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pcdb - Re: [pcdb] Links from the PIW wiki

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Subject: Permaculture Database

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  • From: "Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lfl@intrex.net>
  • To: pcdb <pcdb@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [pcdb] Links from the PIW wiki
  • Date: Wed, 04 Apr 2007 14:03:13 -0400

Bear Kaufmann wrote:

What I'm saying, is that there was a period of valuable discussion about the project on the listserv. Some of the same issues were discussed there and could provide useful information. The goals of the 2 projects are very similar (including thinking beyond plants (which I believe is why we moved towards Permaculture Information Web), guild designing, etc). Since Chad has shown a willingness to move the project on to other interested parties, this project seems to be it.
What merging the two projects implies, would probably be not much more then what has currently happened. But having two projects working side by side to the same goal or not benefiting from what's come before, does seem wasteful.

_That_ completely reflects my thoughts about one project evolving out of two.

I wrote earlier:

1) Are we going to embark on a new project?

That is what's happening. With good input from a number of people.

Excellent.

Or
2) Are we or is anyone, going to:
a) Integrate Chad's work into our new project?
b) Finish the work Chad started as he envisioned it?

And as I have said a hundred times, our project needs to involve the Permaculture community-at-large, especially those
people in the various permaculture forums. People need to feel that it is _their_ project and that their participation
and input is desired and valued. This was rarely, if ever, done in the previous project and is probably why it ground to
a halt, unfinished.

Agreed. Though accouncements of the development work going on were occasionally made to the PC lists.

I don't think the project reached a state were it was ready to draw on the full knowledge of a large number of users. Plus there was another list used to draw some information from potential users.

I don't agree with this. Noone showed any interest in involving the
permaculture community
in ongoing development. Project updates and the other user list were just not
enough.

That may be a point to consider for this project: finding a way to maximize user input at an early stage of development.

You are probably aware of the large number of well informed, experienced,
knowledgeable practitioners, professionals, web developers and authors
in the pc list who would be interested in being involved in the development
process,
read: ideas, information, support, promotion, encouraging the others to be
involved
and above all be willing to use and submit input to the database when it is
is online.
These are people "who know how to subscribe and unsubscribe" themselves. As
for Paul's
comment about wanting "quality input" to make it worth the time spent
developing the system
most of the aforementioned folks as well as many others we rarely or
occasionally hear from
know as much or more that most of us do about permaculture and related
subjects.
Relegating the whole body of pclist subscribers to being a bunch of
ill-informed, inept peons
who might taint our database just won't fly (that was somewhat the attitude
toward them
in the former pcplantdb project). I, who started that pc list in 1993,
continue to be
amazed at the quality of the subscriber base and never cease to be amazed at
ongoing dialog,
news, announcements and general input. These, and their friends, professional
contacts,
students and colleagues and are the people who will use the database and they
need to be involved from the start. Data input needs to come from somewhere
and it surely won't
come just from us. The knowledgebase needs to be gleaned from those who use
it and they need to
feel that it is something they can claim as their own. We provide the system,
criteria for data
submission, quality control and mechanism for ongoing maintenance and they
provide the information,
tailored to their own bioregional needs (read: South Korean farmer using IM
practices, Vietnamese rice farmer,
California rice grower, urbanites in SF, NY, Chapel Hill NC, Atlanta GA,
etc., homesteaders all over the world,
intentional/permaculture/eco/hippie/religious/back-to-the-land communities
and so on).


If this is an open source permaculture information system, free to all, people will be interested in
what happens to it. ibiblio is the obvious and most useful hosting site for us and its free. Funding can be raised
through solicitation of direct donations and through Paypal.

Of course anyone can develop a commercial pc database but I expect they'll be on their own and will find it difficult to
find unpaid volunteers, unlike this project.

If you are implying pcplantdb was moving that way, discussions on the subject went about as far as on here: possibly working with nurseries, etc.

I do not think that should be done; as soon as you do that you'll get scambags like Kramer and Blume (who seem to dominate the openpc list with their pontifications and agendas) wanting to sink their fishhooks into it
to coopt and control it. I feel the project should be done on ibiblio
(because it is free, so secure and so robust) and that funding should come from grants, direct donations and sources such as paypal (and I think there is good likelihood that could be accomplished).

There is a huge need for people to learn what permaculture is and to put it to use in their lives, to work for them and the communities they live within. This database can go a long way toward helping make that happen. Well-informed enthusiastic folks can, with proper motivation and knowledge, help curb pollution, waste and climate change borne out of global warming. The average citizen, properly informed, encouraged and brought into the fold and not led to think of themselves as being on the outside looking in or that their take on things or knowledge doesn't make the grade, could through participation in and use of our pc database become responsible citizens who will otherwise abhor the use of pesticides and herbicides and wasteful energy-use practices, will use natural soil amendments to feed the soil and not the plants, will grow food producing gardens and not lawns, will form ecocommunities with energy efficient features and will in other words become part of the solution, not part of the problem.

LL
--
Lawrence F. London, Jr.
Venaura Farm
lfl@intrex.net
http://market-farming.com
http://market-farming.com/venaurafarm
http://venaurafarm.blogspot.com/
http://www.ibiblio.org/ecolandtech





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