Join the conversation
8
What does everyone think about all of 6 of us migrating to Pro Boards Forum (free version)
I have been tossing this idea around for a while now.
Well, I have been asking RKS to add more features to this forum since it launched.
While Bug fixes are immediately addressed and taken care of, improvements and/or adding features to this forum seems to be put on the back burner.
Sure, it's a nice and quiet forum with zero trolls, but let's face it, it's dead here, and only having Desktop access to this Forum only compounds the problem. and without being able to post pics it makes it even more of a ghost town.
The Grow Journal feature here is severely handicapped without being able to post pics. Words are great, but a picture says 1000 words as the old saying goes.
My thoughts are TerpenesFan and AutoQueen would be Admins because both of you are online frequently and could catch any spamming or troll posts. One of you would have to create the Forum to be an Administrators. I would sincerely like to be a Moderator and anybody else from this current board (the whole 6 of us lol) could be Moderators as well (if they so choose).
We just have to come up with a cool non-cringy name for our new Forum, if we all decide to migrate.
I have been using and creating Forums since the old BBS days back in the late 90's and let's face it this place kind of blows without pics.
What does everyone think about all of 6 of us migrating to Pro Boards Forum (free version)
~~~
https://www.proboards.com/free-forum-features
~~~
8
27 Comments
Experienced20d ago
Honestly i've been thinking the same thing for a while. The no pics thing kills me because half of what i want to share is visual, like trying to describe a terp profile in text only goes so far before you need to show people that frosty pheno you found.
I'm down. Admin role is fine, i'm on here enough anyway. Only thing i'd say is we pick a name that actually means something and isn't just another generic "cannabis growers" type deal. Something that hints at quality hunting, not just growing in general.
Let me know when there's a consensus and we can get it rolling.
3
Seedling20d ago
Great Idea about choosing a name that actually means something.
o.k. cool will do, thumbs up!
Hopefully people will reply to this post/thread, and we can get it rolling. Peace
2
Experienced20d ago
Alright lets see if the others chime in. We need AutoQueen to weigh in at minimum before we start spinning anything up, and it'd be good to hear from the other 2-3 regulars too.
On the name, im gonna think on it and maybe throw a few ideas out in a separate post once we get enough buy-in here. No point debating names if half the crew is ghosting the thread lol.
2
Seedling20d ago
Totally agree 100%
4
Experienced20d ago
Cool, one more in the "yes" column. Still waiting on AutoQueen and a couple others before we do anything. Not trying to build a house before everyone agrees on the lot lol.
2
Seedling19d ago
I searched Pro Boards and this was the only cannabis forum I could find;
https://growtalk.freeforums.net/
It's from Luxemburg and a ghost town.
I just did an Internet search, and this is what I found (from Pro Boards);
If you are looking for dedicated cannabis cultivation and culture communities, you will have more success on independent, specialized platforms rather than the generic ProBoards hosting service. For active discussions, grow journals, and expert advice, the industry's most popular forums are located elsewhere:
Rollitup: One of the oldest and most active hubs for growers to share grow journals, discuss strains, and troubleshoot.
THCFarmer: An excellent community focused on legal medical cannabis, patient cultivation, and setup discussions.
THCtalk: A highly collaborative space covering soil, nutrients, and grow methods.
If you are looking to start your own cannabis community, you can use the ProBoards Forum Creator to build a free message board, though you will be responsible for building the user base from scratch.
~~~
I say we just go for it, I'm down.
The other 3 Forums mentioned above seem like total zoos, way too many subjects and way too many people.
I kind of like the idea of people just randomly stumbling upon the new Forum and signing up, and we can invite our friends if we like. I like the idea of the new user base growing organically, spread by word of mouth.
"If you build it, they will come" (I hope lol)
This Forum is the only social media site I visit anymore, and I like chilling with you folks, so whatever happens is cool with me.
4
Experienced19d ago
Those big forums are exactly what i want to avoid. Rollitup especially, it's just a sea of noise and every other thread is someone arguing about nutrients or calling each other out. Not my scene.
The organic growth thing is the right call too. A small tight knit forum where people actually know each other's grows is way more valuable than 50k members where nobody reads your journal past page one.
Let's just build it and see what happens. Worst case it stays small, which honestly isn't the worst thing.
2
Seedling19d ago
Awesome Agree 100%
THC Farmer Stay Away! Run Away! Sea of freaking noise and sociopaths.
Cool deal! I said no cringy names but every name I have thought of the last two days were cringy af lol and not worth mentioning. Usually, I'm pretty good with coming up with names but I'm stumped on this one???
O.K. cool us posted :)
2
Experienced19d ago
The name thing is harder than it looks, i've been blanking on it too. Everything either sounds like a dispensary brand or a bad 90s band.
Only angle i keep coming back to is something that nods toward the quality/hunting side of growing rather than just growing in general. Like something terp or pheno related but not so on the nose that it reads like a niche sub-forum nobody outside of flavor chasers would get.
Give it another day or two, something will click.
2
Experienced20d ago
Pic sharing is honestly the thing that's been killing my journal updates here. I wrote out this whole post about my last dry and cure and it just felt flat without being able to show the trichome shots.
I'm in, but I do want to throw one thing out there that nobody has mentioned yet. ProBoards free version has ads, and depending on how they serve them it can get pretty sketchy looking on a cannabis forum. Worth checking what the ad situation actually looks like before we commit. Last thing we want is a bunch of random garbage ads plastered all over the place when we're trying to run a clean community.
Has anyone actually poked around the free version recently to see what it looks like from a visitor standpoint?
4
Grower20d ago
the ad concern is real but honestly the bigger issue for me is what data proboards collects and how they handle it. free platforms need to monetize somehow and it's not always just banner ads. i'd want to know their privacy policy before i'm posting grow details there.
2
Experienced20d ago
The data thing is a real concern but i think people sometimes overthink it for a hobby grow forum. The actual risk of posting "my plants are in week 6 flower" on a free platform is pretty low compared to, say, posting your address or real name, which you just don't do anywhere. Keep the personal stuff out of the post and the data policy matters a lot less.
3
Seedling20d ago
yes.
I use a metadata remover that deletes all the information from the pics before I post them online.
2
Experienced20d ago
That's a good habit regardless of platform. Phone cameras especially will embed GPS coordinates in EXIF data by default, most people have no idea. A metadata stripper before uploading is just smart practice.
2
Seedling20d ago
It's 2026, privacy on the Internet is a thing of the past.
Your phone is "always" listening and knows exactly where you are located.
You can only control it to certain point. Almost every time your phone or computer updates its software, the privacy settings go back to the original factory settings (shut off).
2
Grower20d ago
fair point and i'm not arguing that privacy is some solved problem. but there's a difference between accepting that google knows i searched for nutrients and voluntarily posting detailed grow info on a platform where i don't know who owns the data or where it ends up.
i keep my phone out of my grow room. old habit. not because i think i'm invisible, just because i try not to hand over more than i have to. minimal exposure where i can manage it.
doesn't mean i'm against moving, just means i'd spend 10 minutes reading their TOS first.
2
Seedling20d ago
Totally agree 100% Reading the TOS is very important. I figure the TOS is probably all a bunch of lies anyway, but yes, a good idea to read it.
2
Grower20d ago
yeah probably some corporate boilerplate in there, but you can still learn a lot from what they DON'T say. if they're vague about data sharing with third parties that tells you something. silence in a TOS is almost worse than the fine print.
2
Seedling19d ago
Oh yeah, I totally forgot about that aspect "it's what they DON"T say in the TOS" that should have us worried.
2
Grower19d ago
right, the absence of language is usually where they cover themselves. if a TOS doesn't explicitly say "we don't sell user data to third parties" then assume they can and probably do. that silence isn't an accident.
2
Experienced20d ago
count me in, was waiting to see if there was actual momentum before throwing my two cents in.
the ad thing someone mentioned is a real concern. i'd poke around proboards as a guest on a few existing forums before we commit. if the ads are cannabis-friendly or at least neutral it's probably fine, but if it's serving up addiction recovery ads or whatever next to grow journals that's a weird vibe.
my one gripe with proboards specifically is mobile. the free version can be rough depending on the theme you pick. that was half the original complaint here right, desktop only. worth making sure we're not just trading one limitation for another.
name wise i'll think on it but i agree with what terpenesfan said, something specific. "perpetual garden" crossed my mind but that might be too niche, lol. open to ideas.
4
Seedling20d ago
I don't think we would get recovery or addiction ads, that would be weird. I think we would get Seed Bank ads and Grow Equipment ads like from Spider Farmer or Vivosun, and soil and nutrient ads.
Ads on the side of the screen don't really bother me. I stopped reading them years ago.
Desktop only access on this Forum is a blessing and curse. Nice and quiet is awesome and we all know each other fairly well, or we all get along with each other fairly well I should say, but this place needs more people and pictures. It's getting moldy lol and needs a breath of fresh air imho. Not being able to post pics in a Grow Journal is just silly lol.
RKS Development Team needs to put the bong down and get to work lol, they know I still love them :)
I'll take a tour of Pro Boards and see what I find, join a cannabis forum and see what happens and report back here.
2
Experienced20d ago
that's the move, firsthand recon is way better than us just speculating. curious what you find, especially on mobile.
and yeah you're probably right on the ads, seed banks and grow gear makes way more sense given the context. i think i was overthinking it.
"RKS put the bong down" killed me lol.
2
Seedling20d ago
LOL
4
Experienced20d ago
short replies are contagious, now we're all doing it lol
2
Seedling19d ago
:)
2
Experienced19d ago
haha the smiley face reply after i called out the short replies, well played
2