Advertising

Definitely - it really has become very annoying to see the constant stream of advertisements from around the world - pretty much all of them have no garden related content whatsoever.

Last week I was about ready to ignore my Growsonyou account for a while - so sad after many years of being a member of this forum . . . :o(

Dave won't take any notice of you Sue, and the people who originally formed the site will take even less. They don't care about it, and neither do the care about the members. They're busy "doing other projects" ... what an excuse !
It seems creating GoY was just a game to them, which they abandoned when they'd found something else to play with.
The site is dying off and they can't be bothered to do anything about it - a dismal way to treat people.

I'm fed up with GoY and a few years ago I found another very friendly forum which I enjoy better than GoY now.
I was told by Dave we're lucky to be able to see GoY at all because we don't have to pay for it.
Well I don't pay for the other friendly forum I belong to either, and it is much better managed that GoY. I hardly ever look in these days.

I must confess to never having looked up new members. I don't get many ads either, but I'm using an IPad not a computer, perhaps that makes a difference. My pictures have never gone missing either(as yet). I expect the browser is one that goes with the Apple IPad.

A lot of these adds get put on whilst the UK is 'asleep'.
sadly the people who put them on are paid 'slave wages' to do this, an equivalent of a sweat shop apparently.

Remember Dave works full time and he does this voluntarily. I seem to remember GoY came about via a gardening magazine.

We can ask about the additional comment re ads Yorks, it cant hurt can it.

I get fed up with the endless list of gobbledygook members - yards and yards of them every week. Don't understand their purpose. Is it to slow everything down? Does anybody know?

You'll get nowhere Sue, believe me. The subject has been brought up before and nothing done about it.
Dave tries (sometimes) but he is just the father of one of it's creators and can't do much.

I don't see many ads, [Firefox with ad blocker on desktop] maybe a few a week disguised as blogs, long & wordy on everything except gardening. I flag them when I find them and they vanish so that bit works anyway

I am a member of various FB gardening & other groups and some of those are bedevilled with adverts, despite it being against the some forums rules, makes no difference and I have now given up on reporting those and just pass on by

I've not looked at new members either, probably just as well as it would seem to be a let down

I don't look at the new members tab and if we get a question/blog I welcome them then.

If my memory serves me right this idea came from Peters mother-in-law, together with Ajay and a few people in the background they created Growsonyou, I hovered in the background for a few months watching and eventually joined in October 2008, we had some issues in the beginning and many arguments some very nasty but goy prospered for us, however it did not prove to be viable for Peter and Ajay, they were young and needed to earn money as did we all, time became an issue for them and they did move on , I for one have never blamed them for that, I can remember years back when it was being discussed in much the same manner as we have been doing recently, someone did suggest members paying a subscription fee as said by Klahanie, that never came to pass as I don't think anyone else was either interested or had the knowledge to run such a site, I honestly do not know the answer but have never found another forum as good as Goy and would hate to lose it completely, I know I'm not posting much but I'm still here., its the time of the year whereby armchair gardening is all that is going on for me, when the garden wakes up I will have something to post about, I hope.
I also don't look at new members either and as Shirley said I was reaching the end of my tether in the last couple of weeks, everything was once again going wrong so I'm now catching up yet again, unlike some I will never close or delete my account, it holds too many treasured memories and afraid to say I do not have the knowledge to transfer and save my blogs elsewhere , also I have people I consider friends of longstanding who I've never discovered on FB, sorry for the long post but perhaps the adverts are helping to keep us afloat, as I said I don't know the answer ..

I forgot to say I do belong to gardening groups on FB and enjoy them immensely, have made even more gardening friends over the years who share the same passion for gardening as I do, however they are not blogs, nor do they have the gardening diary part whereby I can list my plants/trees. shrubs etc, also they are not set up in the same way so it would take a lifetime to look back and find something as I can do here on goy...

It would be good to see more people joining in, (or even properly joining), though.

Yes I agree with both of you, we must keep going and hope for the best...

Dave has always been very helpful when I've asked him anything. He does have a full time job and just does this out of the goodness of his heart.
I would miss Goy dreadfully if it folded. I feel as though I have lots of pen friends. I think it was me who suggested a subscription some years ago but I don't know how it would work.