What the Heck Happened Here

[rhines81]

Originally Posted by TomatoDon

I was one of the first to join here, I believe in January of 2006. I read the forums practically every day and night for a long time. I asked a lot of questions and posted a lot and learned a lot. I've probably posted more about good red and pink summer slicers and raised beds than anything. I've been here so many years that I now find myself searching for the same information in threads that were posted years ago, and also posting about the same things now, but in different ways, that I used to post back in the early days.

Back then, I used to think if he could get 500 members that we would have a huge knowledge base to call on, but then it went past 1,000 and 2,000 and kept growing. What is it now? Over 10,000?

A few of my favorites that come to mind that I used to see here regularly but I haven't seen in a long time are Feldon, Suze, and I believe another one's name was JerseyJohn61, or something similar. I wish I could remember the name of the guy that was here at the beginning, basically a troll, who showed pictures of a seedling he claimed was growing under the snow. He didn't last long! We've had some fun and zany times here, too, such as that -- and the blue tomato thread and the floating tomato thread -- in addition to all the great tomato info we still get every day here. It's been fun and educational for me for all these years and continues to be, even though I probably read a lot more than I post these days.

Thanks to all who have helped make this such a great site for tomatoes and gardening in general. It's nice -- and a blessing -- to still see familiar names of friendships I've made and enjoyed here for years.
Don

Thank you for your post and I couldn't agree with you more. This is a great site, but I am just pondering the latest downturn is all. Others that have posted have offered valid reasons for that, I just would have thought that there would be a higher demand in these days for a great site like this.

[TomatoDon]

Is that a Brittany in your avatar?

[rhines81]

Yes it is. This photo is from when I picked him up as a puppy over 12 years ago in Montana. He has an enlarged mitrial valve, but still keeping on. Not really expecting him to be alive beyond this year as it is really starting to become an issue. He's my boy. His grandmother, that I owned, was a National Champion and I 'custom ordered' him from a puppy of hers from a guy in Montana and drove a long but fun trip to pick him up at 12 weeks of age. He's been a joy and a great bird dog, but health issues kept me from making him another National Champion. I love him just the same, his days are now numbered unforunately.

[JRinPA]

The blowup was around Dec 2019. I missed it directly, being hunting season then, I wasn't around much. The way I understand it, there had been talk floated of tville shutting down, so someone started another bb/forum as a liferaft so everyone could stay in touch rather than be reduced to using facebook! That new site's name was spread around here. The site owner here did not take it kindly to have the tville users headhunted, and the ban hammer was employed vigorously. A lot people on the new site used their same username so an internet search will find the expats quickly enough. But the site name is verboten here.

I for one am glad tville is still here, I've learned so much and will always be grateful to admin and the users.

And I have said the same in the past, as Scott said, I used to post a lot more because I needed to learn more. Now I'm sort of set. I also don't like to offer too much advice to people gardening in different climates and areas.

[rhines81]

Originally Posted by JRinPA

The blowup was around Dec 2019. I missed it directly, being hunting season then, I wasn't around much. The way I understand it, there had been talk floated of tville shutting down, so someone started another bb/forum as a liferaft so everyone could stay in touch rather than be reduced to using facebook! That new site's name was spread around here. The site owner here did not take it kindly to have the tville users headhunted, and the ban hammer was employed vigorously. A lot people on the new site used their same username so an internet search will find the expats quickly enough. But the site name is verboten here.

I for one am glad tville is still here, I've learned so much and will always be grateful to admin and the users.

And I have said the same in the past, as Scott said, I used to post a lot more because I needed to learn more. Now I'm sort of set. I also don't like to offer too much advice to people gardening in different climates and areas.

I must have missed all of that action (I had a heart attack in 2019, my wife had one in 2020 so there were some life-distractions happening for me), not a clue to what went on here... there was usually much more non-related conversation to hang out here for than 'just tomatoes' which made it, to me, a little more fun and more personal (bonding-wise). Coming back on, I was just a little lost. I've not seen any mention of 'that other site' here, nor has it come up in any search engines as a suggestion to join (nor have I looked). I appreciated the explaination because what I see on here seems extremely defensive (to something) and that explains it a little better.

[JRinPA]

Yeah, similar here actually. It wasn't just due to hunting seasons, we lost a part of the family in November '19 and life is not the same. Kind of got back towards normal in March, and then...world of covid.

[rhines81]

I was just ready to jump back in to my home gardening (work from home, check), then wife has a heart-attack late March (un-check). I feel the pain, sometimes things need to be lined up to get it right.

[ScottinAtlanta]

I want to ask - should we recruit? I am member to several gardening groups here in Atlanta numbering in the thousands of people. Would the administrator want me to recommend that they join here? I haven't done that yet, for no good reason except not to irritate anyone.

[bower]

Personally, I don't post here as much because I'm a moderator on another forum now and that requires some commitment. I spend more time there, but I still appreciate T'ville and drop by when I can, and if I see something I have anything to add, I do.
TBH it was traumatic to be told that the forum would close here. Besides losing the enormous resource of wisdom that it is, I also felt that my own contributions were wasted. I admit that I used T'ville as a place to keep records eg of my breeding projects, or reading about things, links to resources etc. Which would no longer be available to me if it closed. And in addition the loss of friendships that were formed over time, was a hard reality to face.

So I am very happy that it has continued to be here, and I hope that it does for a long time, even if I don't post as often.

[Fusion_power]

I was a member of a forum for show birds until 2 years ago. It was closed due to inactivity. I kept extensive breeding records there about some chickens I am working with. Fortunately, I had a premonition that it was going south so I captured the most needed pages and have them stored on my computer. For similar reasons, there are threads here on tomatoville that I do not want to lose.

[biscuitridge]

Originally Posted by Fusion_power

I was a member of a forum for show birds until 2 years ago. It was closed due to inactivity. I kept extensive breeding records there about some chickens I am working with. Fortunately, I had a premonition that it was going south so I captured the most needed pages and have them stored on my computer. For similar reasons, there are threads here on tomatoville that I do not want to lose.

What kind of chickens are you breeding?

[Milan HP]

Just an opinion from a newbie still at 80% on the asking side and just the rest on the answering side.
This is a great forum and as I got back to the thread where the threat of closing it down was seriously discussed, I thought to myself: "lucky you they didn't".

I don't think it's just about "how to". That can be sort of exhausted. It's about sharing and caring, it's a community. And dispersing a community where people feel good is a deadly sin. Howgh.
Milan HP

[rhines81]

Originally Posted by ScottinAtlanta

I want to ask - should we recruit? I am member to several gardening groups here in Atlanta numbering in the thousands of people. Would the administrator want me to recommend that they join here? I haven't done that yet, for no good reason except not to irritate anyone.

I wouldn't see why not. If someone is looking for a wealth of information you should feel free to point them to any site or source that they can benefit from. This site or another.
When you use the word 'recruit' it seems that it was happening on this site to get people to move to another... again, I guess I missed all of that happy drama. Spamming people on a site is much different than a recommendation as to where they can find more focused information.

[MrBig46]

What happened happened. I think it's useless to dissect it here. It leads to nothing. Let's try, we who are left here and the new ones to make this forum live. I think that even those who left sometimes appear and look for information on this forum. What has been written here in those fourteen years cannot be replaced. That's why it's important for Tomatoville to live.
Vladimír

[Fusion_power]

What kind of chickens are you breeding?

I am breeding silver laced wyandottes that lay blue eggs. I started in 2013 so currently on the 8th year working with these chickens. I was fortunate to get some eggs from Keith Bramwell at UARK from a blue egg laying line of straight comb brown leghorns. I got some show grade Silver Laced Wyandottes from Jerry Foley at http://www.foleyswaterfowl.com/

There are some complex genetic reasons why I needed straight comb blue egg layers to cross with high quality SLW. The only way to get rose comb in this combination is to start with straight comb bred to rose comb SLW. The only way to get blue eggs in an SLW background is to turn off the porphyrin genes which it turns out Brown Leghorns have the right genes. The pattern, columbian, and melanotic genes plus a bunch of type traits had to come from SLW.

I now have about 20 chickens with most of them showing decent Silver Laced Wyandotte phenotype and laying blue or blue tinted eggs. I am still working on stabilizing the different traits. Current focus is on increasing rose comb gene prevalence. I am now breeding only from rose comb roosters. In the past, I had to use straight comb roosters to increase the number of birds with blue egg traits.