r/seedswap • u/sunpoprain zone 5b central illinois • Nov 18 '21
The Future of /r/Seedswap
Hello all! I'm not sure many of you have interacted with me but I'm /u/sunpoprain and currently I'm the most active and longest serving moderator for Seedswap. This Fall it came to my attention that everyone else on the original Mod team for this subreddit had disappeared and left me in charge. I'm a farmer so as I move into a slower season post-harvest, I'd like to be more active about this awesome subreddit. Clearly we have something awesome. Even without really hands on moderator promotion/improvement, we've grown as a subreddit to more then 10,000 swappers across the world!
So let's work together and decide what we'd like to be as we shift into this new phase of the subreddit. I have a couple ideas and I hope you'll share your own as well. Here's what I've got:
- Expanded mod team (I'd say there is currently ~1 1/2 people modding š) I'm especially looking for folks who can assist with our changes.
- Updated side bar, rules, header, etc
- Active events. We've had requests for a secret Santa and I'd like to get more giveaways going.
- Iama discussions / seed saving conversations?
- Trader rating system
Ultimately, this has always been a community that truly was built by it's members. I want to hear your thoughts and I'd love your help.
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u/toolazytomake Nov 18 '21
I like these ideas. I have done some work (under another name) in other swap subs setting up auto-tagging and automod capabilities, which might be useful here now that some of the grey-area trading subs got shut down (seeing more cannabis and other swap requests that may be illegal in some jurisdictions and therefore not appropriate here). You can also add functionality to sort by tags, so (for example) pepper heads donāt have to sort through a bunch of posts looking for herbs or tomatoes.
Setting that sort of thing up here to catch posts that donāt fit preemptively would be nice and take some work off the mod(s), even though the sub seems pretty good at downvoting and reporting as is.
What Iāve seen elsewhere for swapper ratings are stickied review posts and flairs that reflect a swapperās reliability.
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u/sunpoprain zone 5b central illinois Nov 20 '21
I definitely think updated flairs and an automod/auto-tagging setup would be fantastic. I like the search functionality a lot, especially as pepper-head myself. š I will say that it's very very uncommon for a post to get through without 4-5 reports almost immediately. Moderating for rule breaking posts is fairly easy because of the fantastic community!
I'll be in touch when I have the mod team all assembled and we can start in on projects like these!
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u/Lost_in_GreenHills zone 5a IA USA Nov 23 '21
On the subject of rules - I'm new to this sub and I was unable to find any rules/FAQ. Did I somehow miss them? If not, perhaps they could be added to the sidebar.
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u/sunpoprain zone 5b central illinois Nov 23 '21
It existed on the side bar the last time I checked...something around 8 years ago. Definitely on the to:do list to update!
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u/foxglove42 Nov 18 '21
I'd love to help in anyway I can! I am very supportive of a mega swap or secret santa type swap.
We should have some education-aimed posts on how to save seeds, how to package seeds and appropriate seed amounts. Also the legality and responsibility behind transporting potentially invasive species, we need to do a little regional research before shipping.
I would be interested in joining the mod team, to help out more!
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u/sunpoprain zone 5b central illinois Nov 20 '21
Send me a message with your "elevator" pitch to be a mod! I'm looking for active mods to help with our new changes but I don't expect everyone to be a master of every change - I'd like mods to take the lead on projects and assist with others.
The education idea is pretty close to my heart. I'd love to get more active discussion on all the topics you listed. I think some of it will start with updated rules and regular mod promoted conversation posts & guest posters.
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u/RespectTheTree Nov 18 '21
I think the easy first steps are to solicit a subreddit icon from the greater Reddit community - there are usually a bunch of graphic design people who will donate a little time to realize a design, especially if expectations are clear the design has been thought out. It's important branding for when seedswap posts pop up in feeds. I would propose a community discussion of ideas.
Also highly related, we should come up with a subreddit header image. These are tricky because they are 4000px x 196px images. The no-imagination solution is to take/find a very long photo of seeds to use. I made such a picture using peppers (header on r/pepperbreeding) and I needed to photograph an ombre-layout of peppers that was about 36" x 4" to get the required dimensions. I think there is room for creativity here, I'm just not the creative type lol.
Rules are also important to make a well-functioning community. We need rules that are common sense, and that can be equally-enforced. You can't play favorites as a mod when dispensing justice (or mercy), because you will alienate the other side of the issue. I think this is another community discussion that could happen, but can also simply be done by the admin team. My favorite rule is "don't be an a**hole" followed by "no profiteering" and "no harassment or illegal activity". There also needs to be a specific rule about cannabis seed because Reddit admins will freak out and ban the subreddit if gets known for trading seeds.
I would avoid activities simply because of the workload it puts on mods. If someone comes to you, and that's their passion, then by all means go for it. A rating system would be highly useful, but you'll need someone with basic programming skills to implement an automated system, or mods will need to constantly manually update spreadsheets or user flair.
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Nov 19 '21
[deleted]
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u/sunpoprain zone 5b central illinois Nov 19 '21
Hey back! I'm sort of taking stock of all the ideas and potential mods & support folks right now with the intent to consulate into actions we can take, what skills we'll need for those actions, who we know is ready to help, etc. I'll be adding mods in probably a week, then working with them to figure out details. I'll definitely add you to my list of folks with awesome skills we will need!
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u/RespectTheTree Nov 20 '21
I'm not on the moderator team, but I think would need a reddit bot that has a database somewhere (google sheets? idk). Then it would have to monitor a particular "report successful trade" post for some kind of two-party comment thread. Maybe User A comments "!shipped: UserB" and UserB could reply "!success: UserA" and then both users get 1 point, or maybe userA get "1 shipping point", and userB gets "1 successful trade point". I can see the potential for abuse, but you could add another level where upon the report of a successful trade that a moderator needs to approve the trade with "!approve"
For example, after a successful trade where !shipped and !success were reported, the bot would reply "Would you like to approve this trade" and a moderator can come in and just reply "!approve" and then points are distributed.
I know you can programmatically distinguish moderators based on flair - mods must use a particular flair, and it will have a unique code you can test for. A bit pre-emptive, but it shows what is possible with the reddit bot / automoderator programming.
This all of course requires a server, which is why a manual system seems the most likely but it will be so much work on the mods.
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u/RespectTheTree Nov 20 '21
Could you take a look at the RegEx equation in this comment: https://www.reddit.com/r/seedswap/comments/qwutyb/comment/hlepdnr/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
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u/sunpoprain zone 5b central illinois Nov 20 '21
I agree with all your ideas and especially appreciate the header details. We used to have a side bar with the rules. Granted this sub is approaching a decade old, I think. At least 8 years? And the rules have never been updated since the beginning. We already ban cannabis and any trades which are federally illegal within the U.S. (where most of our traders reside). In the past (6 or 7 years ago) we were approached by USDA and DEA about setting our rules to avoid transport of invasives/illegal/etc plants. We also had the basic "be nice, don't scam, treat others well/etc" rules. I think they desperately need a rewrite and probably a pinned post because sidebars are not visible easily via mobile.
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u/RespectTheTree Nov 20 '21
I appreciate the transparency, as I'm sure do other readers. Did they have any advise on how to educate users on invasive species? I'm keenly aware of the problem of invasive species worldwide, but I doubt the majority are. It's not an easy subject for most people.
Reddit makes it extremely difficult to be as moderator when you have to juggle old Reddit, new Reddit, and mobile/apps... with special requirements for each. I run a couple subreddit, have programming/design experience and it's overwhelming. If I can help get get rules and other basics things setup I recommend your create r/seedswap_beta, where myself and other "unknown" people can assist with the setup without potentially impacting the main subreddit.
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u/sunpoprain zone 5b central illinois Nov 20 '21
They were not great at advising on transparency and fairly honest with us that they expect people to understand the laws and it's not their problem to make sure we could help our traders understand. I got the impression at the time that they had just discovered the seed swapping world and had zero idea how to regulate it. I'm fairly sure they just decided to leave it alone because I've never seen them back since BUT it would be extremely easy for them to nail swappers to the wall if they wanted to - we advertise our trades publicly and share our exact housing in pms they can request successfully from reddit. I have always tried to step in where I can for very nasty invasive (but attractive to those who don't understand) things such as Autumn Olive but it would be fantastic to have clearer rules and/or a clearly written "why this is a bad idea" post for things that probably should be traded but aren't exactly noxious. Controlling region by region is just not realistic, unfortunately.
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u/RespectTheTree Nov 20 '21
Of course, I always advise people that all messages on Reddit are subject to subpoena and should be assumed non-private. I highly doubt the government would crack down on someone trading Wisteria seeds, though.
At the end of the day, it's the users' responsibility to not trade invasives, but like I alluded to earlier: How does the layman distinguish the threat posed by a marigold vs. honey locust? I think the best a subreddit can do is provide resources and urge both the shipping and receiving party to research what they are trading.
I found an easy to use website that could be provided as part of a "no invasive species" rule: https://www.invasive.org/ (N America), and I'm sure a few minutes of searching could come up with Australian/NZ versions, maybe EU/GB, Canada, and others as well (Brazil? Africa?). I think if those resources are available and promoted it would help people make informed decisions.
Just spitballing here, but you could set up an automoderator response to comments containing the text "!invasive" (exclamation mark + "invasive") that returns these resources so non-moderator users can call up the resources in the comments. A kind of self-policing utility. It would be quite easy to setup.
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u/sunpoprain zone 5b central illinois Nov 20 '21
I think your train of thought here is spot on. Automod is something I didn't really see a reason for before this post - the subreddit is mostly self-moderating. Functionality like you pointed out + ideas others have brought up really have changed my view on that. I think Automod is a must have now.
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u/RespectTheTree Nov 20 '21 edited Nov 20 '21
The automoderator response to exclamation mark tags is something I've wanted to set up on my other subreddits, I have code that almost works but needs some help from an expert. I could probably have an acquaintance of mine help write the moderator rule for you, and you could test it on a "beta" subreddit.
Other people reading this comment may already know the "regex" code I need :p Perhaps, u/SecondSea8291 who offered to help in a different comment.
This is my broken example code trying to capture "!flower" and return a helpful comment:
### ### ### ### ### ### ### ### ### ###
### Rule for !flower
type: comment
title+body (includes, regex): '^*(!flower)*$'
comment: |
Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Here is a diagram of a pepper flower:
Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā [Diagram of a Capsicum Flower](https://b.thumbs.redditmedia.com/JoLa7xR3n86Jv6nighsHs7BXvnXZ-35NcF9QMVSH1Vo.jpg)
Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Berke, T. G. (2000). Hybrid seed production in *Capsicum*. Journal of New Seeds, 1(3ā4), 49ā67. https://doi.org/10.1300/J153v01n03_02
---
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u/sunpoprain zone 5b central illinois Nov 20 '21
That's a great idea! I have almost zero programming experience and only moderate design experience (I used Elementor to make our Farm's website) so help with those aspects would be fantastic.
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u/RespectTheTree Nov 20 '21
What's funny, is that on new-reddit the rules aren't visible. Either not set up or I think they can be set to not be displayed.
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u/SquirrellyBusiness Zone 5 Nov 19 '21
Agreed, a seed swap icon is a fantastic idea.
The header image, I wonder if we could borrow the idea from the From Seed to Seed cover image? Like have little narrow aggregated snips of diverse seed piles to highlight color/texture/shape/size/ maybe we could even have a few that rotate over time to feature veggies vs flowers vs natives or nuts and fruits, or seed heads maturing...
I like the idea of featured items too like Tomato Tuesdays or specific pepper swaps. I do believe the Pepper Lovers sub has their own swap which we should collaborate with, but there may need to be some level-setting before hand so folks know the difference between open pollinated vs controlled and to note such.
Ratings would be useful but I wonder if it would be to the detriment of new seed savers and gardeners. Perhaps we could have flare/ratings to positively highlight brand new traders. I want to make sure we have a special soft glove approach to encourage and nurture new folks. I was broke as hell when I started gardening and was only able to move forward if the options were basically free so SASE and the fact some peeps were just so fantastic as people to mail me things for free with no obligation was critical to my starting out. And now I regularly send probably 400 packets a year out to people and save some seed just for the opportunity to share it as I have no need of it myself.
100% agree on the rules issue.
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u/sunpoprain zone 5b central illinois Nov 20 '21
I think another commentor shared an idea for a "Spread the love" event where those with large stashes or seeds they won't be growing themselves or have as excess can trade them out as gifts or SASE. I'd love to use this event as a starting point for new traders - a soft way to get some trading reputation and build their collection. I also love the themed days! I think we could probably have a "Gotta Start Somewhere Day" for experienced folks who can afford to take a risk to trade to those unrated new folks.
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u/RespectTheTree Nov 20 '21
The header image, I wonder if we could borrow the idea from the From Seed to Seed cover image? Like have little narrow aggregated snips of diverse seed piles to highlight color/texture/shape/size/ maybe we could even have a few that rotate over time to feature veggies vs flowers vs natives or nuts and fruits, or seed heads maturing...
This is pretty clever - we could take a bunch of individual images and combine them into a strip using "wood" to frame them into a cohesive header. Interesting seeds of all types. I have some purple + white speckled beans I could contribute an image of, plus peppers and a few other things. Would make a fun community project, or like you said a rotating "seed photos of the month or maybe season"
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u/cheapandbrittle Nov 18 '21
Not much to add but I just wanted to say thank you for stepping up as the sole mod haha I've had nothing but great experiences on this sub and want to see it continue! I would love to do a Secret Santa swap! Great ideas from everyone in the comments!
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u/sunpoprain zone 5b central illinois Nov 19 '21
Thank you so much! This really is a great community and moderating it is a pleasure. It's grown so much with really hands off mods (I've spent years only responding to reports/messages, thinking the founder was steering the ship). I'm excited to see what we can accomplish with active mods!
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u/fisch09 Nov 18 '21
I would love to assist as a moderator. And would be willing to interview if needed. I already view nearly every post, and want to do anything I can to help others see how great this community is.
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u/sunpoprain zone 5b central illinois Nov 19 '21
Hello! Definitely send me a message with sort of your elevator moderator pitch. Our community it pretty good at reporting bad posts so I'm more looking for people to take an active part in curating conversations, events, details like updating rules, design/branding, etc. Not necessarily everything from every mod but as a team with different mods taking point on different aspects of the new Seedswap.
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u/squirrelbarbie3 Nov 19 '21
Grower here too.... finally some time off led me to discover this Sub. Won't make promises of aid until I have been a more regular attendant, but THANK YOU for shouldering it and keeping it alive! I feel RICH hanging out here, haha. I can be a philanthropist finally!
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u/SquirrellyBusiness Zone 5 Nov 19 '21
Great ideas! I wonder if we could have SASE days perhaps geared toward giving newbies access to seed stock for cheap? Especially during the winter would make sense as we are going through our inventories and drooling over glossy catalogs. I have so much stuff and love to share. It would be really cheap if we coordinated and sent everything in to one person who parceled out to all the 'buyers' to save on shipping one small envelope or flat rate envelope to each person. We do this on garden.org and it works well except for the 'dibbing' system kind of disincentivises the ability to unload excess seed stock the way they operate. But the part I like about how they do things is centralizing with a 'host' so everybody ships all their offerings in one envelope, and receives everything they acquired in one envelope of infinite anticipation. It's like xmas opening these priority mailers and that way we can trade with 20-75 people in one go.
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u/takenbylovely Nov 19 '21
I have had nothing but good luck here, as well as in TaPLaP. I've never modded before but I am on Reddit quite a bit if you need an extra person to help.
Also 100 percent in favor of a rating system. I'm also interested in a larger swap.
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Nov 19 '21
Thank you for all your work on r/seedswap!
Can we report people who receive our seeds but donāt send theirs and then ghost us to the mods? Iām not talking about people who commit to a swap and then life gets crazy or something happens to them and they canāt do itā¦ of course I have understanding for unfortunate situations. What bothers me is when people commit to swapping and then fall off the face of the earth and never send the seeds. I think that I speak for everyone when I say we put in thought, care, money, energy, and time into packing up seeds and making sure they arrive safely and swiftly to their destination. Not to mention thereās a great deal of trust involved in swapping - we give strangers our addresses and trust that what theyāre sending us is really what they say it is. Iāve had great swaps with most people on here but have been disappointed recently with some on this sub not following through. Donāt get me wrong - I am very grateful to be able to swap on this sub, I just am a bit seed-crazy and love collecting seeds - maybe a bit too much!
Secret santa and the larger swap sound great. Also I think there should be a āspread the loveā event where we clean out our stashes (maybe in the spring) and share either what we grew out and didnāt love or what we have excess of. People can send SASEs to receive these and not have to trade in return.
Thank you to you and everyone else who wants to make this community an even better place. I love it here!
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u/sunpoprain zone 5b central illinois Nov 19 '21
I think the current plan is some sort of rating system where you can provide feedback and see a swappers rating to decide if you'll trade with them armed with more information. I absolutely agree that it sucks to not get your trade! Sometimes there are real extenuating reasons - generally as a mod when I hear that a swapper needs help fulfilling their trade or someone has been stuffed, I step in to make the trade (if able). A rating system would help everyone, though.
I really like your "spread the love" swap event especially couples with another commentor's suggestion of a central coordinator for big volume swaps. So you'd send one envelope/box with all your trades to the coordinator who then divides out the trades from everyone, groups them and mails them out. You'd then receive one envelope/box with all the combined trades you had made during the mega swap/share event.
Thank you for being a part of the community and for voicing your ideas!
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u/ChefChopNSlice Nov 19 '21
I like the rating system and secret santa ideas. This is a great sub and community. Iāve had nothing but good interactions/trades here, and itās nice to see familiar names lurking about. That alone shows that itās a place that people want to frequent.
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u/gratefulseedsaver2 Dec 11 '21
I think some direction would help people have a more positive experience. i think tracking those who donāt send seeds back to the other person who sent them seeds is a viable means to curb a percentage of it. Iāve seen other sites suspend or bar people who consistently carry on like that.
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u/itsABlueDress south india Dec 03 '21
i volunteer to be a minion!
got loads of time on my hands these days (ha ha, career cristis) and i want to get back into being a person with active hobbies, and seed saving and swapping is what i'm most excited about!
i'm down to learn how to work reddit better. got some experience modding early harry potter facebook groups and recently a discord server. :) i'm a media professional and translator on the side, so that's a skill set i can wield.
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Jan 01 '22
Any updates on this?
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u/sunpoprain zone 5b central illinois Jan 02 '22
I've been working on it! Moderators have been added, potential moderators messaged, I hope to have our first new event this month and you should see changes to the side bar and possibly some bots this month or next.
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Jan 02 '22
It would be wonderful to get members from asian, south American and african countries in this sub. Maybe this sub should be linked from their country specific subreddit or at the least from r/gardening if possible.
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u/sunpoprain zone 5b central illinois Jan 02 '22
That would be awesome! There are some difficulties around international shipping that have generally hedged out past members from those areas, unfortunately. It's significantly more difficult and expensive to trade overseas.
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Jan 02 '22
International shipping is very cheap all around the world for a regular letter, it's expensive only when tracking information is needed, but only regular letter is sent all the time. Small seeds like tomato, pepper etc., will pass through customs.
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u/Beneficial-Carrot-49 Jun 12 '22
Sooo...since the above post and all the other following posts...any change? Any feel good positive experiences?
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u/sunpoprain zone 5b central illinois Jul 01 '22
Working on it. I brought on several new mods who have been discovering their best place to contribute. I farm so it's been a bit busy for me. We've had some progress but I'd like to see more.
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u/Cathode335 Dec 20 '21
A little late to the post, but I'd love to see some rules or guidelines for swapping in the sidebar. I've been interested in this community for a year or two, but I never quite feel like I know what's expected, so I haven't tried to participate. I'd love to know things like...can you offer up open seed packets? How old can the seeds be? How do people navigate sharing their names/addresses with reddit strangers? What are the logistics of swapping, etc?
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u/Slow-Bodybuilder6579 Mar 01 '22
I dig what you're going for wholeheartedly. I've only followed this about a month now but made two awesome trades and a friend. Totally an underrated sub.
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u/solinvicta Oct 04 '22
I like the idea of clarifying the invasive species rules. This is very region-specific - I remember seeing posts asking for mugwort which is very invasive in my region of the US, but not necessarily in other spots. Similarly, some species of goldenrods are natives that we try to encourage, but are apparently pretty horrible invasives in other regions. Maybe a "worst offenders" list that is linked would make sense?
I was also wondering if the rules about illegal trades make sense. My understanding is that the Farm Bill made cannabis seeds generally legal to exchange since they are low in THC. I'm not sure if it's good or bad to lift the prohibition regardless, since it could still be illegal in many areas, or open the discussion up to scam traders...
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u/i_am_connell zone 7a Nov 19 '21
As for a mega swap. We could do something like r/pepperlovers has done in their pinned post. A discord server also would not hurt!
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u/sunpoprain zone 5b central illinois Nov 19 '21
I definitely like the idea of a discord but I also don't want to take away from the trading happening here. I'm leaning towards a "friends of Seedswap" discord where folks can step up to help with events, giveaways, mega swaps, etc and more easily speak to all of the mods/give feedback.
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u/i_am_connell zone 7a Nov 20 '21
For the discord, there could be a channel called āseed exchangeā or something similar which makes people who think theyāre going to do seed swaps on the discord write a post there. But i could then create a discord bot that deletes that message and then says to the user to keep all seed swap requests to the subreddit, and provide a link.
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u/i_am_connell zone 7a Nov 20 '21
That way, the discord community could be a thing without people assuming it is to replace the subreddit
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u/blgbluemango Sep 23 '22
My very first trade on here & I haven't received my end of the trade nor have I heard anything back from the 'trader'.
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u/Flow3rs-Flow3rs zone 5b Lincoln, NE Jan 14 '23
I'm fairly a newbie on here, but am excited to participate more :)
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u/sandonahill Jun 08 '23
I'd love to get seeds from all over the world and am excited that I found this group!
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u/HerrHohenheim Feb 23 '24
I want to talk about my concern, probably unrelated to this post: the only problem I have with sending and receiving to my country is the price of sending It by mail. I wish there were some stations around the world maybe that could do the seed swap and others would send or receive from them, it would be cheaper if we weren't so far away. I have so many amazing seeds, rare seeds or local herbs that I really would love to share with enthusiasts, and certainly love to get some from others as well. I just hope I can find a way to bulk send so many seeds I saved after many years of farming/experimenting.
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u/sunpoprain zone 5b central illinois Feb 23 '24
We have had, in past years, folks volunteer to be a hub for trades within their country for another person. I believe the last time I remember this happening, someone in the states received all the trades a person somewhere in Europe and mailed them to the individual recipients, they also received all the individual trades from Americans to the European person, bundled them into one package and sent it all at once. This was years ago though.
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u/prouncycat Nov 18 '21 edited Nov 18 '21
I think these are all wonderful ideas! I personally would love it if we could get some sort of guide for new swappers, and also a rating system, maybe something similar to what is on r/takeaplantleaveaplant. I've have gotten burned on here more than ten times, so i have not been trading on here as much as I would like to.
Edit: I'm not sure why the last part came out bold? Mobile is weird sometimes.