I am the current admin of Overgrow.com [2.0]. Now that we are running publicly and new members are joining I feel obliged to introduce myself. I’ve partly described my background here and here, but in case you are interested to know me better please use this opportunity and feel free to get answers you need in this Ask Me Anything session.
I will not be able to be on at that time but I would like to know how long you have been growing and what would be your best advise for a first time grower?
I’m growing with some pauses for about 20 years now. I remember overgrown greenhouse that my grandfather helped me with when I was teenager It was unfortunately stolen. That was excellent NL#1 seeds I’ve got from Marc Emery - I remember his fine font printed catalogue full of strange varieties. I’ve got extremely lucky at the time - 8 seeds of 10 sprouted and 8 were females.
Soon I’ve got into hydroponics, that was really time around 2000 when I’ve started to visit Overgrow and community around CW. At the time OG switched to vBulletin platform and started to really grow it was impulse for me to start building something too.
I’m experiment person. I have been through trying everything that can plants grow in :)…
Started with bubbler, continued with E&F, aeroponics. Every method has like two years period than I had to move on to another I’ve also met many many friends due to this hobby and have tried to learn from them. Many were very successful growers.
This hobby is also lot about people. Some just are patient and hardworking, some are not. But you reap what you saw.
Some things and equipment was really hard to get at the time. I remember buying wholesale package of rockwool (so big I couldn’t even inarm) just to find out at home that this rockwool won’t hold any water because it is construction wool, not farming wool
I’m very happy that my thought to revive Overgrow.com has some feedback from others and that you are too missing the atmosphere of 00’s. It was great and unique moment in time and space.
Btw this is called Badges here. It is very nice ability of this platform that I’ve tailored to our needs. For example you can see which Oldschool members have returned by looking at Oldschool Badge User list.
Great question. I don’t want to sound like marketing guy, but you are right, there should be some plan at least how to get new growers :)…
I was hoping to get some paid promotion at other sites, but it surprised me that from about 20 sites I’ve asked, only one was willing to offer us promotion at serious price (still negotiating). Others were acting like we are competition and didn’t want to help as at all, some others just said price is $XX.XXX per year which is of course ridiculous. Maybe they are just afraid that new OG will be succesful.
So I think it boils down to some pretty standard webmastering work. Being sure the site is optimized well for search engines (and rest assured this site is), getting some incoming links and so on.
But what I see as crucial is I think to give our members the best experience possible. It is the power of word and sharing that can help us in the long time.
There were many mistakes other sites have done that we’ve seen. Some don’t allow discussing of some seeds or criticizing admins. Some have allowed uncivilized discussion and hatred to spread. Some have banned half of participating members and some don’t allow free speech at all.
We would like to be different in this and in the long run offer more and more features that will just serve our members. Very simple.
Development of this site is more marathon than a sprint. Many others have decided to close on (due to high cost or inability to monetize the site) or just don’t care about their site dying. There are many many zombie forums around the net. I have the idea of constantly improving the site one small step at a time.
P.S. If you have any ideas or can recommend sites to promote on, let me know!
Do you think we can do something differently? If I recall when I was new grower I just needed a lot of inspiration. At the time there were no practical info on the net, but nowadays, you can learn from one well structured thread the amount of information that you would otherwise get from whole book.
I think forums are the perfect way to learn growing. If you can safely share pictures and get advise I think this is exactly they need.
We need to create creative platform also for experienced growers so they can and want to share their wisdom. It is closed circle.
Also I’ve got some idea about free PDF ebook for beginner that I’d like to cooperate on with major grower & writter of how-to-grow books here in CZ.
Be patient. Because to get the growing right needs a lot of it.
Also don’t overdo it. Sometimes (and I see it frequently) people are just asking what more to pour to the plants? They think that the more of some chemical they pour in the bigger will the yield be.
Most underestimated factors are I think:
genetics (yes right genes cost something)
air (amount and humidity when indoors)
care (yes you have to care for the plants, you can’t just set and forget them for a week)
Thank you guys for your questions. It was a pleasure. Thanks to all for your activity in the forums.
I’ll organize AMA soon again, or maybe we can do it regularly. OG is a forum but it is great to chat in real-time when we’ve got the opportunity and this platform also serves well this purpose because you don’t need to refresh the page. New posts just automatically appear.
Of course if you’ve got anything on your mind just send me private message straight away or start a topic in Feedback forum.
I’m looking forward to hear from you… Se you in the forums and have nice day!
It was unfortunately stolen. That was excellent NL#1 seeds I’ve got from Marc Emery - I remember his fine font printed catalogue full of strange varieties. I’ve got extremely lucky at the time - 8 seeds of 10 sprouted and 8 were females.
I’ve also met many many friends due to this hobby and have tried to learn from them. Many were very successful growers.