It has always been my mission to build a valuable fig research tool for the fig community. But it wasn’t until I began to actually put some words down on paper for an actual Mission Statement that I began to see the need for some changes to FigVarieties.com. A flood of very significant words began to standout: unbiased, objective, and impartial, just to name a few.
Previously, I saw that some in the fig community had a proclivity towards collecting from certain sources over others, so I thought that having the Fig Collections feature was a benefit to the fig community. It was also a tool that I used to keep track of what I had reviewed of what some had to say about a particular variety. Though it was never my intention to “play favorites” with the Fig Collections, it immediately became apparent that including some collections, while omitting others, could give the false impression that some collections were worth collecting, while others were not. This becomes even more challenging as more “collections” are being created by the explosive growth in the popularity of figs and is becoming impossible to include all of the latest collections.
So, in spite of the value of the Fig Collections to the fig community, it is far out-weighed by the impossibility of fairly including every single collection. Therefore, I have removed almost every Fig Collection from FigVarieties.com and I apologize to those who may feel slighted by me not including them in the collections. There are still a few collections that remain – Only those that do not provide any direct benefit to any particular party.
Note that these Collections refer only to those pre-defined and directly searchable on the Fig Varieties page. Individual members may still add their custom collections.
You may view the current Fig Collections list HERE.