Permaculture Database

[Rich Morris <mailinglists@pfaf.org>]

jedd wrote:
>  Hi Rich, et al
>
> > Really we are at the stage of just 1 and 2. The others come later.
> >
> > So ideas on a postcard.
>
>  LL indicated this wiki (permaculture.info) was to set up the guild
>  database.  Is that how you see the function?  If so, we've jumped
>  straight into steps 4, 5 and 6 (identify, evaluate, develop).

Well the wiki does not proclude using other software. However I think 
you'll find that the wiki solution is both simple and powerful and 
eliminates a lot of the grunt work with system plumbing. In the past 
we've got bogged down with endless discussions over systems and a very 
long development process before we actually got any new content online.

>  I've created an account on your wiki.  I can't work out how to
>  modify the toolbox (you've got some < tags in there that shouldn't
>  be).  

Now fixed. I've left a message about this on your talk page
        http://www.permaculture.info/index.php/User_talk:Jedd

>  More to the point, I find discussions on-wiki (or on-web at
>  all) to be harder than via email - the former encourages lost and
>  difficult to track threads, as well as painful attribution tracking.

Yes on wiki communication does encourages a different mode of 
communication. Email mailing lists are not the perfect solution either, 
theres about 1000 odd messages which conatin multiple interweaving 
threads in the old pcpdb archive and finding the relavent post can get 
tricky. With a wiki there is a lot of scope for refactoring discussions 
and a particular thread can be made into a seperate page for easier 
access later. Attribution does not seem to be a problem as long as 
people stick to the convention of signing their posts using --~~~~. 
Indeed as the revision history is available you can check that if you 
really want to know who said what.

The other advantage with wiki mode is that there is a strong connect 
between content and discussion, they are only a click away.

>  Finally, and more generally, can you (or others) please clarify this
>  particularly project now -- are all the people who were previously
>  talking about designing and then setting up an All Things For All Men
>  Database Of Everything now working on migrating PFAF data into
>  a wiki, or watching a guild-only database get cranked up, or is there
>  some other, greater project that includes (rather than, say, wraps
>  around) this?

I guess what the project will become is a product of the user who 
contribute.  Thats why we have the discussion at
        http://www.permaculture.info/index.php/PIW:Community_Portal

        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