The next iteration of our forum will have topics divided up into categories. Please put on your thinking caps and help come up with the best categories for this purpose.
Something to consider is that over the past 21 years we have amassed a collection of 8000 topics with a total of about 71000 posts. We need categories that, together, are broad enough to encompass most topics. Sub-categories are also a possibility.
Post your suggestions here.
I’ve just jotted down a few ideas, for what they’re worth:
Getting Started (Beginners’ Tips and Questions)
Germination and Seedling Care
Genetics
Article links
Breeding for… (subcategories: Disease Resistance, Color, Cold Hardiness, Form, Habit, etc.)
Seedling Showcase
Propagation
Just for Fun
Events
I cannot add more than has already been said. These well chosen categories would be user-friendly, informative and clear.
I cannot add more than has already been said.
Sure you can.
I am using some fancy software to help bucket the existing threads into categories. I can do a better job if you tell me the sorts of things you are interested in. More is better than less so it is useful even to expand on ideas that have already been posted. I would like, perhaps, 50 to 100 terms to use for the purpose. In the end we will settle on a more limited general list that encompasses the more specific terms used for bucketing.
I’ll add a couple of suggestions.
Species roses.
Famous rose breeders.
Breeding strategies.
Genetics - Mendillian genetics. Classical hybridizing. Molecular genetics. Genetic engineering.
So please, don’t hold back. What subjects have we discussed here?
Free pollen, seeds, and / or seedlings available section.
Sports, identification of roses, ploidy, self-incompatibilty, morphological variations, embryo culture, sterility, special meiosis, taxonomy, naming a rose, dominant and recessive inheritance, tissue culture, patent application, color classification, plant pathology, malformations of seedlings.
Patents, patenting in N/A and Europe,A/NZ and business of rose marketing and selling
… and nope l am not even specifically thinking about it as not even remotely successful - but would like access to knowledge … just in case l fluke a rose with a penetrating, but pleasant fragrance, with full bloom form and dense dark foliage and who is a universally disease resistant beaut thats absolutely hardy to zone 2 - free to rose friends … commercial pays in big cash 
upfront ( bio clock well advanced ), in advance, no running royalty and no checks 
I have sorted the above suggestions into the following categories and sub-categories. Please flesh out the sub-categories especially where none exist.
We can have as many sub-categories as needed, these will implemented as ‘tags’. The reader will be able to choose a category then select from a popup list of sub-category tags to drill down to relevant threads.
I think you are all brilliant! Don, for me, as a beginner and tech-impaired older person, your categories are both logical and pleasant to consider. I can hardly wait to use them!
Brian
I think that the word “swap” is misleading. Often rose hybridizers have been willing to give pollen, seeds, and or seedlings to other hybridizers without expecting anything in return (sometimes - many times not even postage).
Nice job at categories … feels complete … tuning time?
At the risk of self-interest hardy details and based on own info chases, under wild things; like to see:
Loose, major wild things sub group named something like Northern Roses as in “Northern Midwest - Foothills - Prairie - Boreal - Euro- Asia”.
Not sure of any southern, south hemisphere equivalents - l think maybe only in Chile and Argentina “Patagonia”. Cdn zone guide for me is zone 4 and lower (colder) wild ones.
eg (spelling not checked - claim eng. privilege) Rosa … laxa, blanda, accicularis, cinomea/majalis?, “Kimberly - forget main type name”, altaica?, ecae, xanthina, primula (hardy yellows), spino/pimpinefolia … rugosa, sulfa?
Not sure if want to go down to species crosses … eg agathas, francofort … kind of a fuzzy area of debate where it comes down (imo) to just research info on fertility, get the plant plody, if it exists, and experiment.
the word “swap” is misleading.
Thanks, Dr. Kuska. I’ll need to think about how to phrase it so that we cover both the swapping and donation of material. To be sure the majority of sharing here has been in one direction at a time - a lot of it from you
… tuning time?
Not an easy question. The here are several big pieces to migrating the forum to the new software and they need to be carved and chiseled with some precision, checking the fit back and forth. I have cleared my calendar through the winter for this project, though.
under wild things; like to see:
Here is where the fancy software takes over. It analyzes all the posts in the database and produces a list of, in this, case, all the species roses that have been mentioned enough times to warrant noticing. I can use that to produce tags so when you click on a category, Wild Things, you get the messageboard showing the latest threads but also a dropdown that has the species listed. Click a species and you get all the messages about it. There may also be a second level dropdown - Wild Things|R. hulthemia|dieback, for instance, but I’m not promising. I just want to get things migrated.
There are other elements to this project as well. If I can get some help editing OCR errors for about 60 articles I hope to be able to include a publication section with the ability to comment on the articles and have the comments integrate with the forum. Another feature of the new forum software will be the ability to post and read posts through email in lieu of logging into the forum. I think I already mentioned social media tie-ins.
Don;
Ploidy came to mind and then I saw you had it already listed as a sub-category.
Did I see a category for heat-tolerance?
Stephen
or perhaps cold hardiness?
Duane
This looks great with excellent ideas!
Late to the conversation, and while I thought I might have some contributions, looking at Don’s outline, I think they are all pretty well covered!
If I could however offer relatively trivial thoughts, “Seeds and Seedlings” sounds like a show-and-tell topic to me, and heading might better convey the idea of the “how-tos” of hybridizing. (“Techniques”?) This topic might sit atop other propagation thread, “asexual propagation” in hierarchy for intuitive navigation.
The “mama’s and papas” section sounds like the one I will be most interested in, and I wonder if it won’t have lots of overlap with the “traits” and perhaps an additional “goals” line of discussions. It sounds like it could be a broad experience-sharing sub-forum.
I would expect lots of spill-over and morphing of threads, but but discussions of “goals”, and “traits” of prospective “parents” feel like they might be born within the same incubator to me.
(That might be my own prejudice based on how I [he says meekishly, looking down at the floor] may have, in the past, derailed or hijacked a thread or two… or several… scores thereof…)
(I am guessing the genetics section is where the scientific articles – which plebes like me cannot grasp – will fall… Can we have translators to moderate those? 
)
Fertility- male/female/both
Codification of David’s corrected chromosome counts
That should be Henry not David
Thanks, thanks, thanks…this will be SO useful. It’s a big project and if we need to raise dues to pay for the software and time, I for one am willing to pay more and/or a one time assessment to help cover the costs. Thank you for applying the new to the old to build the future.