Agreed! The signing in was a pain - I'm not even sure what the heck my user name is. And why change everything when not necessary for improvements. Speaking of improvements, I don't see any. Oh well, lots of gardening forums out there.

You can change your name back to what it was with GW if you follow Tamara's advice in this post.

Rodney

Thanks Rodney. In confirming my user ID and password I was told my user ID was taken (?) so I created a new one. But then when signing in, the new one did not work and the old one did, so I'm not sure which is correct. So long as I stay signed in it won't matter. The whole process was a bit perplexing.

Tom

I agree. It seemed like a lot of unnecessary steps and stuff needing to be confirmed just to post in the forums again.

Rodney

I am going to reserve judgement for the time being. I liked the old Garden Web, but then it was free; so it wasn't my investment that kept it going.

I changed the URL I use to link here to

http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/

The sign in box in the top right hand of the page is slow, but works for me using the Email address and the password I entered in my profile.

I think this is going to take a bit of getting used to, but the Gardening Forums seem to be all there and pretty much usable like they were before. The price seems to be as good as it was before, too - free. Page response is slow, but then so was the old Garden Web, although not quit this slow IIRC. Once you get into the Forums the site speeds up quite a bit.

I think that I will probably forget my signin name, since I am using my Email and the display name on my posts remains the same as it was before.

The format does not matter a whole lot, the people-past, present, and future, do matter. we are the brick and mortar. if people stay here so will I, no matter how imperfect this site may be. If they leave then I'll follow them out to a worse format. Gw was pretty terrible to begin with, and this new hoze does not improve. don't care so long as ppl use it. Peace in the middle east, yall

A lot of the people who were farmers by profession have left this site so many of those who have the most to offer as far as growing great garlic goes are LONG GONE. What is left are those who do not to into the older posts to answer their questions, but keep asking the same ones over and over. Tired of saying "look at the previous posts" before asking the same question again.

I see more of the "old ways" of GW coming back-able to contact each other, forums, exchange lists. I think most people will stay now that we're seeing the 'core' of the website available again. Some have left, but they might come back if they knew. As a culture we don't have much patience. Every gardening website requires time to learn it, become involved. It's a matter of choice and where to spend the time/wait it out a bit.

I've undergone a name change, kind of refreshing, and one thing I like about the new format is the absence of commercial hyperlinks in the message texts. Those popups were irritating.

Formerly planatus

I gotta say that I am finding the HOUZZ format easier to use all the time, and quicker than I thought it would be to get comfortable with it. BTW I use the Email address I registered with to sign in and it goes pretty quickly now, and seems to be faster than the old GardenWeb sign in was, too. I am coming to like the way displays threads better, too, and the missing extraneous links are not missed here at all either.

Houzz so graciously adopted gardenweb.com because google links hundreds, maybe thousands, of keywords to the content users have created, content that redirects potential long term new users to HOUZZ.COM, not to mention casual clicks. Let's face it, that is a boon even if a PHP admin has to get off his arse to make a few minor changes to the site. Therefore, when I click on that 2nd rate pun "MY HOUZZ", I should at least be able to get back to gardenweb.com or else be able to browse GW forums for content I care about instead of be in profile/houzz.com bag-end. That small change would help me get reoriented to this merge.