On Feb 7, 9:28*am, "Pat Brennan" wrote:
If you really do not like Outlook that much get on google and find a news
reader that is more to your liking. *There are a couple of them out there
which are free to download.

I do not think any website is going to be the same as USENET. *With websites
come moderators, administrator, owners, IDs and passwords, rules, and
hosting bills. *If these things do not bother you, there are lots of web
based orchid forums out there. *None of them are like the wild, wild west
USENET used to be. *I was recently asked where all the RGOers went. *I
replied that I really did not know and that you did not see that many of
them on the various website forums except Ray and Ray is ubiquitous.

This is an encouragement to develop a better website which includes
forums.

While USENET was useful in its time, there are major problems with it
(SPAM, flamewars, poor signal to noise ratio). I prefer a little more
order than is possible in the wild wild west. For plain text fora, I
find google groups to be as effective, and more user friendly, than a
conventional news reader' although it does nothing to address the
major problems that may be an inevitable part of unmoderated usenet
newsgroups. I have seen once useful newsgroups become completely
worthless because of problems like SPAM (some of which was so
disgraceful no responsible parent would let their kids see similar
material).

It is not just an orchid based forum I would like to see (I have
probably already bookmarked most of them), but one where the regulars
here can continue to provide their expertise, others can ask their
questions, pictures can be posted/viewed, and one which includes a
database back end that contains first hand experience and records from
those growing orchids (and other plants) that can be queried/analyzed,
and including data that can be used to identify/classify specimens
that have yet to be identified, and a whole lot more. For example,
being able to maintain a record of culture practices and results would
allow us to learn what works best in a given environment. I know a
guy who can heal any plants almost killed by neighbors (putatively in
the same general environment: same temperature, lighting and humidity
in the outside environment), and he makes them thrive. He attributes
this to his practice of keeping humidity in his greanhouse at almost
100% where his neighbors attempt to compensate for low humidity by
watering more frequently. I don't know if his explanation is right,
but having environmental conditions and cultural practices stored in a
database along with the performance of the plants, for subsequent
analysis, would allow one to find out and more importantly learn what
is both practicable and effective in almost any situation (window
sill, greenhouse, &c.). Have you seen any resource anywhere on the
web that supports anything like this?

Cheers

Ted