pcplantdb

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

Stephanie Gerson wrote:

> howdy yalls,
>
> Attached is my second attempt at the website blurbs.  I tried to make it a bit
> more casual (sorry, years of 'thesaurusizing' in school have ruined my chances
> at relaxed yet concise and sophisticated writing). 
>
>
> I'd like to get this up on the website before I submit our next grant
> proposal, so please, feedback is welcome!

Homepage: Welcome to the Permaculture Information Web, a growing resource of Permaculture information created by and for the people who 
cultivate it.
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... created by and for the prople who _use_ it.
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Mission: The Permaculture Information Web offers information about the relationships between biota - including plants, animals, 
microorganisms, and other elements of living systems - in order to assist with the process of Permaculture design.

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.... in order to assist with the process of designing Permaculture systems.
OR
.... as an aid to the process of designing Permaculture systems
--------------

This last part is really world class - kudos to Stephanie.. LL

<><>
Vision: Permaculture is a form of sustainable agriculture that employs nature as its model, seeking to design landscapes which mimic natural 
ecosystems.  It is modular and applicable to any bioregion, and bears immense potential for satisfying basic human needs without 
compromising those of the Earth.  Because it is relationship-oriented and highly specific to local conditions, though, it can be difficult 
to practiceInstead of discretely selecting individual plants, for instance, relationships between biota must be woven together carefully, in 
consideration of a plant’s relationships to fellow organisms, to the overall ecosystem, and to the people whose needs it may satisfy. 
Although numerous databases offer information about individual plants, none offer information about the relationships between plants 
themselves or between plants and other biota,along with Permaculture-centric characteristics such as inputs, outputs, and multiple 
functions.  Knowledge of such relationships is critical to the practice of Permaculture design, our understanding of ecological processes, 
and ultimately, our capacity for systems thinking.  Accordingly, the Permaculture Information Web will provide an online database of 
relationships between biota, to facilitate the process of Permaculture design.

People practicing Permaculture worldwide are discovering relevant and useful information about plant relationships.  But, because 
Permaculture as a field is somewhat un-institutionalized, no central repository for collecting and presenting such information exists.  PIW 
seeks to help fill this void, providing an infrastructure from and to which the Permaculture community may glean and contribute 
information..  In this way, PIW will support [can we use a nice metaphor here?  Like the PIW will act as a waterway, channeling information 
from diverse sources and pooling it into…or whatever]  the emerging field of Permaculture, harvesting valuable information from the 
Permaculture community and rendering it freely accessible.

Parallel to the manner in which Permaculture mimics ecological principles in its design methodology, the PIW will mimic these principles in 
its own information architecture - both in terms of how the information is presented (user interface), and how it is stored (what would I 
call this, if not backend?).  The user interface will present information about webs of life in a web-like manner, encouraging users to 
think in terms of relationships versus individual components.  Similarly, (I’ll finish this sentence after I read more about Ecosystem 
Information Engineering).  Simply put, , the message will match the medium, and the medium will foster a more meaningful understanding of 
the message.

The Permaculture Information Web is created by and for the members of the Permaculture Community.  The PIW team is constructing and 
maintaining the mechanism for cross-pollinating information, but the information itself will be contributed by you - interested parties at 
the grassroots level.  Ideally, the PIW will mimic a natural system (or manifest ecological principles) in its own identity (or function 
within the Permaculture field), acting as a dynamic organism, co-evolving with the needs and preferences of the Permaculture community, and 
growing with the information imparted by its members.  The PIW team hopes you will both feed from and nourish this fertile resource…

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