Permaculture Database

["Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lfl@intrex.net>]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [permaculture] database, wiki, blogs, forums, etc
Date: Sun, 17 Dec 2006 10:32:20 -0800 (PST)
From: Sean Maley <semaley@yahoo.com>
Reply-To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>

 --- jedd <jedd@progsoc.org> wrote:
> Lawrence F. London, Jr. wrote:
> ] These is a considerable amount of information
> ] there that would be useful to us now. I'll glean
> ] some and post it here.
>
> That'd be great - if either you or Richard could
> precis the discussion over there so far.
>
>  I've been pondering a plant observations database
> for some time, but once it got up to about four
> dimensions my ears started to bleed.

Sorry for coming into the discussion late, I've been
away from email for awhile...

The word 'dimension' is very important to my own
views.  What I saw being developed was more like a
google interface to PFAF, which would easily convert
into a wiki.  Though I don't like letting go of the
data architecture, we do have to consider the
audience.

Who will be the "audience"?  I meet few permies
willing to edit existing wikis.  I have even been
challenged to entice discussion via email.  Perhaps
the "audience" simply wants information presented to
them, rather than designing a tool for data entry.  A
blog might serve these web surfers just as well,
having open discussion below the article.  The
permie-techies may be a whole different audience;
technical sophistication can be assumed.

There is no dearth of techies among us, just a lack of
time amongst them.  Getting the techies into one
virtual spot will be quite simple.  I'd be grateful to
have a shared server with others.  Just having some
data pulled together will help build a crucible for
many projects to emerge.

Just as we set the stage for nature to take over, we
should do the same for web tools.  As our own tools
emerge from the pile, some will be useful to the
non-techie, others will criss-cross amongst the
techies.  Is this not a Permaculture strategy?

I never had more than a handful of response to my
Permaculture web hosting cooperative.  Would ibiblio
sponsor such a coop to get it off the ground?  Would
ibiblio allow root access for us to install/configure
software?  I'd love to see this develop into a "highly
available" global topology of web hosts (talk about
reliability and permanence).


-Sean.