What would you like to see on the WWOOF Ireland site?

Nice site, well planned and fairly easy to use. Thanks

Thanks!

as a host, it would be nice to be able to other hosts' entries.

Subscribed hosts do have access to the full list - you can see other host's entries there.

It would be useful to be able to imput a wwoofers name into the site to get their details and to check membership without having to contact them as wwoofers sometimes contact us b y email without giving the wwoof membership no. and it is helpful to see a photo and get a general impression.

There are no membership numbers on WWOOF Ireland. A WWOOFer cannot contact a host on WWOOF Ireland unless they are both subscribed members - so there is no need for a number. All messages from the WWOOF Ireland site will have a link to the sender's profile. Messages that do not have this link are not from WWOOF Ireland.

We may be able to have a list of 'newest' hosts in the side menu. I will look at that idea. In fact the list of hosts IS sorted almost as you describe - I will not say exactly how, but it's close!

A list of the 5 newest hosts over the last 21 days has been enabled in the sidebar.

In response to #5 - The label of the 'Months WWOOFers required' information on host's pages has been changed to allow this area to be used for this

It would be great to have a search-option for farm's names. It's not easy to find them again if you haven't bookmarked them.

And when you get a reply from the farm (via contact-button), you don't have a link to the farm's profile - only the person's name. Hard to manage when you've sent a lot of requests...

Greetings!
Jenny

I am aware that finding hosts in the list can be a problem - using the bookmark facility does help to narrow down the options. It is not possible to provide a search facility at the moment - there are good technical and security reasons which I cannot discuss here. I am still investigating better methods for communication between WWOOFers and hosts - an improvement is planned for the next version of the site.

Hi there,

Thanks for keeping up the site, it must be a lot of work with all these members. The only suggestion I have is when looking at my list of bookmarked hosts, it would be nice if the name(s) of the host is listed beside the farm's name. This way a wwoofer could match a name from an email easily with the farm instead of having to click on each one and try to find them. Thanks:)

That's a good idea Leah. It's done - but there is no space for the address so I have removed that. It's probably not as important as the name so should be OK. Thanks for your input.

For me it would be interesting to be able to see hosts by County.
Not essential but helpful.

Yes - I agree. I am looking for the best way to achieve this and will enable it once I can get the code working. I am intending to provide a clickable map of each province to allow counties to be viewed after the province has ben selected.

Something that is important to me is proximity to cities and towns. While the nearest town is listed, it does not state how close to it it is. Knowing how secluded a paricular place is before contacting would save time for both sides.

You could try this...
http://maps.google.com/
It will usually find an address, although it may not be 100% accurate.

i think it would be really helpful to have the last log in date of hosts that way you can get a sense of how current their posting is and perhaps how often they check the site.

That's a good idea Jennifer! I will see what can be done to include it.
Update: This has now been enabled at the bottom of hosts' pages

Hi Peter,

It is great that you have replied to all this feedback! I would like to see a basic list of ideas for what WWOOFers should pack specifically for Ireland. Maybe there could be a 'Tips Section' where past WWOOFIrelanders could post suggestions for what and what not to bring, or travel tips in general.
Thanks!

Hi Hannah
We did have comments in the travel section for this - but it was hardly ever used. You could start a new topic in the WWOOFing section of the forum.
My own tips would be - good waterproof boots, good waterproof coat, a sun hat and a big smile. And you really, really need a WWOOF Ireland T shirt!

Hey Peter
I'd like to be able to find other wwoofers (and be able to contact them) too...
apart from that: nice site :)

Thanks! Unfortunately we can't provide the facility to contact other WWOOFers unlesss they post in this forum or on the noticeboard.

It might be useful to have a Live Chat system set up, with little online/offline symbols next to the names (like in the forums)
Instead of trying to call a foreign country, we all could just chat amongst ourselves on the site, taking advantage of the moment, and asking questions and solidifying plans with each other in real time, and therefore cut out some of the problems possibly caused by delayed E-mail responses and such. I dunno, maybe it's pointless, but I have a feeling there have been a few, "No Show" scenarios simply due to the fact that there is a day or two in between contact, which neither the WWOOFer OR the Host can afford. In fact, it's probably worse for the WWOOFer, because at least the Host has a House! Eh? Eh? Lemme hear some opinions...

Worth the effort? or Pointless?

It would be my guess that many hosts would be unaware of 'chat', and many are on slow conections that are not really suitable anyway. You also have to consider the time and language differences.
There would also be technical issues and it could overload our bandwidth which is over-stretched already.
Thanks for the idea No Face, but I can't see it happening - sorry!

We just had a bad experience with wwoofers and I was wondering if a few things could be mentioned on the site as information for wwoofers.
For example that they have to be in good physical shape especially if they want to work on a farm. Also some of them don't seem to realise that farming is actually how we earn our living and not some hobby.
It would also be nice if the wwoofers would inform themselves abit more about the place/area that they are going to, so that the host hasn't to plan their daytrips and has to pick them up here and there because they have problems coming home.
I could go on, but I think you know what I mean.
Things that are plain obvious to most people seem to be lost on some.

You could put some of that information on your page as it won't apply to all hosts. Maybe you need to contact us to discuss some of these problems?

I have started a new topic in the WWOOFing section - Advice for WWOOFers. Anyone can share advice there.