Also as a member of BETTER than a dozen different forums, this one is different, but by no means, worse than any other I belong to. You might want to check your CPU usage. You might have several programs running "behind the scenes" that cause your computer to freeze. I know as much stuff as I usually have running, I've never had a problem THAT WASN'T MY COMPUTER'S FAULT, with posting here, and I've been here for a couple of years.

i too get frustrated with some of the lack of user-friendly functions, like the basic search limitations & the lack of an ability to "sticky" posts like mongo's to the top or a resource area. But, as a possible help for the freezing up issue, when i type out a post, i always copy the text when i'm done and before I hit the post button. Either that or type into Notepad and then paste into the GW posting when I'm done. that way if it does freeze up or you get logged out, you still have your text.

lisa

I agree that the technology and features of this forum are terribly dated! There are so many off the shelf solutions to create user friendly forums. The search function is terrible.
yet I still come here :) because of the great wealth of information and the interesting people...

Maybe someone should start a better forum with more features...

The search function is not great, but if you do a google search on a topic, quite often I find it'll link to a Gardenweb topic.

If you use a good browser with ad blocking/popup blocking it'll make the site run faster, and you may get less crashing.

It is possible to make a browser crash by poor website coding but usually the cause of crashing is the computer.

You have a couple of options to save your text....first, if it's not completely crashed, your 'back' button will sometimes bring your composed text back, or, if it happens often or you're working on a post that takes a while to write, compose it in Notepad or similar, then you can copy and paste it (you have to save it of course, to make it recoverable) - that's probably the most bulletproof method.

I actually love the GW message board function. Yes, it's dated, but it's very simple to use; there isn't a lot of "clutter" on the screen. It just works.

As for searching - I always use google where my first parameter is "site:gardenweb.com". For example:

site:gardenweb.com faucet height

This limits the google search to only return results from gardenweb. Works great!

Other people on different GW Forums reported having problems with GW on the evening of 1-15. Was it an isolated incident or does it happen repeatedly?

I had a problem posting on GW on 1/15 also; I was told I had to enable cookies, which was never the case before...(???) - I thought it was MY problem & I ran all my virus cleaners etc.

I think the issue is short lived - I have not had problems before. Maybe it was more of a widespread issue - I read on a newsite today that there is some kind of "worm" the microsoft is trying to protect againt - maybe some relationship?

I had problems on the 15th too -- just gave up for the evening. All seems back to normal today. Missed my fix last night, though . . .

I posted all evening. Buy a Mac. They are true work horses. I shut it down maybe every two or three weeks, so it can gather it's thoughts.

There was something wrong as I had the same problem. Gave up completely.

I don't understand people complaining about the functionality of a FREE Service. Hate to be rude not my intent really, but if you don't like the way the interface works, no one is forcing you to use it.

What bugs me (since you asked :)is that old threads are lost, and that there is a limit to the posts in a thread. This is especially a problem in the Kitchen forum, which gets a ton of traffic. Very helpful, informative posts just drop off after a few months.

I know this is a free service, and it's a very valuable one at that, but other free message boards manage to incorporate better searching and archiving of threads for the same price.

There are definitely times when I wonder why they don't install a vBulletin or phpbb so the board looks better, but with those boards comes a lot of spam ("robo" style spam) and all those dumb emoticons that slow things down (all the smilies).

I will say that I appreciate the ability to use HTML here when it comes to posting pictures. HGTV only allows one picture per post. Here, if you know the HTML, you can pretty much do anything you want, image wise, in your posts.

I much prefer this older interface to the newer ones, even with the limitations. Posting pictures and HTML, as mentioned above, is the best.

I like the clean simple interface of GW too and using Firefox with Ad Block Plus, I see no ads. Along with everyone else (that isn't using a Mac (g)) I had problems on the 15th. Slooooooooooooow! But the problem I'm having now, I've been having for a couple of weeks. I can't seem to embed photos...something I've been doing on this site for 6 years, using the same image hosting website, pbase. When this started, the photo would embed, but hitting submit button, wouldn't advance me to the "posted" page. Now, the pictures are doubled and there is no submit button. Is this happening with anyone else?
Monica

I mentioned this when I joined about 3 years ago. All of my other forums use v-bulletin, that allows for a full-featured experience. And none of them let old threads drop off, either. They go back all the way.
Casey

I like the fact that old threads drop off, although I'm not sure that one year or a maximum post count are the best ways to do it. Real old threads often contain dated material that no longer accurately reflects current conditions. And then there are the bozos that just have to reply to something posted years ago resurrecting yet another dead thread. This happens all to often on the other boards.

I don't personally care for vBulletin bulletin boards. I much prefer phpbb.

There are a couple of things I think really need attention in the GW board software. The search function plain sucks, and we should be able to edit and/or delete our posts for at least a few hours.

By the way, this isn't a free service. It is advertiser supported. There is a big difference between that particular business model and free.

It's all about available server space and money. I think they have done a great job in trying to cover a lot of topics to appease to the masses. Servers are not cheap and it's costs money to maintain them too, something I'm sure the ad's cover but especially now, just barely.

Hey I got an idea! Those who feel this free service isn't up to par, donate some cash to the service so they can upgrade to the level you think it should be at.

Hey I got an idea! Those who feel this free service isn't up to par, donate some cash to the service so they can upgrade to the level you think it should be at.

Now that's funny. I think General Electric and its subsidiary, NBC Universal, have enough money to properly fund their web operations without donations. Yes, that is who owns this web site.

A few years ago it cost $15 to subscribe to some of the Garden Web forums. I think they should take down some of the ones that generate less traffic, or combine them.

Given the issues listed above plus some others, I have joined a small group of people starting our own phpbb gardening forum. We've spent months making it NOT look like phpbb. The other day the site was attacked by the Russian porn industry 200 times. The automatic features in the new version (phpbb 3.1) prevented their entry. So far so good. We'll be launching next month.

It doesn't matter who owns the site, the costs to update & maintain it are the same and just because they earn income off of the ads is of no subsquence to you, you still use it for free.