The Orchid Source - Orchid Forum

So I put together a rather experimental page to map upcoming shows and presentations. If you're interested in knowing the background and reasoning behind this page let me know and I'll post a few paragraphs on the subject.

It's been mostly functional for quite a few days but I've been scratching my head contemplating the problem of user input. Right now it's pretty darn easy for anybody to submit and update upcoming events. The problem is that it might be too easy? Meaning there is a very distinct and real possibility of abuse.

I really haven't been able to reach any certain conclusions. So I'm just going to slap some disclaimers on it, include a basic user agreement, post it, and utilize any feedback to help me determine the fate of the page.

Disclaimer...First, given the experimental and open nature of this page, there is a very good chance that it will contain inaccurate information. Second, the page might not work for you and could possibly crash your browser. Third, this page might be taken down or removed at any time. Fourth, I'm terrible at design.

By visiting this page you agree to...
1. only submit accurate and appropriate information
2, double check the accuracy of any information you run across
3. update any information requiring updating
4. report any abuse.

Not sure if you've noticed but I'm rather cautious regarding this experiment...so for the time being I'm only going to post the link here in this forum. I've included a link to this thread at the top of the page should any web admins arrive at the page via their web statistics.

Here's the link to the page...

Upcoming Presentations and Shows

You must have a lot of time on your hands. Displays better in Firefox than IE. How would you ever maintain such a thing...removing expire events?

In winter my orchids require a lot less maintenance. What helped this project bump up in priority was when on an another orchid forum a member posted that she really enjoyed the presentation on "Madagascar and why it’s so special" that Ron McHatton had given her orchid society the previous evening. I'm not a member of that orchid society but I definitely would have driven 40 minutes to attend the presentation...had I known about it. Such information failures are not in the best interest of speakers, societies or orchid hobbyists.

It works best in Chrome - Google's Browser. It didn't even work for me in Explorer until I followed the steps on this page.

Expired events are not removed...they are updated. Adding a new society only takes a couple minutes. Once it is added it only takes less than a minute to press +Update and change the topic, speaker and date. Each society would designate one person to update their society's information.

Out of curiosity...do you use RSS?

Mobile Area Orchid Society Show? Will your show be held at your society's meeting place? If so, then after your show just +Update your submission to say Orchid Society rather than Orchid Show...and update your title, speaker and date as well.

If your show will be held at a different location, then feel free to +New your society location as well.

The goal is not to have redundant/duplicate locations. The only times when there should be duplicate locations is when say a Fern Society and an Orchid Society meet at the same location but on different days...such as at the LA Arboretum.

Carlos, I have Feedreader installed on my old networked computer sitting just to the left of this one. I used it to keep track of the election and financial news. It was a good way to get the news I wanted but I got so depressed watching my IRA tank I decided to take a break and for now., do not use RSS on this computer.

Carlos,

Thanks. Our show is at a separate location from where we have our meetings.

graphicgreg... Google Reader is pretty neat...no installation required. I've been meaning to do a post on how orchid hobbyists can benefit from subscribing to RSS feeds. There are quite a orchid related feeds...but so far there aren't any feeds for orchid articles.

joetheorchidnut...
In that case, if you're interested, feel free to +New your society's information. Given your society doesn't have a website...you should really consider using flickr as your interim society website. It's free, flexible, easy to update, facilitates communication between society members and is a great way to share orchid photos.