pcplantdb

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

Stephanie Gerson wrote:

> ‡ POST TO PC LISTS 
> I agree with Lawrence that we should post once we have something to show, 
> and I’m in no rush.  Thank you Lawrence, for creating the piw list.  I’ll

Do you want the archives public or private; subscriptions open without 
approval or anyone can subscribe
(without me being given notification and the opportunity to review their 
application and give my approval
for access to the list - I can remove spammers and malicious users this way - 
rather than after the fact)?

> resuscitate my initial draft of the post to Pc lists for feedback once 
> the following conditions are met: 
>
> -we have something initial to show (no pressure Chad, take your time)
> -I’ve written a mission statement (1-2 sentence) for the website
> -I’ve written a vision statement (approx. 1 page) for the website (thanks 
> Johns, for clarifying the difference between mission and vision)
>
>
> ‡ SHARED WEB WORKSPACE  
> Still somewhat confused about this, but I assume that this listserv and 
> the permaculture.info website constitute our “shared web workspace.”

It looks like pcplantdb and piw lists, permaculture.info's Plone CMS and the 
pcplantdb wiki in
the pcwiki. Group access to a (public) website where we all edit the html and 
upload documents could be had also (on ibiblio, where
everyone has ibiblio accounts and write access to the filespace) - this might 
be even easier for Stephanis than using wiki or a cms.

> ‡ WEBSITE 
> A few things:

> Following, now that Chad has begun coding, do we want to initiate a 
> discussion about informational architecture and user experience?  

Great idea.

> Basically, I have pretty elaborate ideas regarding the informational 
> architecture and user experience of hg, and I assume others do as well.  

Excallent.

> Should we flesh this out early on, while Chad starts coding (and decide 
> on what plant attributes we’re going to present, for example)?  Or, are 

Yes. I would really be interested in this. Now is the best time and not too 
far behind previous discussion
that was similar.

> we not ready for this level of specificity yet?  I guess I’m eager to 
> initiate this discussion (the most exciting part of this project, for me) 

Wonderful.

> and think we ought to start fleshing it out now (assuming there will be 
> disagreements!) before Chad gets to a point where either: 
> -he wants to write code for elements that we haven’t agreed upon yet, so 
> he writes it anyway and then has to go back later and change it

Good idea to resolve some of these technical issues now.

> or

> -he wants to write code for elements that we haven’t agreed upon them 
> yet, so he can’t write it and is stuck at an impasse
>
> What do yalls think?

Do go ahead.

> ‡ MISCELLANEOUS 
> -Johns wrote, “If people seem likely candidates for serious help with the 
> design and tech aspects of the project, let them on this list and have 
> some kind of probationary period. If they are too high-maintenance and/or
> low-contribution within some reasonable amount of time, they don't get to
> stay.” 

Too heavy-handed, a control-freakish bureaucratic mess that we do not need.
I thought it was already decided not to limit subscriptions.
I have it set up for anyone interested to apply and send me email which I 
will post here
for group approval of their access to the forum. Otherwise anyone can send me 
email
with email ID's anyone they want in this list and I will subscribe them. Much 
better
to know before subscribing them - letting them on for a "probationary" period 
then
possibly unsubbing them is not good for PR.

 Sounds fine to me.  Do we want to define this better, or assume
> that we will handle it collectively on a case-by-case basis?

Case-by-case. Find those you want in the forum then subscribe them.

> -I’m going to initiate a thread dedicated to “ecosystem information 
> engineering,” the branch of Industrial Ecology I was referring to.  Just 
> to give you an appetizer: “The means by which living ecosystems have 
> created robust knowledge systems and information cycles should be 
> understood in terms useful for managing current society’s information 
> explosion. As industrial society evolves toward the information society, 
> holistic models are needed that account for the available energy and 
> material resources required to operate effective information ecosystems, 
> such as service industries.”  (To read the entire article this was 
> excerpted from, go to http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/
> default.asp?sid=E6D28F5F-B575-47F2-8A1A- 681FC9F9E74C&ttype=6&tid=11735.)

Look at Howard Odom's EMERGY concept. Energy audits. See: 
http://dieoff.org/page170.htm

> The above example implicitly creates three user classes already - 
> authorized, registered and anonymous - so that's part of a spec as well 
> - user type definitions and privileges.

I thought input from anonymous users would not be allowed or were they to be 
allowed
within a peer-review system wherein spam would be rejected?

> Chad added:
> "My personal desire is to also provide an intelligent search that
> queries all of aspects of the database from a single text box."
>
> and
>
> "This is pretty much exactly what I had in mind to start doing with one
> one addition and the questions where noted.  The addition being adding
> relationship elements and allowing authorized users to create and edit
> relationships.  The relationships would possibly be displayed in some
> text/html way in a browser but would much more likely be used by our
> GBI package (TouchGraph/FreeMind/whatever)."

--
L.F.London
lfl@intrex.net
http://market-farming.com
http://www.ibiblio.org/ecolandtech