Is it time for the Garden to go?

No one posts here much anymore. And I hate to see a forum that has been going for over ten years - longer than any of the other old forums - fall into the kind of disrepair and neglect that 1239 First Street did under Carlotta (however much I love her).

The way I see it we have three options -

1. close this place down and just go our separate ways

2. post more and try and keep the place going

3. (my favoured option) continue the Garden on Facebook, somehow encouraging Jules to create an account even if she just uses an alias.

What do you guys think?

I agree it's been very quiet lately, especially over Christmas.

I'm not sure how it would work on Facebook, would it be private or could anyone see what we say? I think we were going to try it before but people didn't like the idea.

One of the good things about the forum is having the private section - having somewhere to go where you can post anything and know people will listen and care what you say.....

But right now no one's really responding to each other.....are we too comfortable with each other or have we stopped caring?

Have our own lives got busier?

These questions are for me also because I know I haven't been as attentive as I could have been.....

Should we give the reigns to someone else?

I haven't voted yet, thinking about it.....it saddens me

If it was on Facebook it could be a closed group, so by invite only; we'd have to check out what the privacy settings were like.

Secret is the way to go, no one can see it then but the members.

I voted for fb.

What about a fourth option? A re branding, drop the anne rice theme, choose another name and rename sections and certain threads. Invite back old members and more will join as mutual friends or maybe a search engine. By all means have a fb page for if the forum server goes down or what ever. But personally i like having the forum. I may have a moan on my facebook status but there are many things i would only be comfortable saying here


The main reason im not on as much is this tablet is a dick

if a fb group provides the same privacy as the darkroom,why not?
besides, it'll be a little easier to keep track on people without them 'posting' and logging in. everbody's life is splashed across our fb-walls as it is. but we'll still have a 'secret place' to let out our inner-emokid and geek-out on vampires,vaginas,poop,sex,dogs vs. cats, childcare, witches.etc:P

It should'nt be a burden on the mods. Just let this one go and start a new one without the responsibility.

I don't think that will help Alondria.. Nicky and Jane have invited people here many a time and when (and if) someone does come, they quickly vanish. Forums are only as hot as the subject, most die. However if its somewhere people mostly linger anyways, you would at least drop by more.

The options for fb groups are public (you can see members and posts), private (you can see the members and the group but not the posts and the most private is 'secret'. Then you see nada, not even the group itself or the members when you are not a member.

the number of views this thread has had always makes me wonder about how many ex-Gardenites are still lurking in the shadows...

I stayed away but did'nt lurk. Maybe it's just guests?

alondrianyx wrote:

What about a fourth option? A re branding, drop the anne rice theme, choose another name and rename sections and certain threads. Invite back old members and more will join as mutual friends or maybe a search engine. By all means have a fb page for if the forum server goes down or what ever. But personally i like having the forum. I may have a moan on my facebook status but there are many things i would only be comfortable saying here


The main reason im not on as much is this tablet is a dick

what would we rebrand it as? I'm always living in the hope Anne will start writing about the vampires again, since they're all she goes on about; if that was the case we'd have tons to talk about.

Hmmmm, not sure, let me think on that. I know it cant just be random shit (though i bet michele would love to do nothing but ;) ), dunno, its gone midnight n i think my brain has shut down lol

I voted Facebook Garden. I was for that when it was first proposed and I believe the couple of main dissenters of that original idea no longer or hardly post here anymore anyway.

For me personally its not about lack of interest or care, its 1. convenience, so much easier for me to post on facebook from my mobile while on the go, and this forum is very hard to load at work, and by the time I get home from work/gym I do a couple quick online things and then move on, and 2. audience, I have a much wider and broader audience on facebook for my insanity, it does no good to post things on facebook only to repeat them in the Garden, and by the time I'd get to the Garden anyway the moments will often have passed.

The only drawback is I would not post overly explicit stuff on facebook, even in a private group, that's what I liked about the forum, but I'm finding the need to less and less be explicit I guess, I've been up to some dirty business like I hinted at in the Dark Room but maybe I just don't feel the need to share such things as much anymore, maybe because they hold less meaning to me.

Anyway, with the exception of Jules all of us are on Facebook anyway. I wouldn't send out mass invites though. Keep it to the people here now and in due time if we feel the need to extend invite then we could, the invited has the option to accept, or to leave the group after accepting if its not something they care to be a part of...and we shouldn't be offended by that.

I would like to see this place remain though, I'd haunt it, I already do, I often read but just don't post.

I agree about the raunchy stuff, but then again, I would never post them to a forum either. Its something you might discuss with a friend, but to put it anywhere, never was my thing. It is however a part of Garden and I know there are many who would miss it.

I haven't been around much lately just due to all the commitments of running a family over Christmas and from about October on I hadn't been very well. I'm fine now though and would like the Garden to continue as a forum. I really don't trust facebook that much. I like it here. I will try and post more often if it stays open.

I don't post much anymore because I don't have internet access at home and therefore in general am not online as much. Also maybe we have just ran out of topics to discuss besides our daily goings on in our lives. And when we have debated topics in the past, it has often gotten ugly, as some people have no tolerance or openmindedness of other peoples different opinions. Which brings an ugliness to this place that is supposed to be for anyone to say anything without hurt feelings or ugliness or intolerance to occur.

I think the question is: do we still need this place for all of us to remain friends?

I do agree with Kay that I don't trust facebook as much, either

do we still need this place for all of us to remain friends? wrote:

I think I will lose the connection with you guys, if there isn't. People who have met, prolly not.

I voted that I would post more but I'd be down with a FB Garden as long as it was a secret group. My friend Arthur and I have a silly little secret fb group that is just us where we just yak about nothing. It is called "The Cool New Douchy Group" and is uber exclusive.    lol

lol sheila.

So was a consensus reached on this?

I think the consensus seems to be that we'll keep this place for a little longer and see how it goes, everyone is posting a little more which is good but still just enough to keep it ticking over. If not, we'll try Facebook

I'm actually sort of rethinking this and wonder if FB might be the best way after all. A secret group so we don't have other people peering over our shoulders.

I have pics and things I'd like to share and I don't know how to do it here, especially as most are on my mobile. For instance, I have a pic of my new" beau" and I wanted to show off how hot he is lol. 

And pics of my house and the work I am doing on it. These are things I would like to share with y'all but not with everyone, ya know.

Facebook is easy I suppose and if that's the way everyone wants to go, count me in.   

Jane and I discussed it yesterday and we might trial Facebook but keep this place open until we're sure. My main concern with Facebook is making sure it's a totally private group, where someone has to ask to join and can't see any of our posts until they're approved

Yes, me too. That can totally be done. I belong to a couple such groups. MY main concern is that someone who just wants to spy on me or anyone else might gain admittance to the group....

we could vet any newbies in here first, away from Facebook; that's the beauty of keeping the two open in tandem, for the time being at least