As put so well by Chris Herbstritt, *"I would like to think that part of our goal here is to encourage people to successfully cultivate plants. Part of that is helping people to find the plants". * And another part of that is helping small scale growers, those helping to perpetuate rare bulbs for which we make up the primary market (and therefore they are hardly going to be profiteers, are they?). Why would we expect them to devote time, knowledge and expense to propagation while we deny them the visibility which could determine their success? It makes no sense. Erik van Lennep Currently growing in Spain <http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikvanlennep/> <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> “I know of no restorative of heart, body, and soul more effective against hopelessness than the restoration of the Earth.” —BARRY LOPEZ” On 28 June 2016 at 14:02, Chris_Herbstritt <cherbstritt@yahoo.com> wrote: > Hello All, > Probably the safest way to have "no conflicts of interest" is to limit our > discussions to avoid all plants that are commercially available. Discussing > commercially available plants or patented plants could be inadvertently > helping the sale of that product. > Additionally, if members have associations with a nursery or institution > in their user name, having their name listed could be inadvertently helping > their sales. All member names could be changed to have an anonymous > number. For example member "Jane Doe (Shady Pines Nursery)" could be > changed to Member 12345. > This way we could have discussions without encouraging people to grow and > buy plants or bulbs. The discussions could be purely scientific and nobody > could benefit monetarily from our discussions. An Admin could monitor all > discussions before they go out and all responses could be sanitized if > "taboo" subjects are mentioned. > The question is... Do we want to go this far. > Personally, I enjoy the personalized monikers and our lively discussions > about all types of plants - especially the new ones and where to buy them. > I suppose there is a fine line between mentioning a newly developed Iris > and where you might buy it and a member sending out an email that they are > taking orders for a new $200 aril Iris that grows easily in clay and loves > summer humidity. > I would like to think that part of our goal here is to encourage people to > successfully cultivate plants. Part of that is helping people to find the > plants. While it's fun to grow plants from seed, not everyone can afford > to wait (sometimes 10 years) for something to bloom when starting from > seed. And of course cultivars rarely come true from seed, so buying or > trading for special selections is a good option. > The choice is ours. Do we want to discuss plants that people can obtain > and grow? > > Chris > > > > _______________________________________________ > pbs mailing list > pbs@lists.ibiblio.org > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/ _______________________________________________ pbs mailing list pbs@lists.ibiblio.org http://pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/