[gus_massa]

Small bug report:

> Fava beans $ USD by sforman

There is no number before the $ sign.

I don't undertand how can people exchange seed with perosond arround the world. Many species are invasive and there are laws against importing them.

[simgooder]

Will take a look at the bug report, thank you.

The international seed swapping is a valid concern for sure, but the majority of folks swapping seed are experienced gardeners, and know what they're looking for. We've built a trusted community of passionate growers. It's a a lot safer than ordering random seeds off Etsy or Amazon, which happens en masse every spring.

[pvaldes]

A blacklist would be very easy to implement and much safer from a legal point of view giving peace of mind to the app creators.

All the invasive species are catalogued in public reports, to extract a list automatically from the pdfs should be trivial

same problem with endangered species on cites lists that are subject to regulation

Could I suggest to add a variable name in height and width fields? I assume that is meter (maybe cm would be better), but is unclear if we talk about inches or meter and at the end it can taint the database

[m-i-l]

> "A blacklist would be very easy to implement and much safer from a legal point of view giving peace of mind to the app creators. All the invasive species are catalogued in public reports, to extract a list automatically from the pdfs should be trivial"

Or simply discourage international shipping. Personally I'd have thought a site like this would benefit from putting city and country at the centre of most activities, given how location-specific climate and even seasons are. That would also make it easier to support in-person activities such as plant swap meets.

[Loughla]

Please don't read a negative tone here, but:

So in other words, you're not really doing anything to address this issue other than hoping it won't happen. That's what I'm honestly hearing you say. Your community of trusted gardeners is great, until it's not.

And your comment here, essentially, says that's not your problem, because the big sites are worse right now.

[simgooder]

It’s true, it’s not a big concern, and I’m happy to explain further — no negative tone taken. You’re right, it was a cop-out for me to divert towards other platforms. We do take responsibility for the outcomes of permapeople.

On the original issue, “invasive” plants are not panacea. Invasive plants are only invasive in specific contexts; they’re native somewhere, they’re naturalized somewhere, they’re a nuisance somewhere, and a non-threatening ornamental somewhere else. It’s not as easy as uploading a list. There unfortunately aren’t many international, or even ecosystem specific resources out there. We’re trying to fill that niche by compiling any useful plant data we can find.

The community is international, so we can’t just be blacklisting plants that are invasive according to the USDA. That said, plants known to have this tendency are clearly marked on their profiles.

In addition, we only facilitate the communication of swaps. The communication that happens is obscured from even our eyes. There’s no way for us to control what is traded in the swaps while maintaining secure messaging and privacy.