Perhaps it would be beneficial to get @LemonadeJoe’s opinion on moving Seed Runs and their affiliated discussion threads to the Private Lounge or to PM’s. After all, Overgrow exists due in great part to our web traffic, and new visitors and members are crucial to our long-term success as a community.
It’s no secret that quite a bit of new traffic and new members are finding Overgrow due to our efforts to “overgrow the world” with our generous seed sharing. One of the most popular and long-running threads is the Free Seeds & Free Clones Thread (Part 10).
See that “(Part 10)”? Yeah, that means we’ve maxed out 9 previous threads due to them reaching the 5,000 replies limit, and we’re not too far away from moving to Part 11. That’s nearly 50,000 replies within a FREE SEEDS & FREE CLONES thread. And the total views is much higher than the the total replies - almost 160,000! ALL OUT IN THE OPEN for 5 years now!
I’ve confessed numerous times that I’m not very intelligent, so I can’t understand why the sudden push by some people to move the seed runs to the private lounge or to PM threads while there’s not an equal, or even greater push to move the "FREE SEEDS & CLONES’ thread out of the public view. I mean, with a thread title like ‘FREE SEEDS…’, that gets a lot more attention than ‘Xxxx strain Seed Run’ from non-members who are lurking on the site or conducting Google searches.
Joe - are you able to easily capture the non-member traffic numbers generated by our Seed Runs and Free Seeds threads? If so, would it be safe to assume all of that traffic will disappear by “hiding” those threads? If so, what impact would that have on your relationships with current and prospective sponsors & advertisers?
Regarding distribution, the way Seed Runs currently operate is mostly efficient and successful. It needs to be tweaked, but it doesn’t need to be dismantled and rebuilt. If Sebring was operating as he normally does, this wouldn’t even be a discussion worth broaching. He’s done so much for so many of us, the least we can do is continue to be patient, and to find him the additional help he’s specifically asked for.