Permaculture Database

[jedd <jedd@progsoc.org>]

 Some thoughts, very loosely grouped with minimal flow.  I'm sure
 we'll deal with it.  I notice a few things below are starting to be
 touched on elsewhere on the list

 The phrase 'nesting hierarchical taxonomy' doesn't sit well with
 my language centre.  (Isn't there a tautology in there?)  My take
 on hierarchy (apart from a preference for the original religious
 meaning) is that it isn't an appropriate concept to try to apply to
 this kind of database.  This stuff cries out for an rdb.

 A taxonomy .. is unavoidable & implied, and will likely require
 much administration.

 I'm still not sure how the permaculturedb and plantdb's goals
 differ -- though I use plants (below) as examples (I refused to
 succumb to peer pressure and talk about chooks!) every item
 in the landscape (as well as the non-physical items) need to have
 a presence in the database.  It seems to me that a plantdb would
 necessarily be a subset of the pcdb.  And/or having both implies
 much duplication of effort.

 ----

 On input, any reference to a month is highlighted - to the user,
 and if forced, to a moderator.

 There are strictly defined references to what a season means, f.e.
 And they're aligned globally, so rather than starting on the
 solstice/equinox (as they do in some countries) they start on the
 first day of the month before each of those things, and ends on the
 last day of the month after.  Yes, that neatly aligns with where I
 happen to live -- but that inherently reduce the benefits of same.

 I'd also want to make measurements - weight, distance, volume, etc
 location agnostic.  I'd really prefer to make everything metric, as
 imperial measurements of those things blows goats something chronic
 (do we distinguish between US miles and gallons, as distinct from UK
 miles and gallons, or indeed anyone else's takes on those 'standard'
 measurements?).  IOW, I'm down for some foresight.

 I want weightings for various relationships -- and I see this as hard
 to get, because it's going to be hard [for people] to give .. and that
 will be because once someone sees a relationship is defined they
 are unlikely to comment on it, particularly if it's one they agree
 with .. whereas that's exactly where I'd want them to pipe up.  For
 example, mulberry and grape grow well together, or so the rumours go,
 and doubtless many people believe that to be the case, some with and
 some without first hand experience.  I think there's probably a number
 of weightings involved there, with the most important one being the
 existence of first hand experience to vouch for the affect one org
 has on a specific neighbour.  We could have a weighting on how many
 people *believe* in such an effect .. but it'd be of questionable
 value, IMO.  We'd definitely want a weighting on the level of the
 effect, of course.

 I'd want that weighting to be affected by, and affect, the weighting
 of any comparative analysis between an unknown contributor and myself
 when I start doing searches on relationships between two orgs - such
 that someone with comparable soil (sandy loam, pH, organic content)
 and climate (humidity, days > 30C & frosts per year, hours of sunlight
 (latitude), elevation) and microclimate (aspect, exposure, proximity
 to the sea, living canopy, human structures) got a higher weighting
 than someone living in an entirely different environment.

 ----

 Consider a particular plant.  I'd want to know:
 o  Climate preference
 o  Climate tolerances
 o  Size (optimum)
 o  Size (variable based on climate)
 o  Soil preferences ... tolerances
 o  Water requirements ... tolerances
 o  Sun/shade requirements ... tolerances
 o  Functions
 o  Warnings
 o  Companions
     -  sliding scale, say -10 to +10
     -  textual caveats for any cited companions
     -  climates where certain companionships will or won't work
     -  obviously there's a conceptual 1:n relationship here
 o  Herbal / medicinal uses (perhaps a sub category of functions)
     - recipes
     - doses
     - contraindications
 o  Food potential
      - as above
 (Union of those two:
      - containers / materials that can and can't be used in the
        preparation - discolouration warnings, spoilage, corrosion ...)
 o  Weed potential
      - impact
      - seasonal / microclimate / weather / soil / etc influences
      - methods of control
 o  Pest potential
      - impact
      - seasonal / microclimate / weather / soil / etc influences
      - methods of control
 o  Propagation methods
 o  Fertilisation requirements .. tolerances
 o  Varieties (links to other instances, with replication of the
     common bits to this specific variety - this can get messy as you
     want to distinguish between specific varieties that may have
     very different medicinal properties but share pretty much every
     other property - contributors will not update both sets of data,
     guaranteed).
 o  Performance - different metrics and under different conditions
     - comparison performance early, mid, late season
     - correlation to weather for each year that perf data is provided
 o  Dimensions (and how they vary based upon the above)
 o  What it looks like (ie, pictures)
     - up close
     - just after germination (each week snapshots) for identification
     - flowers
     - each pic can contain links to information about climate,
       fertiliser, timings, location, soil types, etc where it was
       grown (obviously this would come out of a person's profile,
       unless that person wasn't registered with the system (but still
       wanted to add that information in) and/or deal with time-
       dependency (an utter nightmare in db's) if that person's moved
       since the picture was taken or took it at a site other than
       their registered and annotated home site
 o  Yield potential under each permutation of the above

 Now -- most of that information needs to be modifiable for my own
 site based on microclimate and the various results from offering
 it different amounts of water, sun, fertiliser, and different soil
 types, different areas (microclimates) and different companions, etc.

 I'd want another dimension to the data by being able to compare my
 results (or predict same) based on other people's data - so I'd want
 the system to be able to fuzzily compare my environs (specified
 elsewhere in the db) with anyone else that's entered some data for
 this particular plant, with it identifying microclimates and seasonal
 timings, yearly weather variations, and so on.

 The companion plantings obviously scale (once you're outside the
 above context) to an n:n relationship - so you'd obviously want to
 be able to identify both guild members and facilitators (between
 plants that are themselves incompatible).

 I haven't even considered starting to do up an E-R diagram for
 any of this stuff -- that's some way off.

 ----

 Usage of wikipedia (etc) -- recommended, as it aligns with my desire
 to not reproduce (and maintain) related, detailed, but ultimately not
 core information.  It also nearly fits my requirement that all core
 information be portable -- ie, that I can relatively easily sync 'the
 database' with a local copy and then use that offline.  A facility to
 pull in all single-order links from the primary site would therefore
 be desirable.

 Jedd.