I do enjoy reading old threads with comments by learned people I have grown very fond of. It is like seeing an old friend. I guess for me reading old posts by special people is a special pleasure.

Jacqueline,

i understand what you mean. Sometimes I look at the old threads and just read the comments from this yr. On the other hand, I do value the advice i can glean.

Maybe there needs to be a separate forum or sub-forum in which posts get put when they are x years old and or have more than 100 entires. Just a thought.

Huge old threads don't bother me at all. But it is interesting that that is one of your pet peeves. I am sure everyone has different things that bother them and that's well and good. The thing that bothers me about some old threads is that the pictures can be inaccessible. Much of the information and people's opinions remain timeless.

My pet peeve has to do with helpmefind. To me it is kind of like shouting for one person to post a huge number of pictures of one rose. Even if they're beautiful pictures, I have to wade through one person's huge number of pictures to get to anyone else's. There is a lot of value in seeing how a rose does for a number of different people. I value the good, bad, and the ugly pics. I have seen up to 57 pictures by one person and many are almost identical. So I think a little restraint would be helpful. A little editing. Ten pictures would be a lot but 57?

I'm fairly sure this isn't a common problem, but some of us might have good reason to skip the long ones. My internet & wifi isn't the greatest. Second choice would have been not having any. Clicking on some of the lengthy discussions mean a considerable time commitment from me. I like seeing advice from old accomplished gardeners that no longer post when I'm researching a rose. For back and forth communication, I skip the long ones. It just isn't practical.

I also love the old threads. I can see when they are started, so can skip them if desired. Not being able to access pics on them is a pet peeve. I used to know a work around for some of them, but forgot it. Sometimes, folks just moved their files so theyre no longer in that place. Im trying to use Houzz to store some and see if that works. I cant have my pics in too many places after the hack. I just wish the search function would go back to the way it was before and may even enable us to search posts for pics.

vaporvac - I totally agree that the old search function was wonderful! I can't use the new one - it just keeps asking me to describe the project I am working on - even when I try to search for a specific rose.

Jackie

I have better luck just doing a Google search and even that aint great! Grrr! I honestly dont understand what Houzz intended with this new search function

Houzz doesn't seem to be making much money off of the plant forums. I worry that someday we'll lose what we now have.

I go back to the days of "Spike Hernandez" and decisions he made as to what to allow. One particular thread had a person in Ontario talking about the need to never cover hybrid teas in winter. Lots of people tried to correct him, one supported him. I emailed Spike about it and he explained that even if the information was bad, good would follow and it would get the viewership up and that's what made money for him.

Since then, we've been passed around. We don't get to dictate, I wish we did, but right now, I think we make do, thankfully, with what we have.

exactly, but sometimes they will repsond to enquiries and change things. I just dont see how anything in Houzz benefits from their search function. Its basically useless even for buying things.

It doesn't bother me at all, and I love rereading people's experiences, and the posts of our dear rose friends that have passed on. I miss those GardenWeb days! It's nostalgic. It's therapeutic.

I love going through the old threads.

For me, it's like a book you enjoy. You reread it. It doesn't suddenly become useless or irrelevant because of its age or that you've read it before.

Say if it was a post on oral hygiene practices somewhere. Information could be updated and added to, as well as personal experiences, but is a new post needed when an original could be brought back up? Is the topic of "oral hygiene" obsolete because it's on an old post? Is it obsolete because people decided they don't need to care for their dental health?

This is my thought process and type of questioning in regards to the matter.

Steven

Thank you all for your very thoughtful responses!

Jackie