pcplantdb

[Chad Knepp <pyg@galatea.org>]

How come this is dated 3/23 and shows up on 3/25?

Richard Morris writes:
 > >  > Q2 Version control
 > >  > 
 > >  > I feel DB would need sort of version control system.
 > >  > At the very least to stop some script kiddy just deleting
 > >  > all the data. We get quite a few 'You Suck' messages added
 > >  > to our readers comments so chance of corruption is high.
 > > 
 > > /. <http://slashdot.org/> is a great example of how to handle
 > > registered users and anonymous ones, self moderate, and allow the good
 > > information to filter to the top.  The "You Suck" posts could easily
 > > be moderated into deletion.  Moderation only happens by registered
 > > users.
 > 
 > There is a big difference between slashdot and what we are
 > trying to do. slashdot is a readers forum where comments
 > are added. It's essentially an 'add-only' style where
 > information can only be added. If we are looking at a more
 > wikii style general edit system, moderation becomes rather
 > tricky. I suppose we could allow unregistered users to
 > add data and trusted users to edit/delete. I still feel
 > if edit/delete is allowed then we need to keep a
 > history of changes.
 >
 > In my wild dreams about the
 > project it would be very cool to have some sort of moderation
 > system, (voting for favorite plants etc),
 > but this would involve the same sort of structure
 > as for atomic attribution.

Not sure I agree here... esp. in that what we are trying to do is very
much different from slashdot.  The slash moderation system allows
comments to be filtered by a moderated score.  I can envision where
information about any given plant [or subject] is moderated by an
accuracy score.  In PCPB, this would allow the information that is
*approved bu the populace* to rise to the top and the cruft to be
deleted.
 
 ><snip>
 > > Well starting sometime in early Feb. I initiated an email dialog
 > > urging a change in the license.  Your responses came about every 2
 > > weeks falling off to not replying at all to my last message prior to
 > > releasing PCPDB.  I got wound up because I felt like you were ignoring
 > > me. 
 > 
 > Sorry about lack of replying. Problem is I've got
 > a lot of balls to juggle at the moment, and I have a lot
 > of problem keeping on top of my email (managed to get inbox
 > down to 350 1/Jan now risen to 484). I've also been immersed
 > in my own maths computer project which has sucked a lot of time 
 > recently. Email response time is inversely proportional
 > to amount of thinking I need to do and PCPDB take a lot of thinking.

I can grok that, and I'm over my initial grumpy shit... lets be
friends ok ;-)

 ><big snip>
 > > Also, when you say we, who are you talking about?  Is there really
 > > much interest in this project.  I've been watching the weblog pretty
 > > closely and have been completely underwhelmed by the response.  Not
 > > sure how many unique users but only about 100 page requests since I
 > > posted the release announcement.  I'm seriously questioning if there
 > > is a need for this kind of project.  It's been fun so far and I've
 > > learned a lot, but currently, playing with high availability clusters
 > > seems like more of a growth edge for me.  Essentially I need to hear
 > > that people want this.
 > 
 > As for interest in project, I can give a few examples from pfaf
 > web site stats.
 >      UK database get 15,000 page impressions per week.
 >      US mirror gets a similar amount.
 > 
 >      In the last year we have had about 150 people add
 > comments to webpages/database. About a third of those contain
 > some sort of relevant plant based info.
 > 
 > And thats with the rather rusty current design which does not allow 
 > people to add new plants.
 > 
 > OK so 50 relevant additions may not feel like much
 > but it does help justify the time I spent adding that
 > feature. I had the same feeling as you when we only got
 > one comment a week when the comment section was added.
 > But time passes and if now feels like a respectable
 > body of information has been added.
 > 
 > I do get quite a few emails from people who have been
 > compiling their own datasets. With the right interface
 > both programatically and legally some of those might
 > be willing to merge their data into the project.
 > If we got just one of those a year then that would be
 > a great benefit to spread of plant knowledge.
 > 
 > I know mikel was enthusiastic about a year ago and seemed
 > to have plans to contributing more info.
 > 
 > Really I see see pcpdb as a way of future proofing the pfaf
 > dataset. I'm really looking to ten years in the future
 > where input from pfaf will be minimised, I'd like to keep
 > the dataset alive for prosperity.
 > 
 > So far the db has not been widely publicised and still
 > very much in beta, so hits are limited. Heck 100 hits
 > is aprox 20 people who have sufficient interest in the
 > project to check out an early version.
 > 
 > There is such a vast array of different people who might
 > be interested, we have only started skimming the surface.

Yeah, I still teter.  It seems like not many would be really benefit
or contribute yet to what I have in mind.  Maybe if someone needed a
highly available load balancing cluster of PCDB servers... ;-)

 ><snip>

Chad Knepp
>From webmaster@pfaf.org  Wed Mar 26 17:13:32 2003
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Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2003 22:13:02 +0000
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Subject: [pcplantdb] Re: attribution
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> From: "Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lfl@intrex.net>
> 
> In a few words, many in the PC list and others outside definitely want it.
> We have come this far with the PCPDB so why not finish it. Since PFAF seems 
> to be heading toward
> a commercial DB there will be a need for a free, open source one for the 
> rest of us and for those
> who wish to contribute substantially over the years. 

Just to prevent any misunderstanding. We do have an intention
of providing a commercial version (someday somehow!).
But we have no plans to remove the free online version.

 > Also, to have on that could expand to include
> guild and perhaps other information would be a very great thing. I think 
> that once you have the
> software in a more or less finished form and online, perhaps at ibiblio, 
> and it is announced in the PC list
> and sanet-mg, there will be many who will enthusiastically use it and 
> contribute to it. As for me,
> it is something I have looked forward to for years. I plan to contribute to 
> the DB regularly over the years,
> and have much material online and in my library to draw from.

Guilds is something which needs more discussion,
we are along way of getting a spec to handle guilds.

I've though of generalising the concept to one of relations,
two plants (or other things) can have a relationship.
There might be a table like

Plant1  Plant2  Relationship
------  ------  ------------
Carrot  Tomato  Companion Plant

I really don't know enough about guilds to consider a spec.
Is it just a list of plants which go well together or is
there some other data needed to describe the guild?

>> wikii style general edit system, moderation becomes rather
>> tricky. I suppose we could allow unregistered users to
>> add data and trusted users to edit/delete. I still feel
>> if edit/delete is allowed then we need to keep a
>> history of changes.
> 
> PHPWiki allows anonymous input, i.e. overwrite existing pages, but keeps
> a long and complete history of pages (wikipages). Any unwanted changes can 
> be easily and instantly overwritten
> using backup of old/desired page, from the history, or cut and paste from 
> that saved wikipage. Very reliable
> and essentially secure.

Thats the kind of thing I had in mind. Quite easy to
implement. Basically for each table you add a new field
say "ContributionIndex" or "EditDate" which form part of the
primary key. Searches just pick up the latest date.
An alternative would be the keep the current tables intact
reflecting the most recent edits and create backup tables
with the additional field in them with the history of
changes in them. I think PHPwiki does something a bit
cleaverer (saving diffs) but this sort of system would
be fine for version 1.

Chad wrote:
 > I can grok that, and I'm over my initial grumpy shit... lets be
friends ok

Yes indeed, sorry all the conflictual stuff has had to come first.

> Yeah, I still teter.  It seems like not many would be really benefit
> or contribute yet to what I have in mind.  Maybe if someone needed a
> highly available load balancing cluster of PCDB servers...

So whats all this about load ballancing? Does it have a pc
application ;-)

        Rich