Permaculture Database

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

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