For information:

Website www.expertgardener.com [EG] finally ceased to function on Monday
last, 21.06.04. The site opened as a commercial dotcom venture in March
2000 with a team of about 30 people including Alan Titchmarsh and
Charlie Dimmock, also a dozen or so regular contributors to
uk.rec.gardening. EG ceased to operate commercially in July 2001, but it
remained open on a voluntary basis at the request of members and ex-
staff until last week. The accompanying team site for EG internal
organisation etc. is also now closed.
--
Alan Gould

"Alan Gould" wrote in message
...

For information:

Website www.expertgardener.com [EG] finally ceased to function on
Monday
last, 21.06.04. The site opened as a commercial dotcom venture in
March
2000 with a team of about 30 people including Alan Titchmarsh and
Charlie Dimmock, also a dozen or so regular contributors to
uk.rec.gardening. EG ceased to operate commercially in July 2001,
but it
remained open on a voluntary basis at the request of members and ex-
staff until last week. The accompanying team site for EG internal
organisation etc. is also now closed.

What went wrong?

Franz

The message
from Alan Gould contains these words:


For information:

Website www.expertgardener.com [EG] finally ceased to function on Monday
last, 21.06.04.

Was there an official explanation for the closure, Alan, or did it
just stop working?

Janet

In article , Franz Heymann
writes
What went wrong?

Nothing went wrong recently, that all happened early in 2001. There are
widely differing opinions about it and the history of the site was being
re-written before it had been made. It did however provide an
interesting lesson about human, technical and communication failings.
The one thing which triumphed above all was the quality of gardening
discussion and urg contributors can take credit for a lot of that.
--
Alan Gould - ex Host of 'Eco', EG's Eclological Community.

In article , Janet Baraclough.
.. writes

Was there an official explanation for the closure, Alan, or did it
just stop working?

The site was blocked by Lightmaker the software suppliers, who did not
respond to my request for an explanation. I can only assume that DDL the
site owners had decided not to continue funding it. It had been
operating at its usual recent level until then with all communities and
the chat-room well supported. The library/archive still holds a huge
amount of high quality gardening material including all urg FAQs and 4.5
years of gardening discussion in five distinct horticultural areas.
A sad though inevitable loss to our pastime.
--
Alan Gould

Alan Gould replied to:

Franz Heymann who asked
What went wrong?

Nothing went wrong recently, that all happened early in 2001. There are
widely differing opinions about it and the history of the site was being
re-written before it had been made.

Basically, EG was originally 'headed' by a charismatic, somewhat
egocentric and unrealistic Californian who loved the idea of being 'in
charge', but had few leadership skills and even less business acumen.
A series of disastrous decisions (including the move to using
Lightmaker - crap, unreliable and inflexible software) brought about
his rapid removal and the instatement of a management company to run
the site. Ultimately run by Jonathan Lander (a name respected in 'the
City') the team dissolved in part and was finally disbanded leaving EG
to its own devices. Lander and his men may have been good with dosh
and investments, but they had no idea what they were getting into and
were incapable of giving honest and straight responses to reasonable
requests.

It did however provide an
interesting lesson about human, technical and communication failings.

Agreed - most if not all of them firmly at the feet of Jonathan Lander
y amigos.

The one thing which triumphed above all was the quality of gardening
discussion and urg contributors can take credit for a lot of that.

Well it was good when the whole team was taking part, but I've
occasionally looked in over the past couple of years and the general
quality of posting was reduced to being mediocre.

Its a great shame. The concept was brilliant and it worked so well
with a stunningly good team, but for too short a time. Sadly
management failings brought about a series of resignations from
arguably the most talented team members. An even bigger shame is that
the archives contain some superbly expert contributions from the likes
of Tim Longville, Einion Hughes, Tony McCormack etc and all of these
will be lost.

Dave Poole
Torquay, Coastal South Devon UK
Winter min -2°C. Summer max 34°C.
Growing season: March - November

The message
from Alan Gould contains these words:

In article , Janet Baraclough.
. writes

Was there an official explanation for the closure, Alan, or did it
just stop working?

The site was blocked by Lightmaker the software suppliers, who did not
respond to my request for an explanation. I can only assume that DDL the
site owners had decided not to continue funding it. It had been
operating at its usual recent level until then with all communities and
the chat-room well supported. The library/archive still holds a huge
amount of high quality gardening material including all urg FAQs and 4.5
years of gardening discussion in five distinct horticultural areas.

Well, the library-archive no longer exists.

Whoever arranged for all the urg FAQS to appear in EG's archive?
Obviously you could decide what happened to the ones you authored, but I
don't recall urg ever being consulted about the rest.

Janet

In article , Janet Baraclough.
.. writes
Well, the library-archive no longer exists.
It still exists as stored information but it is no longer available for
anyone to use.

Whoever arranged for all the urg FAQS to appear in EG's archive?
Obviously you could decide what happened to the ones you authored, but I
don't recall urg ever being consulted about the rest.

Urg FAQs are in the public domain via the urg webring.
--
Alan & Joan Gould - North Lincs.

In article , Janet Baraclough.
.. writes
The message
from Alan Gould contains these words:

In article , Janet Baraclough.
. writes

Was there an official explanation for the closure, Alan, or did it
just stop working?

The site was blocked by Lightmaker the software suppliers, who did not
respond to my request for an explanation. I can only assume that DDL the
site owners had decided not to continue funding it. It had been
operating at its usual recent level until then with all communities and
the chat-room well supported. The library/archive still holds a huge
amount of high quality gardening material including all urg FAQs and 4.5
years of gardening discussion in five distinct horticultural areas.

Well, the library-archive no longer exists.

Whoever arranged for all the urg FAQS to appear in EG's archive?
Obviously you could decide what happened to the ones you authored, but I
don't recall urg ever being consulted about the rest.

Did they appear with acknowledgement? A lot of stuff gets linked into -
look at all the gardens on the urgring for example.

As author of one of them, I wasn't consulted, so I wouldn't be happy if
it was just lifted, but if it's got my name and that of urg on it, I'm
not too worried.
--
Kay
"Do not insult the crocodile until you have crossed the river"

In article , Janet Baraclough.
.. writes
The message
from Alan Gould contains these words:

In article , Janet Baraclough.
. writes

Was there an official explanation for the closure, Alan, or did it
just stop working?

The site was blocked by Lightmaker the software suppliers, who did not
respond to my request for an explanation. I can only assume that DDL the
site owners had decided not to continue funding it. It had been
operating at its usual recent level until then with all communities and
the chat-room well supported. The library/archive still holds a huge
amount of high quality gardening material including all urg FAQs and 4.5
years of gardening discussion in five distinct horticultural areas.

Well, the library-archive no longer exists.

Whoever arranged for all the urg FAQS to appear in EG's archive?
Obviously you could decide what happened to the ones you authored, but I
don't recall urg ever being consulted about the rest.

Did they appear with acknowledgement? A lot of stuff gets linked into -
look at all the gardens on the urgring for example.

As author of one of them, I wasn't consulted, so I wouldn't be happy if
it was just lifted, but if it's got my name and that of urg on it, I'm
not too worried.
--
Kay
"Do not insult the crocodile until you have crossed the river"

In article , Dave Poole
writes

The one thing which triumphed above all was the quality of gardening
discussion and urg contributors can take credit for a lot of that.

Well it was good when the whole team was taking part, but I've
occasionally looked in over the past couple of years and the general
quality of posting was reduced to being mediocre.

What you saw was ordinary gardeners discussing their pastime in a
friendly and helpful environment. The participants did that for three
years without the presence of experts, celebrities, website designers,
administrators etc. That can not fairly be described as mediocrity.
--
Alan Gould

In message , Alan Gould
writes

For information:

Website www.expertgardener.com [EG] finally ceased to function on Monday
last, 21.06.04.

Well, I was just surprised that the site had remained online for such
along time.

--
Chris French and Helen Johnson, Leeds
urg Suppliers and References FAQ:
http://www.familyfrench.co.uk/garden/urgfaq/index.html

On Tue, 29 Jun 2004 19:29:46 +0100, Alan Gould
wrote:

What you saw was ordinary gardeners discussing their pastime in a
friendly and helpful environment.

That I saw also... However, the quality of discussion and adherence
to topicality was lost making it no different to the myriad of other
sites - Garden Web etc. Anyway, it is gone, passe, morte, which is
probably somewhat overdue.


Dave Poole
Torquay, Coastal South Devon UK
Winter min -2°C. Summer max 34°C.
Growing season: March - November