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pcplantdb - Re: [pcplantdb] [permaculture] Groundnut, apios americana and PIW status

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  • From: John Schinnerer <john@eco-living.net>
  • To: PCPLANTDB <pcplantdb@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [pcplantdb] [permaculture] Groundnut, apios americana and PIW status
  • Date: Mon, 13 Feb 2006 10:02:58 -1000

Aloha,

OK, here's some issues with PIW (current dev.permaculture.info) relevant to this apparently very useful and neglected plant.

If I search on 'groundnut' I get no apios on the first three pages of results.

If I search on 'ground nut' I get apios americana as item number five. Items one through four are not apios and in fact don't seem to have any relevance to my search string.
Nor do the other results on the first page of results for 'ground nut'.

In fact none of the results from searching on 'groundnut' seem to have any obvious relevance to that string either.

There are 2700+ matches. This is silly. What the heck is being 'found' to justify that, when 'ground nut' is not in the visible text of any of the results on the first three pages?

And that's only the first time I tried 'ground nut'.
Tried it three more times and no apios anywhere on the first two pages of results. A comment on apios americana shows up on the third page.

And the only reason I know that item five the first try - and the comment on the third page in searches since then - is relevant is because of what I've just learned from posts on the PC list about groundnut a.k.a. ground nut a.k.a. apios americana.
Otherwise that comment - which doesn't show any common names, only latin - would look like just another irrelevant result.

I would surmise that PIW has nothing to offer me about this amazing plant I've just heard about called 'groundnut' or 'ground nut'.

Also - the text of the comment mentioned above appears to be truncated, as follows:

"Prefers a light rich soil and a sunny position. When grown in a warm dry situation in a well-drained sandy soil, the plants will be long lived with the tuberous roots increasing in size and num"

When I click on the link to go to details of the plant, there is no info beyond what is already listed on the results pages.

I assume this is because that's all that was in the PFAF dataset, correct?
So all the info just spewed out about ground nut on the PC list needs to be added by users, correct?
Not an issue - just making sure I understand where the current dataset is at.

And while I'm at it - there is no way to tell what page of multi-page results I'm on.
And the nav links for multi-page results needs to be at top of results as well as bottom.

I will see about putting some of these into the tracker RSN.
For now I would like to strongly question the idea that PIW is ready for a larger audience...mainly because I think people will find experiences like mine above frustrating and decide PIW is not much use compared to other existing tools.

Scenario:
Wow, here's a cool new plant somebody just talked about on the PC list.
I'm gonna go get some more info at PIW!
Hmmm...2700+ results and I don't see 'ground nut' anyhwere in the first three pages...hmm, what page am I on anyhow? OK, never mind, how about 'groundnut'? Hmmm, nothing there either. None of these results even have 'ground nut' or 'groundnut' in the text. This thing must be broken. Guess I'll go look somewhere else.
Let me try google...'groundnut'...wow, here we go, a whole first page of obviously relvant results. How about 'ground nut'...cool, another whole first page of obviously relevant results...did I mean to search for 'groundnut'?...yeah, already did that...pretty smart of google to ask though...

'nuff said.


cheers,
John S.


Jill wrote:
I had apios volunteering at my place in NC. It's a great plant! A diminutive vine, it climbs up neighbors without causing them any difficulty. The flowers are GORGEOUS!! And the beans are quite tasty, maybe most like lentils. I never got around to digging the tubers, but I think I read that you can prepare them like potatoes. There's some good info here: http://www.pfaf.org/leaflets/groundnt.php and I've posted a not very good picture of it on the frappr site at http://www.frappr.com/permaculture/photos/0.

Jill

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John Schinnerer - MA, Whole Systems Design
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