discussion of pesticides and gmos

Apparently I have not made this clear enough in the past .... I couldn't find a dedicated thread, so I'm starting this one.

There is a list of reasons I created these forums. One of the reasons is that I was tired of participitating in other horticultural forums and having to defend my choices over and over. The attacks were nasty and psychotic. I wanted a place where all of the people could talk about how to go about doing stuff that is WAY beyond the discussions about GMO stuff or any kind of pesticide. I don't even want to see the justification for organic. In fact, I prefer to see the discussion of why permaculture techniques are superior to organic.

I hope this is clear.

I just want to remind everyone that discussion of GMOs and pesticides is confined to The Cider Press and only by those who have earned enough apples, so we don't have to spend too much time moderating.

What is the Cider Press?

I'm still trying to figure out what "organic" means.

Oh, I know they have 5 digit SKU codes at the grocery store and sell for twice as much, and then there is this recent study about the level of anti-oxidants in organic veggies, but I think I would still prefer the "weeds" out of my garden than the organic stuff that is trucked in from who knows where. For me, permaculture is better than 'organic' because it is local.

Thanks Paul: For making a safe site where we don't have to rehash the GMO/pesticides thing over and over and over again!!!

Ha!
My first thought was, " Ok, who didn't get the memo, and has this thread been closed already?"

The response varies from staff member to who made the post or what the post said.

Trolls love GMO so some staff members catch the before the trolls do.

Staff cannot read every post on the forum.

Best way to handle this is to not use GMOs, Pesticides, herbicides and stick with organic or better.

Wow, this thread started 11 years ago.  Neat!

There's a lot of stuff we confine to the cider press.  It isn't a perfect system, but it is pretty good. At least I think so.

At the same time, the way we decide what is good or what is not good .... or what is not for the open forums ...   is wonky.  After all, the english language makes it so there are lots of edge cases.  And the all volunteer staff is untrained, so they make the best of it.  And some people seem to be trying to fuck with us - so the staff tend to be a bit more strict.  And some people are openly trying to stumble through life, and the staff seem less strict.  

And, of course, it is about a thousand times more complicated than that. While at the same time being simpler than that: staff bee-bop through the forums and if they see something that they think stinks, they remove it.  

And once in a long while somebody says "hey, my golden poetry disappeared! what the fuck! put it back!"  And stuff happens.  And sometimes I am asked to take a look.   Normally I just want to support the untrained, unpaid staff - but once in a while I might deviate from that path.


So, people say "Hey, you gotta be clearer about this!" and my response is "Let me be clear that I am going to be vague."  I think a lot of forums are destroyed by their own rules.  We have the one rule which is very vague.  And then we have a lot of very vague guidelines.  And then we sloppily make it all up as we go.  And, mysteriously, a few hundred thousand people seem to understand perfectly and everything is fine.  And a few dozen (hundred?) people do NOT understand - and they either figure it out in time, or they leave.  

And all is well.

I hope this helps.

It's also really hard on staff if they read something that says things like, "I had to spray all those weeds." OK, that statement doesn't exactly say "with toxic gick", but it implies it.

Edge cases waste staff time and good will. As Paul says, let's talk about best practices and new ideas for better and better ways to do things that doesn't involve unnatural chemicals that could have who knows what effects on our land.