You missed the point. You ask a question, you receive answer(s), you comment, refine your questions, receive more information, etc. A conversation is started, posters chime in, many heads are better than one, etc. This is all squashed if posters only reply to an e-mail address.

Also, there is a feature whereby you can be notified via your e-mail of answers to your posts that appear here. I see you have found this feature. Good.

Regards,
Ginger

This is all squashed if posters only reply to an e-mail address

Ginger,

I feel rather badly here.

The poster came to the Heirloom Forum and I directed the person here knowing that you folks had wanted to have your own Forum separate from the Heirloom Forum.

She did not know that asking for a direct e-mail response was not the way to go, as I've also explained to the poster in the Heirloom Forum.

I did read your responses to her in her other thread here.

Is there some way that this situation can be smoothed over and the poster can try to obtain the information she is looking for?

I also told her to check the backpages in the Heirloom Forum since all these type questions were dealt with there before you started this more specialized Forum.

I'm not feeling very good about this at all in terms of my referring folks here when they do come to the Heirloom Forum.

So is there any way you can think of to get by this and have others answer as to material requested?

She now knows that any response received in the Forums in a thread started by her is sent to her automatically if she clicks on that box, actually the default box, when setting up a thread.

it seems to me that information asked for is the key issue, not so much the methodology, especially when someone new doesn 't quite understand the workings of a public message forum such as GW.

Thanks.

Carolyn

I don't really have anything else to say. A request to keep responses public and on the forum seems pretty straightforward and polite.

If there are any issues Spike will take care of them. Not my baliwick, past the responses I have already posted.

Ginger

(I don't really have anything else to say. A request to keep responses public and on the forum seems pretty straightforward and polite.)

The poster has been confused by this public aspect, being new to GW, for there are other net sites where private e-mailing is accepted practice. I also in my post in the Heirloom Forum explained that GW is a public message site and that all questions and answers should be posted publically.

I think she now understands that public posting is preferred over private communication.

Knowing that I also know that many where I post do communicate via e-mail but that's another story entirely since those communications are between folks who have gotten to know each other, for the most part, and are friends.

I receive e-mails all the time b/c my book on heirloom toamtoes is out there, and I ask each person to please post publically. My answering privately does nothing to help those who might have a similar question and can then see it publically

(If there are any issues Spike will take care of them. Not my baliwick, past the responses I have already posted.

There are no issues here where Spike need get involved. The interaction was between you and the poster, plain and simple.

She, being new was confused. I'm sure that must happen here as it does in other Forums where I post. And she was a bit taken aback at your response, as she posted above.

Hopefully all has now been clarified and resolved.

I was just askiong if it were possible for folks here to help answer her questions now that she knows the ropes a bit better and I see in the other thread that someone has, which I'm very glad to see.

And I hope the flow of information to her continues.

I shared with her after her first post in the Heirloom Forum that if she wished to return to that Forum for recommendations as to seed sources for specific heirloom vegetables or flowers that became part of her garden plan that folks there would try to help. That's what the Heirloom Forum deals with all the time.

Since splitting off from the Heirloom Forum this new Forum is best seen for Garden Restoration in an historical sense, which is what you were asking for when you posted in the Heirloom Forum.

So lets now move forward in the other thread with more posts from the folks here.

Carolyn, who will just mention while she's here, that if anyone here has questions about the Shakers, that I was raised in a Shaker built home 10 min from Watervliet, NY, where Mother Ann Lee first established her religious colony. I have designed and executed two historical vegetable gardens for the Shaker Historical Society at that site. If anyone needs help in that area you can usually find me in the Tomato, Vegetable or Heirloom Forums here at GW.