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  • From: Stephanie Gerson <sgerson@stanfordalumni.org>
  • To: Permaculture Plant Database <pcplantdb@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [pcplantdb] [synthesis][30][12.11.04]
  • Date: Sat, 11 Dec 2004 16:03:38 -0800

hello folks,

Happy 30th.

So we’ve been having quite a dialogue lately! Alrighty, here we go:

1. WSF/Grant-Seeking
I assume we’re all on the same page about what WSF wants to see from PIW
– that it will be useful to and used by commercial farmers in
implementing sustainable agricultural practices. If anyone has any
suggestions for what to include in a proposal, please respond (thank you
for your suggestions thus far, Lawrence).

This is a question we need to answer not only for purposes of WSF, or
WSARE, or grant-seeking for that matter. This is a critical question
about the usability and usefulness of PIW, and perhaps a discussion that
we should also post on our website. Would Love feedback.

2. Listserv on the Website
Related, Chad asked about having more content on the website. There’s a
few topics that have come up on this list that have been very interesting
and potentially valuable for our ‘audience.’ Perhaps we could post
snippets of such discussions on the website and solicit feedback, through
the listserv? For people who don’t want to read through all the listserv
postings, but would like a general idea of what we discuss?

I also thought we could have forums on the website, so users could
discuss these issues – and usability issues as hg materializes. Forums
might be redundant, seeing as we already have 2 listservs (pcplantdb and
piw), but it might be useful to have the forums actually *on* the
website? What do you all think?

Not wanting to add more to Chad’s plate. Just acknowledging that we are
discussing some important topics – directly related to PIW, and regarding
sustainable agriculture in general – and would like our ‘audience’ to be

able to participate. How to accomplish this?

3. Public Announcement
Ok. It might be that time. To announce ourselves to Permaculture
listservs. And to prevent from adding more to Chad’s plate by soliciting
help, I’d like to be as specific with the help I solicit as possible.
What is it that we would like to ask people for, if anything at this
point? Characteristics that they would like to be able to search/sort
by? Can we give them a running list (the ‘Vocabulary’ Chad sent out) and

ask them to add on as they see fit?

I now right now is hectic because of the beast they call “the holidays.”

So, I’d send out this announcement early in 2005. But just want to be
clear on our intentions: introduce the project and ask for
characteristics? Any more, any less?

4. 3-D Representation
Rich wrote, “Personally I've never been too impressed with using 3D
representation, you tend to get a pretty cloud of dots. 3D searches can
be done in a 2D way (eg excel pivot tables) this might be a good way to
go.”
Rich, can you please show us examples of what you’re referring to?

Chad wrote, “It would be easy to do this sort of sort but I don't think
displaying that information in a meaninful way is difficult. Displaying
the results in a table format is also easy. The difficulty of displaying
the information 3-dimensionally depends on how it's done. I don't
currently know of any simple ways to do it. It is also dependent on
what you mean by 3d? Somethings may be very easy to do...”
Remember, I'm coming from beginner’s mind. Can you please explain the
different possible meanings of 3-D?

Bear wrote, “That would require some Python Imaging Library handwork
right? Assuming you produced a still GIF image from it. Or at a later
date get someone to build a Flash based viewer using Actionscript to
provide interactive viewing (or TouchGraph, etc). It seems that you could
also just score your results from the search to create a cumulative rank.
Those with high marks on all three go first on down, and just display it
as a list (with the rank split into the different columns, this system
would theoretically work with any number of variables, and doesn't
require a special UI.”
Unless this is too much work, can you please show us what that might look
like?

Also, my father is in the software industry, and creates demo apps using
a new (and recently open source!) software called Laszlo Systems (http://
www.laszlosystems.com/). I’ve discussed this project with him, and he
though Laszlo might be useful to us – whether or not we use it, I’d be
curious to know what you think.

5. Non-technical Summary of Information Architecture for website
Chad wrote,”Ok, but I don't think that it's clearly understood how the
data will be organzed in the database. My current line of thinking is
that it will be best to take the existing dataset and make [scripted]
changes to the schema incrementally. The discussion we've had on schema
so far gives me a lot of good material for creating desirable changes.
Still somewhat unknown is how to implement the concept of 'relationships'
in an RDBMS cleanly and elegantly. That said I think I can create some
documentation on the existing database and plans for the future.”
Actually, this in itself is already great material to post on the
website. No need to post only when we have it all figured out (which
likely won’t happen anyway, hopefully the structure will remain somewhat
dynamic?) – I think it would be very valuable to post our structure in
gress. (Not progress, or degress. Just gress.)

So, Chad – would you be willing to write up our current status with how
we're organizing the information, and I can edit it for you? And if you
feel to busy at the moment, that’s fine. Put it where you can in your
timeline. But please let me know.

6. Crop-rotation function in PIW
Chad wrote, “I can embrace the concept of relationships because making
connections between information is an important concept, even if I don't
currently have a real clear idea of implement it. If oberservation has
determined following one annual with another is a beneficial
relationship this could be recorded as such and the interconnection
between the two plants could/should be displayed on both plants. On
interesting thought I had was having search method that selected
plants/elements that had the most interconnections with itself. To
the extent and accuracy of the relationship data this could build a
[simplistic] guild focused around a single plant. Regardless of the
specific usefulness, the number of relationship interconnections
between elements should be one of the valuable products of the PIW
dataset as it develops.”
Fantastic.

Bear wrote, “Elaine Ingram of SoilFoodWeb would have a great deal of
knowledge in these (microbiological) issues.”
Who is Elaine and how could she help us?

Related, Scott wrote, “Speaking of crop rotation, this is pretty much a
phenomena of annual cropping, are we identifying guilds of the annuals as
well as the perennials? This increases the task geometrically! Never the
less it occurs to me that our guild just got extended to the micro
organisms. What are the root associates that keep a plant free of
nematodes, fungi, and other disease? Going from the mega to the micro and
searching the micro for those guild characteristics is a very exciting,
if daunting task. Gil Carandang has some wonderful techniques for
collecting and multiplying the beneficial micro organisms that are
indigenous to the site where they are collected.”
This is what the zoom we’ve been discussing could help with. Imagine if
zooming into an interconnection, you could link to Google Scholar and
read someone’s dissertation about the relationship between this
microorganism and that fungi… Plus Scott, isn’t this what we mean in our

mission statement when we say relationships between “biota” (versus only
plants)? Obviously we’re not going to get to this level of details (or
zoom) anytime soon, but I guess that’s the intention…

6. Characteristics, aka Vocabulary
Is vocabulary going to be organized into different categories (versus
only listed alphabetically)? To let users know what they can search/sort
by? This might have been obvious to you.

7. Phase 1 Goals
Thanks for responding, Johns. What do we want to do with this? Do we
want (me) to make an official Phase 1 Goals doc, and include a timeline?
Please respond.

Phew. That’s it for now.

Well, one more thing. I wanted to let you all know that I'll be away
from December 24-January 7 and without internet access. My first
priority before I go away is to complete the Lindbergh letter. Things
are extremely busy for me right now (as I’m sure they are for all of us),
so I apologize if I don’t accomplish anything major other than the
Lindbergh letter before I take off. However. As I mentioned in a
previous post, I look forward to dedicating more time to hg in January –
researching EIE, announcing ourselves to the list, helping with the
website, and....of course....writing more grant proposals!

And thank you to everyone for the great discussion we’ve been having.
Especially Bear – you are welcome to lurk ‘round here anytime.

peace
*Stephanie

p.s. And yes Chad, you may link to my email address from the website.


+++++++++++++++
Stephanie Gerson
sgerson@stanfordalumni.org
(c) 415.871.5683


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