Downtown Community Garden - Des Moines Iowa
Growing Together @ the corner of E 6th and Scott Street.
WWW.GARDENDOWNTOWNDSM.NING.COM or WWW.GARDENDOWNTOWNDSM.COM?
Hi friends,
I created this garden site a year ago in hopes of fostering communication among garden members. Our website is a free service from NING.com which allows groups and individuals to create their own social network.
Early in the year I decided to start personally paying for a $5 per month upgrade that allowed our site web address to be www.gardendowntowndsm.com rather than www.gardendowntowndsm.ning.com. I made this decision because I felt that it was an easier site for people to remember and share with their friends. I also just plain felt that the "dot ning dot com" was confusing for people. This was something I noticed when verbally trying to give the web address to others.
Either address gets ours users to the EXACT same content.
Since that time there has been a concern expressed to me that this decision was made as an attempt to personally "privatize" the downtown garden site. This concern was brought forth presumably from the listing I added here: http://www.gardendowntowndsm.com/opensocial/ningapps/show?appUrl=ht...
Here's my question: Does anyone have concerns using the .com version or me asking for contributions towards the monthly fee?
I'm confident that the website has done great things for us but the real benefit will be seen long into the future as a resource and a historical document for all the great things we've had going on here.
I hope whoever is participating will continue to consider the time they spend here worthwhile.
Drew Matthew Maifeld
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by rebecca behrens on -
Drew -- I have no problem with either using the .com version or helping with contributions towards the monthly fee.
Rebecca
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Permalink Reply by Stephen Foster on -
I do. a little "confusing for people" is not a good enough reason to "privatize" the sight and start asking for contribution.
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Permalink Reply by Greg Zink on -
From my perspective, there's not enough benefit gained from the .com domain versus the .ning.com domain to justify spending money on it; I think most people will be able to find the site either way. Since I'm so ambivalent about it, I'd rather not pay to sustain the .com version, but if enough of the members felt strongly enough about it to put in the funds, I'd have no problem with them doing so.
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Permalink Reply by Peter Michael Sherinian on -
Hi Drew, I am back from my vacation. In regards to this ? I think the ning site name is ok, and I dont think you should have to pay for the change in the site out of your own pocket. I also dont think we need to have others pay. If we need to we can make up some business cards with the site name and the address that we can distribute. They are inexspensive and anyone can do it on there computer we can add the logo as will.
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Permalink Reply by Drew Matthew Maifeld on -
Here's a general update on pricing for anyone who might have an interest in this subject... If the group is going to even be able to continue to use this service at all we'll have more to discuss...
http://about.ning.com/announcement/
http://www.slideshare.net/garnor/ning-may-4th-announcement-overview
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Permalink Reply by Donna on -
Wow! So free isn't even a choice anymore? Awesome. Social Sites, user based content. Gotta love it.
I have been looking at Google Groups and Flickr as an alternative to Ning.
Drew Matthew Maifeld said:Here's a general update on pricing for anyone who might have an interest in this subject... If the group is going to even be able to continue to use this service at all we'll have more to discuss...
http://about.ning.com/announcement/
http://www.slideshare.net/garnor/ning-may-4th-announcement-overview
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Permalink Reply by Stephen Foster on
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I think that the facebook idea is a great choice.
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Permalink Reply by Peter Michael Sherinian on
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Well, the fact that ning is now going to start charging is unfortunate. I think we should do the facebook sight, unless someone is welling to pay or our ning sight, or we could charge each gardner $6.00 a year to cover the ning pro sight.
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Permalink Reply by Greg Zink on
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I'd rather not start charging gardeners for a pay site when there's a totally free alternative that, as far as I can tell, offers all the benefits ning does. It looks like migrating to facebook is our best bet.
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Permalink Reply by Donna on
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I am sure everyone knows I am not the end all be all of community garden knowledge ... We, at Franklin, have setup accounts and whomever becomes Coordinator(s) next year will take them over. I, personally, would think the Coordinator for the garden would have permissions to what ever site is setup but (for us) this might also fall under one of the committees we are trying to create called Event Coordination. For us at Franklin, I believe, this committee handles any and all social going ons of the community garden group.
Christine L. Pardee said:One thing we should get clarified from the Facebook Admin is whether anyone can post discussion items, photos, etc. on the site. I tried to post the Des Moines Register article that featured a number of Downtown gardeners today on the DDCG Facebook site. It was there for awhile, now it is gone. ??? I may have mis-assumed Sandy was the site's Admin. I'll double check if people need to send comments to the Admin first, before they are allowed to be posted.
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Permalink Reply by Donna on
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I think I figured it out! :D
Have to select the Downtown Des Moines Community + Others link at the top of post or just the Others link to see post made from members and not just the Admin.
Christine L. Pardee said:One thing we should get clarified from the Facebook Admin is whether anyone can post discussion items, photos, etc. on the site. I tried to post the Des Moines Register article that featured a number of Downtown gardeners today on the DDCG Facebook site. It was there for awhile, now it is gone. ??? I may have mis-assumed Sandy was the site's Admin. I'll double check if people need to send comments to the Admin first, before they are allowed to be posted.
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