Most of the discussion forum topics will and should relate to the Network and its mission, but of course it’s possible to have some friendly off-topic threads, too. And this might also be a good place for you to put questions about the wiki website itself.

as pictures are entered it would be neat to add where they are from as they come from different gardens.

I’ve added a caption “Picture by Mary Lou Lamonda” to a couple pictures - see the Tomatoes picture. I would just be concerned about too much text possibly kinda junking up the look, especially on the Main.HomePage. But maybe if we just leave this for people to figure out on their own, only really motivated people will bother, and they’ll be most likely to be careful?

I really liked the photo attribution and think either taker or place of photo should be under each phot n order to make them relevant to our mission. Can any text simply be slimited by the length of a single line— then there is no more room? I’d think that would limit the messiness and potential verboisty

I am sending some photos to Mary Lou right now.

There is not a way to limit the amount of text if a page is editable. We are just hoping we can let people know that if they add photos to the side bar that they keep any text to a minimum.

The side bar is really just for random images to make the site appealing. We are hoping that folks will create entire pages with text and lots of photos with descriptions. It is important to remember that the side bar photos will show up on every page and especially the home page, which we are trying to keep very clean and appealing.

I, too, like the photo credit, but in spite of adding more text, would like it as a way for newcomers to learn about the photographer and what role thay play in MKE. URBBAG. This would provide another way of accessing the remarkable roles that everyone plays in this effort. For example, Will Allen, Founder Growing Power.

esp. from an archivist’s point of view, it would be nice if there was a way to tag files with more contextual meaning, like dates and places, especially if this could go somewhere besides the caption/title.
if not, maybe we can settle for whatever explanations people add as text to posted pages. Maybe we could encourage posters of sidebar pics to title them with a link to a fuller posting of text and pics in context on a page?

this visual design rocks

As Mary Lou said, the point of the pics in the sidebar is just to keep the pages pretty. For serious posting of pictures, worth tracking and archiving and such, those should go on other pages that are created for the purpose. I’d encourage anyone who has some pictures like that to get in touch — use the “Request Assistance” link that’s under the “wiki Help” tab (visible to logged-in users), or email — I want to help someone get some pages set up so that we can use them as examples. Not just picture pages, either — Member pages, project pages, informational pieces, etc. Thanks!