Permaculture Database

[Rich Morris <mailinglists@pfaf.org>]

Sean Maley wrote:
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: negiliblek <negiliblek@yahoo.com>
> Subject: [pcdb] Summary Of Ideas and Things to Vote on
>
> I. Method of coming to final agreements: Republic, Democracy, or Consensus?
>
> Sociocracy with a Quorum and minimum lead time to provide input (active 
> abstainers count towards the quorum, as do participants; no response 
> assumes a person didn't get the email and needs to be contacted for 
> quorum).  Non-voters in Consensus can get in the way.  Democracy and 
> Representation create top down authority.

It partially depends on the size of the community. At present we are 
small in number so consensus can work.

In political science they distinguish three roles of governments
*legislature - makes the rules
*judiciary - interpretes the rules
*executive - day to day running
See for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_powers

In wikipedia, the legislature is basically everybody and more or less by 
consensus (of those who participate in a particular discussion). People 
like sysops with the power to ban users, delete articles etc form the 
executive, and some users are arbitrators, forming the legislature, 
which only happens when things go really wrong, if if a sysop is out of 
hand. They also have Jimbo the king, whos basically hands off 99% of the 
time, but can step in when consensus is failing.

(side note: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_duties is an 
iteresting article as its been written as a design patte, with a pattern 
and applications sections.)

> II. I propose, ask for a vote on the following:
>  A- MediaWiki
> Objects?  Since when is a Wiki a Class?  Do you mean to say Wiki pages?

Support. Still think we should have more discussion on this though.

> B-Content Management System
>
> ???  Wouldn't a CMS primarily apply to bioregion specific needs?  Or do 
> you mean that we will create tools for bioregions to add to a permie 
> standardized CMS.


> C- We elect a secretary who will keep track of our decisions and post 
> them via a simple web page that isn't really a part of our main project.
>
> What about independent projects then discuss what to make public, merge, 
> or ignore?  Each person with something to offer can track the decisions 
> and post them for themselves.  During conflict, we can come to consensus 
> for an arbitrator/facilitator.
>
> We must bear in mind that blocking behavior looses participation, which 
> makes blocking a taboo.  Suggest alternatives, point out conflicts, keep 
> personal backup copies, create an alternative for discussion, create a 
> conflict test scenario, or just get out of the way by saying you 
> abstain.  We each have a responsibility to each other to keep the 
> project going, so must take great care to not put bad code into place 
> that breaks other peoples code.  The greater our participation, the more 
> tools (and more useful tools) we will provide.
>
> Problems will happen.  Get used to seeing them as something positive 
> without being phony about it.  The largest points of failure will be 
> design.  Bad UI code or faulty analysis shouldn't take the whole system 
> out.  Faulty table designs in place for months lead to permanently lost 
> data, not the inability to input data (quick bug fix) or an accidental 
> dropped table (restore from backup).  Beware of hierarchy in a 
> relational world.
>
> III.-I propose our initial scope is:  energy web matrices, organisms 
> characteristics, and environmental effects

I like the idea of a ''Permaculture patterns wiki'', the pattern concept 
is broad enough to cover most things we would want to put in and also 
brings a certain discipline to the structure of articles.

We could have specific patterns for plants, animals, tools, methods.

> What about collecting and cataloging available data and tools?  Rich has 
> most of the plant data that you are requesting, plus you can find USDA 
> and ITIS free for the taking.  I can get you a zip code database with 
> latitude and longitude, if you want.  Although postal codes are 
> available for several former Empire colonies, I haven't seen latitude 
> and longitude as available for USA zip codes.

Licence is the key, PFAF data is now co-licences GFDL Creative Commons 
(by/sa). Plants is copyright free (with some exception for images). 
Wikipedia is GFDL (theres now a good lot of plant information there).
 Dear
         Thanks for your payment. You should automatically be taken to 
the download page. If that does not happen you can find it at
 http://www.pfaf.org/database/D_paypal.html

If you wish the database to be sent on a CD-ROM please send me an
email and I'll put one in the post.

         Rich


--
Plants for a Future: 7000 useful plants
Web:   http://www.pfaf.org/
Post:  1 Lerryn View, Lerryn, Lostwithiel, Cornwall, PL22 0QJ
Tel:     01208 872 963
Email: webweaver@pfaf.org
PFAF electronic mailing list http://groups.yahoo.com/group/pfaf