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  • From: Bear K <bear@ursine-design.com>
  • To: Permaculture Plant Database <pcplantdb@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [pcplantdb] status
  • Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 10:37:48 -0800

Think we can set up a CVS server and edit/append to Richard's DTD at some point?

The concept of being able to attach a comment to every/any 'object' is
a concept I am quite into. Defining object granularity as a sentence
is a little smaller than I had in mind. I was thinking more along the
lines of a comment being the smallest object, but this could be
multiple paragraphs.
Yeah, thats fine. Seems like current text blobs are 1-4 sentences per reference...
Also, can we assume all text prior to a reference [#] is from that source?


While I agree that knowing the source of information is important, I
personally have more faith in the reports of personal experience by
Hemenway, Holmgren, Pittman, London, etc. than a reference to a book.
These folks already have reputations. I also suspect that from this
point on most/all of the information we will accumulate will not be
researched from books like Ken Fern did with PFAF. I've said all this
before...
I didn't mean to imply that books are more valid. Just that the current DB refers to books. Thus the "comments" should allow a source property, which might be a book, or the person entering it themselves.

From john s:
Hmmm, relation characteristics like the "root zone (in)compatible" ones and similar could be elaborated by linking to relevant plants...so, for a given plant, select a relevant word/phrase, then possibly elaborate in comment and/or link to relevant other plants that "finish the phrase."

So something with a shallow root zone would have an attribute 'root zone compatible with' and linkages to plants with deep root zones (ideally ones that also had other relevant relations...this is just an off-the-cuff example, remember? ;-)

This brings up 2 things:
First, it seems like having to manually create linkages between plants with short and deep root zones is overly laborious. I'd prefer to see a query used on these, something that could look at species 1, find the root zone, then find plants with zones deeper/etc then the species. Having to manually create links is going to mean making a link that probably has more judgements about the relationship then just rhizosphere. I'd prefer to see queries narrow the options down with more terms from as wide a selection as possible.

On the other hand, I'd love for there to be a way for authorship of "case study" relationship networks that are in the real world. Tagging a connection with a UID for a network, and querying for that UID to get the nodes. Something that both adds data to the whole DB, while also being able to be viewed as a real network. The Apple Guild, etc. If for example the DB expands beyond plants at some point, the networks from ZERI projects could be added, or the Soil Food Webs from E. Ingram could get added in, or of course new guild combos from the PC community. These ARE relationships that have been discovered and applied by real people.

Then at some point in the future, someone could build the network in a TG client, export it as RDF, and publish it on their blog, commenting on how it's worked and how they found it. They ping PIW a la trackback, and PIW notes and adds the relationships to the DB.

OK, hand wants to stop typing.

Cheers,
Bear





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