pcplantdb

[Richard Morris <webmaster@pfaf.org>]

Stephanie Gerson wrote:

> hi yalls,
>
> Cleaned out my inbox today and have a few miscellaneous thoughts/
> questions:
>
> 1.  A new version of Creative Commons is available at http://
> creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/.  Do we want to use it?
In theory yes. A few technical Q's as the pfaf dataset is officially 
released under 1.0 license, not insurmontable.

> 2.  Considering that we are creating an online informational resource, we 
> should get in touch with online Permaculture classes.  I know Dan 
> Hemenway teaches one – do any of you know of others?  (Or should I post a 
> message about this on the Permaculture list at some point?)
Dan Hemingway is definatly worth contacting. A few years back he was 
thinking of getting some interns to input data into the DB. However we 
should hold back on this for a while. We need to get things into a state 
where its posible to enter data before widening the net too much.

That set we could use input from as many people as posible as to schema 
issues. Probably a post to various mailing lists. But again not quite 
yet. We need some system to collate these thoughs. It could be done by 
email. My preference is for a wiki which allows some user input, wiki as 
colaborative document.

> 3.  I think I asked this before, but…  We are currently using a modified 
> version of the PFAF dataset.  Do we intend to keep this database as a 
> part of PIW, and embellish it with relationship-oriented data? 

I'd say yes. It is a good body of work representing several man years of 
work. Much of it can be reworked to fit a relationship structure.

> Or, do we
> intend to completely replace this dataset with relationship-oriented 
> data?  Clearly, we’ll still have info on individual plants – but to what 
> extent will information be individual vs. relational?  

Yep wheres the data coming from? Hopefully Heidi will be able to 
contribute some.

> 4.  Finally, so far we’ve been engaging the Permaculture community, but 
> I’d like to broaden our efforts to include market farmers practicing/
> making the transition to sustainable agriculture – both for purposes of 
> grant eligibility (i.e. SARE) and for making PIW truly valuable in 
> promoting sustainable agriculture.  As a part of this effort, I spoke 
> with Steve Diver today and we had an interesting conversation.  He told 
> me that he doesn’t see PIW satisfying the needs of market farmers 
> practicing/attempting to transition to sustainable agriculture, at least 
> not those in this country – considering that they are crunched for time, 
> must make end meet, and have little leeway for experimenting with guilds.  
> However, many are aware of Natural Systems Agriculture being practiced at 
> the Land Institute.  So, I have some questions for us: 
>
> ‡ Is PIW (with its current vision) valuable to market farmers practicing 
> sustainable agriculture (similar questions to those I asked regarding the 
> Whole Systems Foundation)?  
>
> ‡ If not, how can we make it useful (this might simply require a shift in 
> terminology – from “guild” to “intercropping”)?  Or, is this
> something 
> that doesn’t worry us, as we are not (necessarily) catering to market 
> farmers?
>
> ‡ And if so, how do we include them in the design process?  Steve 
> suggested the possibility of user testing specifically for farmers, and I 
> think this is a great idea.  Perhaps we could create a testing prototype, 
> put a call out to market farmers, and solicit feedback specifically from 
> them.  Or Johns, would you rather keep testing general?  I do think it 
> would be helpful for PIW and grant apps to have testing specifically for 
> farmers.

I'd say Steve is probably right. The data we have got is good for some 
purposes, but not really well targeted towards the needs of commercial 
growers. I don't really know what their requirements are, but it is a 
good question to ask.

> Also, this might be a good topic to introduce to the PIW list.

Indeed.

Laters

Rich