I could get behind a minimum days visited and number of posts I suppose but not the grow journal. Not that I don’t want everyone to have one, this is a grow site after all, but some just have issues being too open about their grow due to legality.
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Hadn’t thought about legality - that makes sense.
brb - Wife is tempting me with pie!
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what always gets me is running into a thread I haven’t seen before and liking all the pictures 
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Hahaha new members should at least introduce themselves before asking for seeds.
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Why not make it a requirement to have a journal for XX amount of time before you are eligible to participate in any kind of seed distribution, be it auction, raffle, giveaway whatever? When there’s genuine knowledge, people stick around. When its just a bunch of mooching greedy people who don’t participate in the community side of things, its no bueno. I used to be staff on a large aquarium forum, and we’d get lots of them. The ban stick was handed down to any whose intentions was purely to benefit from the forum without adding any value of their own. As you said, its pretty obvious who those people are…
Sounds harsh, but we grew at 10x the rate of our closest competitor, while maintaining a family friendly and educational atmosphere. Granted, the subject matter here is evolving legally, but thats no reason to let the beggars run the show.
I’m a newer member here for sure. And I’ve grown a few times over the last 25 years, and when I jumped back in this time, before I even joined a new forum, I bought my beans. Then I bought some more. Not thru the forum, but regular sites like ILGM and seedsman. No begging, that’s not classy or respectable. Chipped in on the server fund raffle and won. Definitely planning to journal those beans. Still haven’t asked or posted in any of the seed give-aways. Why? Because I wanna have something myself to give away first. Life is a balance, with both givers and takers. What I have learned is that givers need to set limits, because the takers never do. On that note, perhaps set a limit on the number of requests a member of XX level can make during a period of time? I know, thats a ton of moderation. Just tossing out ideas though…
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The reality is due to legality not all can post a journal and we have to respect that. I would not ask anyone to comprise themselves. As a totally legal grower I am safe but not all can say that.
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We had this issue on the other forum I moderated. The owner had a good gig, maybe 50 paying sponsors, 20 trusted high level staff people, 3 admins, all volunteers. 50 moderators, again, all volunteer. We always had to deal with “well, I’m sure with that many sponsors, the owner is making money” comments, and ya know what? MORE POWER TO HIM! Why is it anybodys business? You don’t need to pay to use the site, what does it matter if the owner makes a profit? And it does cost $$ to run. That other forum had 8 dedicated machines, like 5 million posts, 250k users. That costs $$… Ya don’t wanna wait for pages to load? That costs $$… But people can still complain that the owner of a FREE site is making money? I just don’t get the mentality???
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I am totally in that boat. My wife already hates that I have a buttload of plants out back. She demands that I don’t post any photos. I haven’t followed that demand though. You can find pics of my plants in a few various threads.
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I’m not in a legal state. I’ve got a journal. I don’t think OG is gonna supply a list of names and ip’s from growers in non-legal areas.
I do understand the fear though. I didn’t post at first, then when I did post, I stripped the metadata on my pics myself. I realize OG also strips meta, but that was my own fear. Am I sharing pics of a warehouse sized grow? nope, and because its clearly a personal grow, I honestly thing the govt. has much less interest. We chose to take a risk growing in a not legal area, its the same as choosing to journal or participate in the community. Maybe forgo a journal requirement if they have a proven participation record in the community? ya know, like actually posting on others threads, maybe helping others out, or posting their own DIY? I can honestly say when I offer seeds up, if their post history is just “dibs” and begging, i’ll flat out ignore it. To me, they are leeches if thats all they post, and never participate otherwise.
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See now I can get behind that. I have no issue with upping requirements for people to get access to certain perks, but I would not force the journal thing. I get that you say police have little interest but that’s not always the case. I have full faith in the site removing meta data but as someone who works in IT and has supported data centers for years I am here to say nothing is totally safe online. I have also had the experience of being woken up in my own bed by police who than carted me off to jail for weed. I would never try to force someone to take that sort of risk, no mater how small it is perceived to be.
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Simply put… Think LONG and hard about posting anything, because “its there forever” is my motto. Sure, you can delete it, but how about the backups, or other machines, or people who saved it. Even sites like archive.org. Once posted, even if deleted, it can still exist elsewhere.
Its crazy how many people have such a limited understanding of the online world at times!
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I get emails that archive all of the OG threads I watch, so it’s definitely permanent. 🤷
That’s another reason im not on FB or Twitter or the like.
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Then why can’t I find my old Geocities site? 
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They probably had a “no-follow rule” ROFLMAO
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Honestly, I may have come off that way initially. Which wasn’t my intention. Now that I am a “Member,” given to my activity. It shows dedication and trust. Maybe the freebies should be given to those that have a ranking in memberships and activity.
I’ve also seen some topics only allowing certain ‘trust level’ to reply. Can a developer or anyone create those specifically for seed distribution.
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This whole forum is different. The moochers have even made people react differently to people. Im not going to elaborate on my problems but talking to people doesnt come easily. When you try to talk to someone because they were talking about a strain you think could be good and can buy it in a clone or seed form. It makes you angry when all you need is information to make an informed decision for yourself. I mainly joined to learn to grow and learn about strains that could help me. Have yet to grow a medicinally beneficial strain.
The only reason my journal is up right now is because I feel obligated.
The only reason I say this is, not everyone wants to make a post. They want to feel like they are a part of a community and reach out and have a discussion. If you take that only value from them how do you expect those people to stay?
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I read a few replies at around #150 where I was tagged then skipped to the bottom.
Just want to say that I have had a thread in the cool kids club (the inner circle haha) for maybe a year now with a sole purpose of sharing seeds with those that want to grow them straight up (not for hoarding) and it works(ed) perfectly in fact nobody uses it…
My seeds are your seeds!
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I too felt like you at one point . I was able to make peace with it by realizing there are always gonna be collectors and such just wanting free seeds. That is just part of OG , but the other part is there are usually many more who need , want , and appreciate the seeds and receiving them. Every seed sent out is a possible plant grown somewhere , and IMHO that is the whole point of the concept of Overgrowing the world. Helping the needy by overgrowing the greedy , one seed at a time .
Anyway just thought I would share how I made peace with what is bugging you when it was bugging me lol
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Sure there’s newbies but they aren’t bothering me for free shit. If people leave 150 spots for free seeds 150 people are gonna show up lol. These aren’t really “problems”. Only problem I see recently is the group buy scamming potential, which mods are aware of. They aren’t gods, it’s an unpaid thankless position lol.
IDK, seems more or less the same as when I got here a couple years ago. People come and go. The political anything goes forum was fun but caused more problems than it fixed. Is what it is.
Plenty of other forums out there, check some out sometime.
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hi i am kind of new here, i post here and there and yes ive gotten free seeds here and there, even pollen from doug, who will get seeds from the plant i knock up, so if he wants to run them and pass them on im ok with that as that is what seeds are for, running them to smoke or running them for seed, the others who i got seed from will get some in return, i dont have many seed right now so that is one reason i am here, not to just get seed even if i pay but to increase my strain list so i can grow them. im also here for networking and reading post in which i learn from. ive been growing for nearly 20 years and been doing the seed thing now for the past 4 years. ive got stuff on grow diaries under the same name as the strains grown need to be documented so others in the future can look to see how certain strains grow ect. right now i have 30 plants going, im a total outlaw i have no card and i know if i get busted then i also know there will be a strict punishments’ for me and my family with no doubt. i will go to prison and we will lose out town home, ect so the risk is great for me.
my plans later will be to do a run for seed for some on here. as far as doing a public give away, im down but i will plan things right and get it done when the time is right.
what i see here as a newbie, yes people are just here for the freebies, and then maybe they bail, who knows who cares, it sucks but it is all apart what this forum is supposed to be about, giving knowledge away, networking and making friends and keeping a positive spirit on the forums by giving things away, so you want to cry because someone took your dibs? get over it, they are just seed and in the end thats it, there is plenty more seeds and when we are all gone there will be plenty more.
i also know that running this forum website is no picnic either, as it should be way easier for the admins and everyone else involved @LemonadeJoe and whom ever else.
these guys are putting their hard work into a place that we can all share and grow from, some how some where some one got bitter. and they started to think this and that and that thought turned into a wow i cant believe that happened to me, ect.
maybe there should be a step up program for everyone to follow, but to come up with that is hard, perhaps charge a membership fee to be apart of the site? everyone pays a small fee to help keep this place going, it should be a step above other forums, it should be an example of a better forum than the others, it should always keep that og spirit. for me like i said i may be kind of new here and i read the post ect, but i do see something happen, perhaps stop doing giveaways if thats is the problem? maybe take a chill on them so they are not as many and not so tempting for people to just come andd get freebies, but you also have to understand that everyone here is guilty of making this happen, we all have gotten the freebies, some put in more than others as some dont have room to grow for seed, or they are under the radar with a few plants. all i know is there needs to be a change for the positive,
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