot of traffic for DG in the past, but hopefully, at least, the Watchdog will be saved.

There are a number of other smaller items that i will not list. One example is the lack of emjois or smilies or whatever they are called. I have participated in just about every English language garden forum site on the internet, certainly the top 10 or 15. Each site has its pluses and minuses, but all of them have emojis, except DG. When communicating without seeing a person's expression, or tone of voice, often there is a misunderstanding regarding the intent of what a person is wanting to express. The use of emojis are helpful to be sure someone knows you are joking, for example. I find emojis are helpful to the conversational flow, and can add a sense of comraderie, and avoid misunderstandings. Without them, the site feels a bit wall street sterile to me. Of course some people don't like emojis and would not need to use them, but i think it would add a bit of fun to the site.

This is not all, but it is enough.

Thank you for your response and the subscription extension , Alison . I especially want to thank Terry and Melody, these two team members have kept the communication lines open all along. Thank you for the updates on what has been fixed and what fixes are still in progress. I still feel this is the best gardening site and have great hopes that all the kinks will be worked out.

Thank you. All through this though, I could barely believe that anyone above the age of three would attempt to do a site make-over on the live site itself! I learned the basics of coding and built my own websites through a free online course and even I know that you always create a test page/site and keep it entirely separate from your published site until everything is stable.

Thanks for the apology, but it sure was late in coming. If this sounds like a half-hearted 'thanks', well, it is. A simple banner on the home page or notice would have eased a lot of worries and pain for many. But being left in the dark left a lot of members with a bad taste. I'll be staying but here's the thing....no warning of upcoming changes, no feedback on progress, late apology - big mistakes.

A huge, huge, thanks to Terry and Melody for doing just what was said though and handling all the complaints with the grace and composure they always have had.

Please let me interject one thing that I take FULL responsibility for. I could have put up a banner at the top, and I didn't. That isn't Alison's fault...it's mine.

Long story short, I had documented the upcoming changes with pictures and descriptions and posted them in this forum, several weeks in advance of the changes.

The rollout date/time was up in the air until the last minute, which is why we didn't have a site-wide announcement at the top of the page (I felt it would just create more questions and confusion to announce "changes are coming" when we weren't sure exactly when they would be made.)

When the techs decided they were ready to pull the trigger, I mistakenly assumed that my post in this forum would suffice as an announcement, as well as a place to discuss the changes. (We obviously had no idea so many problems would surface...we wouldn't have rolled it out if we had.)

Hindsight is 20/20, but going forward, I will definitely make sure we plaster an alert across the site. And we're taking steps to make this forum a "favorite" for every member, so you are more likely to see discussion threads pertaining to site changes, maintenance, etc.

Thank you Terry, that would be greatly appreciated.

I agree with Vitrsna. I'm very sad the website has changed the Plant Files. I used it all of the time. Now, it's so brief, you learn almost nothing. I enjoyed looking at all of the pictures the DG members kindly put on this website all at once so I could pick the ones I wanted to inspect closer.
It's disappointing and frustrating and really, sad.

Thank you for this acknowledgement and consecrated effort to work on the changes and communication with members in an acceptable manner . It is greatly appreciated.
AG

Terry,
I don't know how, but when you are going to do something of this extreme, a huge notice of some kind needs to alert the members. Not "just another post" so nobody looks at it. Yes, it probably is the fault of the members too for not paying more attention. But we are the "customer". Treat us with that respect. Not just "It's none of their business, we invested the money so it's ours to do with as we want". You will find that you have a plate full of nothing and nobody to share it with.

I have felt the plantfiles slipping in content for some time. It was not necessarily the mess we just experienced. I have used google instead for a couple of years. It used to be that DG was the first thing that popped up on Google when you queried for information on plants. No longer. And I would think that alone would be a big loss.

This has been a red flag to other people that could have been future "customers",

I believe Vitnsa was trying to say "emotocons" what other sites call them? Yes, they are kind of helpful to, like she said, to help express your statement. To be either used or not. Many people do use them.

Lastly, I will say, that even tho the site has stopped changing for the moment, what you have left is really useless. This site is no longer user friendly. When I objected to admin, I got the response, "this is the way it was in 2001". Like I was suppose to like it because it was the way it used to be. Well, WHY are we going backwards?

When we objected publicly to admin in the rollout thread, we were first given replies to the effect that the changes are good and we'll end up liking them (not true). At no point was the site leadership willing to recognize that the forum downgrade was a failure. Instead they subjected the membership to a month of work doing the beta testing that the developers should have done in the first place. And a month of lost functionality because they were unwilling to stand up for the members' best interest up front. And a whole lot of silence to criticism beyond that point because they were unwilling to be held accountable for their actions. Why is the thread announcing the rollout locked?

http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/fr.php?pid=10178570

Where was the corporate leadership when we first made several claims that they have effectively confirmed in this public apology? Why is the site leadership being recognized as heroes when they were complicit in the forum downgrade? Stick around and you can expect plenty more of the same.

This message was edited Jan 29, 2016 10:47 AM

Thank you, Allison. The explanation is much appreciated.

Thanks Jnette and birder17 for sharing your thoughts about the Plant Database. I'm sure there are many more people wondering "hey, who took the "data out of database"? and why? Did someone feel like shooting themselves in the foot that day?

As far as i know, none of the other top 10-15 garden forums have both "paying members" and "non-paying members". In my search i did not find any other garden forum websites that have annual member subscription fees, or any other kind of fees at all. One site that is free for every member blocks all advertising at the website for all members and only the "lurkers" (people not signed up as members) are exposed to advertising. Now taking a look at this new DG website leaves me feeling it is almost adequate for a new forum starting out, but what really are the annual member subscriptions paying for?

Terry, i appreciate your transparency. The best thing about making mistakes is that we learn from them, acknowledge them, and know how to move forward taking measures not to repeat them. So bravo to you for that!

This message was edited Jan 29, 2016 3:55 PM

Thanks Jnette and birder17 for sharing your thoughts about the Plant Database. I'm sure there are many more people wondering "hey, who took the "data out of database"? and why? Did someone feel like shooting themselves in the foot that day?

As far as i know, none of the other top 10-15 garden forums have both "paying members" and "non-paying members". In my search i did not find any other garden forum websites that have annual member subscription fees, or any other kind of fees at all. One site that is free for every member blocks all advertising at the website for all members and only the "lurkers" (people not signed up as members) are exposed to advertising. Now taking a look at this new DG website leaves me feeling it is almost adequate for a new forum starting out, but what really are the annual member subscriptions paying for?

Terry, i appreciate your transparency. The best thing about making mistakes is that we learn from them, acknowledge them, and know how to move forward taking measures not to repeat them. So bravo to you for that!

This message was edited Jan 29, 2016 3:58 PM

It kinda begs the question, - why even charge people? That was performance that considers -"everybody is free, so what the heck".
I know there's over 700,000 free members but the 2 - 3,000 paying ones, paid.

Up to "here" there's 3 adds in the middle of our posts and one add on the top about Bradley Cooper and one to the right about Disney Resorts. Really??? Why?? I'm not interested.
Advertisements are a new addition to this website. Why? I thought paid members didn't have to look at advertisements. What happened to that plan?
Get rid of the advertisements. Annoying. Distracting. Aggravating.

birder17 - go to the banner at the top, click on "My Info". Bottom link in "My Actions" is "Manage your preferences". Click there. On far left of next page, next to last link, click on "Ad Settings".

::::::::

This message was edited Jan 29, 2016 9:02 PM

Thanks for the apology and the free month.

I'll say though that the site is dead now and it's disappointing. Good luck in the future.

Is there anyone that likes ANY of the changes that were made in the name of "progress"??? I can't say that any of them have enhanced the navigation of the whole site. And is there ANY reason why we HAVE to have that blasted "preview" before we can post to the thread?

I agree totally with Anna. That forced preview is awful. I lost a long post last night that I thought I had posted. Obviously didn't get past the preview phase. I know how to edit if I find errors later. Hate, hate, hate that forced preview.

And as Sequoiadendron4 said, the site really is dead now. So few subscribers that there is very little talk on most of the forums. Not much going on here of gardening interest. I totally disagree with whomever it was who said this is still the best gardening site around.

As far as the extra month, I really don't care. Now I've just got an extra month till I leave.

Shortleaf, you know i think that 700,000+ number of members is the count from the time the site began. So it is really a kind of hoax. It appears every member stays in the count for eternity. I mean they don't really track who comes or goes, only who comes. Could be that a there are "members" in that count who are no longer living, could be that a good portion of that number have long departed the site, could be that there are members who only came for one day. It is a ridiculous number with no real significance. The active participating members (paying or not) is very likely a very small portion of the 700,000 members they use as a selling point. I also think they are losing more members than they are gaining on a monthly basis so the real numbers have been getting smaller. This is what i have reason to believe, so if anyone knows differently please correct me. Although i don't think anyone can provide a correction because they have no way of tracking how many members leave.