RE: what's appropriate for this list?

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Hi folks-

 

As one who has taken advantage of this list serve to get some horticultural info, I want to weigh in on behalf of allowing plant questions on the list.  For some of us, “gardening” is not the important word in “community gardening,” but every once in a while we need some information that is beyond our local garden experts and we’re not up to date on resources out there in web land.  I know we don’t want the list serve to become garden advice for everyone with an African Violet or a backyard landscape, but it makes sense that some plant questions might be answered here.  Perhaps the best answers are those that refer people to good resources, and I know some people get that kind of help.  We probably also need to keep working to make the ACGA web site a good source of links to such resources.

 

My thinking is that the community garden network is rich because it includes such a wide range of folks.  We should take advantage of that.  Not only that, but the community garden point of view on some plant questions is sometimes different from the backyard gardener angle.  In particular, the multicultural aspect of community gardening can really be useful.  I’d hate to see some of that richness lost by an arbitrary restriction on plant questions.  Finally, if we try to restrict questions to those related to community gardening, we get back into that old question of what constitutes a community garden – 2 people sharing a plot, marigolds in a sidewalk tree pit, a collective neighborhood farm, etc.

 

I’d like to suggest, rather than asking Anna to screen messages for horticultural content, that those of us active on the list maintain some kind of discipline around responses to plant questions(e.g.-focus on referring to resources, respond directly to the questioner rather than the list on such postings, send a stock response describing the purpose of the list).

 

Regardless, please wait a little while on any strict regulation.  I have a plant question I want to post later today.

 

Jack Hale

 

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: community_garden-admin@mallorn.com [mailto:community_garden-admin@mallorn.com]On Behalf Of Anna Wasescha
Sent: Sunday, May 06, 2001 3:41 PM
To: community_garden@mallorn.com
Subject: [cg] what's appropriate for this list?

 

As your faithful ACGA list manager, I turn to you now for advice:  in the last few weeks a large group of individuals have tried to post horticultural questions.  I just posted the one about dwarf trees.  For your information, I get to review postings that come in from non-list members.  Last week I rejected a number of these postings because it just seemed inappropriate to put out a question that had only to do with plant life and nothing to do with community gardens.  WHAT IS YOUR VIEW?  Does anyone out there object to my permitting postings on horticultural subjects?  Should I try to keep the outsiders out unless they are really focused on community gardens?  Please let me know. 

 

Anna

 

Anna Wasescha
Farm in the City and ACGA list manager

1312 Dayton Avenue
St. Paul, Minnesota  55104-6440
651.646.8733 (phone)
651.646.0034 (fax)
a*@tc.umn.edu