If I could ask for one thing, I wish DG would....

hehe I am the first one! It would be nice to have members able to come to more of the forums. They would be hooked! I did not subscribe for a long while mainly because I resented having to pay to see them! once I decided to go ahead and do it and was able to go to more forums I was hooked!

It would be nice for DG to notify us (through personal email) whenever we have new DG mail(s).

I love the journal feature, but would like some additions. The main feature wanted by me is the ability to have a secondary sort. My request have been posted on the "list", but no response about some, but that may be because I have a hard time trying to explain my wants. I would love to have a regional get together of other journal users to see how others use their journal and blog. Patti

I voted for T shirts.
Too many choices , cut it down to 3 or 4

Love Compost Tea

I love the journal feature, too! It's been really helpful. I don't have any specific requests, but any additional features to it would be welcome.

I would like to see PlantFiles beefed up with more detailed propogation information specific to each plant. The entries that exist now tell me whether something can be grown from seed, needs to be grown from cuttings, can be wintersown, etc., but that's about it.

There is a lot of excellent propogation information here on the site, but finding it can be a frustrating exercise. I usually end up going offsite just because it's easier than sifting through 10's of thousands of posts in different forums.

Having the information attached (through a hyperlink perhaps) to each plant entry might serve to reduce the frustration of some long term members who are asked to trot out yet again the how to's of that specific plant, the frustration of some new subscribers who are pointed to another forum/thread/post for the information they have requested, and may even draw in more subscribers to become members when they see how comitted to serving the customers' needs DG really is. Something as simple as making information highly visible and easy to find earns huge points with the public.

My 2 cents, for what it may really be worth :-)

--Ginny

I miss having the plant files button up front. I came to DG because of the plant files. They are a fantastic resource. But having to go through several stages to get to the plant ID start page is time consuming. I sort of hate this on a web page. You used to see the Plant Files button at the top, push it and you were there. I still love the plant files and they are still fantastic, but make it easier to get to once more.
Martha

I would very much like it if Non Subscribing Members could Not D-mail the Subscribing Members.

I also agree with the above post that non members be allowed to view more than the first post But not be able to make a post or D-mail a subscribing member. It would probably get more people to subscribe

I voted to improve a feature. Martha said:

Opps, so sorry. Voted to improve a feature and should have voted to improve navigation (plantsearch).

I like it all. I don't use the journal feature because it didn't seem to do what I wanted, but other than that, I have no complaints nor 'wish lists.' I think DG is just great.

Gwen

I put other because I think DG is perfect!!!!

I put other because I want to see the auction come to life.
I believe that it will be the best thing to happen to DG.
I'm ready.

Pam

I would love, love, love a link directly to "plant files" on every page so when I'm reading a thread and particular plants are mentioned that I'm unfamiliar with, I can go right to that plant page file by typing in the name while still on the thread. This would be a great convenience for many people, imo.

I also voted to improve a "feature," but should have voted to improve "navigation." If the plant file page could open up in it's own window so we wouldn't lose "our place," that would be especially wonderful!

I agree it would be nice to have a hot button feature (don't know if that is the correct term) that would link me to the DG Plantfile and go directly to the search page. Patti

I voted other. I would love to see a plant file feature on the front page when I log in.
It would also be nice if there where a way to speed things up on Mondays. Just trying to post a vote here took almost 3 minutes to load. Mondays are bad, and it seems as though everything is slow here.

I would like it if in the Blog feature, you could post more than one picture to an entry. Or, post more than one entry per day (which you can but it comes up with a new date header).

I agree it would be nice to have a secondary sort for the Journal as well.

DG does already notify us of d-mails via e-mail. I came home and had several notifications in my personal e-mail.

I'd really love to have a more effective search engine for the whole site complete with a means by which to narrow down results by excluding PlantFile or Watchdog entries as well as the ability to search for more than one word at a time. This particular search engine used to work considerably better than the (: search forums :) button at the top of each thread-
http://davesgarden.com/search.php
Currently it only pulls up articles, discussion forums, plant files, and gardening blogs. No more links to individual threads like what we used to have.

Don't know that I personally would want any more forums open to non-subscribers since we've got the Gardens.com site. I liked it when the regional forums were all shut down to non-subscribers.

hmm ... I didn't vote yet, still thinking about all the questions. I see Sumi43's request has already been granted ... I had a home e-mail this morning notifying me that I had a DG d-mail!

Rentman: T-Shirts and other goodies are already available: http://www.zazzle.com/davesgarden

I'm kinda on the same page as DonnaB about d-mail being only for paid subscribers.

Love everyone's idea about a "hot" button on every screen to take us directly to Plant Files! I have found it easier to whatever thread I'm on, google: detailed information for _ _ _ (whatever plant) and it usually gets me right to the one I want, but sure would be easier for this lazy ole gal to just hit a button on whatever page I'm on!

Maybe non subscribers when they sign up could be given say a 5 or 7 day access to all forums ... I bet after that seven days was up there would be a lot more folks subscribing!

I can't think of many things that would make this site any more wonderful than it already is! I think it is run in a very professional manner and I don't know of too many other places that would even ask for opinions and then implement them! Dave & Co. know how to do things the right way!

put lists in alphabetical order, for example, when searching for another member's ID.

Yes, FlowrLady - that is a great suggestion. I went to the member list a few days ago looking for a non subscriber for another DG'er who wanted to send a d-mail to that person. I found the list but names were not alphabetical, rather listed by the date they signed up (I think) .... the person I was looking for, I found on page 218. It only took me a minute to figure out how they were listed, so I just went to the very last page and back tracked, but I'm an alphabetical type person ... less steps the better. LOL.

I have no objection to those that want a E-mail when they get a D-mail but it is not something I want. I check DG often enough and they are right at the top of the page. Please put a link in the prefrence page for those that want e-mail notification for D-mail.

I also think the Journal could be improved. The one thing I notice is that when I am looking at my journal, I think there should be a link to the Plant Files entry while at the main list of items - currently you can view your entries, add, delete, etc. I'd like to see a "view PF entry" link as well. Right now I have to go into the Journal entry first before I can do that.

Other than that, I find the Journal a little clunky but not sure exactly what other changes / improvements to suggest, since I haven't been using it that long.

Agreed that the PlantFiles is probably the #1 feature on this site and should be easy to get to from any page.

Hey - just had an idea! What about making a customizable "Quick Menu" that each member can customize to their own needs, which would then appear on every page? Then each person could put the PF link or whatever else is useful to them. For subscribers only, of course.

Overall - DG rocks! Y'all are doing a fantastic job and it's awesome to see how user comments become real features and improvements on the site. Keep up the great work!

I agree Donna, to many emails letting me know I have dmail would be to much. If I'm checking email I'm also open and checking dmail. LOL!

I totally agree about dmails from subscribers only.

For sure a better thread/forum search feature. Maybe an advanced search, where we can type in multiple words. And possibly a way to sort results. I really like the + - feature on google or ebay where I can omit certain words using the minus and use the plus to insure that every word with it has to be there to show in the results. Does that make sense?

As for the plantfiles button or tab, I can see that's a problem for some, for myself though, I use mozilla firefox and have the little search box on the toolbar set to Daves garden and I just type in my plant and it takes me right to plantfiles.

I think members see enough.

I don't see the need for more subscriber only forums.

There, thats my 2 cents on all the questions that I have any opinion about. And probably not even worth the full 2 cents...LOL

LOL pudgey! Of course we want your opinion!

I was a subscriber for 2 years and barely had a couple dmails from non-subscribers so I don't see that as a big issue? Are others being bombarded by it? As a member I still enjoy dmailing a few DG friends and it's one of the few features you can use in full as a member only.

I would like to see threads started by a subscriber who goes member still be open to the person who started them.

I would like to be able to "search forums" and then see the results by date. Some of the threads from 2001 have good information, but I'd rather post on current threads.

Voted for more forums members only because we don't want it to become like another garden and home site that I shall not name, which is great, actually, but they have had lots of problems and DG is Great. I love it.

I agree with the above. Having easy access to the plant files is needed.

I voted for improved navigation.

- I think it would be easier & quicker if the main Tabs at the top of the pages had either 1) drop-down menus, or 2) if they spread the choices across the page just below each tab as you moused over it.

- I agree that a Plant Files button on each page would be nice, especially if it opened in another window so we could easily look something up.

Overall, I have to tell you this is an amazing board, functionally speaking - a testament to Dave's programming skills. I've run boards, and I visit tons of them, and this one really stands out with it's functional capabilities. :))

I would also like to see an improved search feature. On the homepage there are modules that also searching of trade lists, journal, etc. Could one be added with the quick plant search, forum search, and maybe a whole site search? One text box with radio buttons to select the part of the site you want to search would be really nice.

One other thing would be to order the search results by popularity. When I use google for instance, the most popular sites are listed first. In DG I can't figure out how the results are ordered. If I'm searching for "whiteflies on houseplants" it would be nice to see the threads that have a lot of posts about whiteflies or that other people have tagged with those keywords. Getting results with long threads where whiteflies and houseplants appear somewhere in the thread, but that's really not the topic of the thread, is less useful.

On the topic of pests, I think the idea for adding a pest section to the PlantFiles pages would be really great ( I saw this on a forum a few months ago). I know we don't have a diseases database but it would be nice to have links to bugs that commonly attack the plant you're interested in (added by members of course). I think you can currently add the link in the feedback section but you would have to look through all the feedback to find the links.

I know those might be major projects for the design team but I think they would be nice additions.

i didn't have time to read what everyone else said but it's the plant files to me too. it's frustrating for me to have to go hunt that up now. plus if the files could be improved to make it easier for non biology majors to find plants. and truly i have a good working knowledge of latin botanical names. i can't imagine how someone without that could find the files useful at all. i find lots of things on the plant files by googling. but not directly from the plant files. also, i wish there could be a concerted effort to get hardiness ratings more correct. also wish that somehow when we post that we have a plant that we had a place to click WHERE it's growing..as in inside/outside esp. but in an ideal world there would be helpful hints such as "up against a house", "full texas sun". all the little pertinent details that has given a person a certain success with a plant.

and if you do the plant files i wish you would think of some way to make the bug files workable. i don't know but maybe categorized somehow by the plants themselves. maybe on the plant files could be listed which bugs like that particular plant. i rarely use the bug files as i guess i just don't get how to work them.

but please put plant files back on the top headers of the home page. after you do that i'll be able to tell you what else bothers me but that one sticks out so bad it's hard to find fault with other aspects of daves right now. lol.

Tir_na_nog, good point about wanting to dmail friends, that WOULD eliminate that, so maybe the subscriber only dmail idea would not work. I was only joyously thinking of the member dmails that I commonly refer to as "moocher mail" stopping, not about the rest. LOL

Other vote from me.

DG is perfect, fun, informative and STILL the best website on the planet earth!

Thanks for claridying Pudgey! I've had a few moocher dmails to ;). I just ignore 'em. LOL!!!!

Mama, good point that it seems plantfiles often needs botanical names. It's hard when you don't know the names to do proper searches. But:

"Other" a picture of Dave!

I went with members choice survey. No obvious problems with the other choices.

Please is it possible to make the option to see tags in a cloud "stick" so we don't have to reset it each time?

I would like to see the plant files search feature improved. Sometime I use it to find a specific plant, and it comes up with no results. I then put the same terms in google, and a daves garden page for that plant comes up.