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there are still timestamps available for warnings on those same triggers for those same properties. just bc there's a paywall on something doesn't mean other comments and timestamps can't be posted or read for free on that property or that trigger.

see here:

i don't have an account and haven't paid for anything on the site, so all of those comments are what i'm seeing for free.

i had to search and search to find anything that had paywalls, and had to resort to looking at The Substance, as referenced here. i've been using the site regularly since the op posted and have never organically encountered a paywall on anything, including on very popular properties.

i don't see any reason to stop using the site--everything is still available for free. they just have added another way for some ppl to choose to pay some $ (in addition to ads), since this is a completely free service, and no website is free to maintain.

He thanked me for my feedback when I expressed confusion and concern about the paywalled comments being mixed in with the free comments, and has since updated the site to make them clearly distinct, along with a preview of what the paid comments look like:

do not taste plants if you don't know what they are

do not identify a fruit as edible just because it tastes sweet

hope you didn't eat any fucking seeds, bro

I saw the photo in my feed and went ohh, dude, no, we do not handle yellow rocks with our bare hands until we know for sure what they are. And I know that orange...

In comments, they continue:

and that's where I started cussing at the computer monitor. But someone else had got there first:

I will add:

- Apps like Seek are often good at helping to narrow the identity of a plant down to its family or genus, but very often fall short of an actual species ID (I should specify, they fall short of providing a *correct* species ID. Most will be extremely happy to give you a species ID, even though it is patently false). Once the app gets you close, it’s time to crack open a field guide or consult an expert.

- Speaking of field guides; BEWARE OF ANY PUBLISHED POST-AI. I’m serious. Once people figured out they could generate whole books using those bloated chatbots, foraging guides (which had experienced a surge in popularity following the threats of food insecurity during the beginning of the COVID Pandemic) were one of the first genres to be overloaded with ai slop. Look for trusted authors like Samuel Thayer, and publishing dates before 2023.

- A good field guide should offer detailed verbal descriptions of the physical characteristics of various plants, using specific botanical terms, and will often contain a glossary with definitions of those terms. It should also feature maps of the known growing ranges of those plants, and ideally, photographs of the plant during various stages of growth, and at different times of year.

- Start slow. Learn a handful of “easy” plants or fungi that have distinctive characteristics and few toxic lookalikes, and learn them well. Learn the toxic lookalikes as well as you learn the edible species.

- Once you are confident you have a positive ID, try a little bit and see how it agrees with you. Just because it’s “edible” doesn’t mean you aren’t allergic to it.