Hello everyone!
I wanted to put some loose guidelines to help people know what to include when posting a question. Think of this as Question Posting 101.
Please Include the Following In Your Question Post:
Why are we so adamant about posting pictures? You might be surprised how often a simple picture gives all the information needed to solve a problem. A lot of the time growers don't know what details are important to share, but a pictures speaks a thousand words!
- Your Title Should Quickly Explain the Problem/Question - This makes it way more likely someone will answer your question because they'll be able to easily see from the list if it's something they can help with (example: "Leaves are turning yellow" or "Leaves are getting spots and plant is droopy")
- (Important!!!) Pictures - A picture of your problem as well as a picture of the plant in the setup.
- A description of your problem, and when you first noticed it
- Your Setup - Growing medium, nutrients, grow light, etc
- Did you do anything different before the problem occurred?
Please be polite and say thank you! I also just want to point out that it's polite to reply when someone posts to try to help you out. If not to say thank you, at least to acknowledge that you read it. We all happily give free advice, but as one grower said, "it still feels a little cold when you put a bunch of effort in helping answer somebody's question and they don't even bother to reply after getting their answer."
~Nebula
I use a program on my computer that scrubs picture files of all metadata your camera or phone added to it. it's called "Exif_cleaner" If you have an iphone use an app called "local Send" that also has a PC companion, that you can quickly send pics from your iphone to your PC, over wifi, then just drag and drop the new pics into Exif_cleaner, and it strips the exif data off and puts the pic back where it was. Then, you post the picture. I live in a state where it is illegal to smoke weed, and growing it is a felony. But we have the best gun laws in the country. No way I would let a picture with weed get out with my address and GPS coordinates on it. There are also probably phone apps that will do the same thing, I just haven't looked. Any pics I take of my plants I immediately transfer to my PC, scrub, and delete from my phone, because you know how cops like to look through phones of people they detain. Clean your photos before uploading, and I would hope the operators are cleaning Exif data before they allow pictures to post on this site - any picture you can view in a web browser you can download and access exif data if its there.Nebula, I would think that 'paranoia' about the data contained in a jpeg, camera make, settings, and, not least, GPS data would be of concern to growers, especially in the 'uncivilized' areas, might account for the lack of photos.(?) Are there any safeguards in the forum is prevent 'mining the data' from posted photos? Do you know of available software to 'clean' the photos. The Windows 7 app does not remove much, if any, of the data (and it gives you a warning to the fact!).
I've just gotten to the point of 'JDGASA' (just don't give a s--t anymore!)
I agree with You, including photos and data (as you listed) would greatly speed up helpful responses. And THANK YOU for providing, managing, and refereeing this wonderful site! It has been a great resource of information for me.