pcplantdb

[John Schinnerer <john@eco-living.net>]

Aloha,

OK, here's some issues with PIW (current dev.permaculture.info) relevant 
to this apparently very useful and neglected plant.

If I search on 'groundnut' I get no apios on the first three pages of 
results.

If I search on 'ground nut' I get apios americana as item number five. 
Items one through four are not apios and in fact don't seem to have any 
relevance to my search string.
Nor do the other results on the first page of results for 'ground nut'.

In fact none of the results from searching on 'groundnut' seem to have 
any obvious relevance to that string either.

There are 2700+ matches.  This is silly.  What the heck is being 'found' 
to justify that, when 'ground nut' is not in the visible text of any of 
the results on the first three pages?

And that's only the first time I tried 'ground nut'.
Tried it three more times and no apios anywhere on the first two pages 
of results.  A comment on apios americana shows up on the third page.

And the only reason I know that item five the first try - and the 
comment on the third page in searches since then - is relevant is 
because of what I've just learned from posts on the PC list about 
groundnut a.k.a. ground nut a.k.a. apios americana.
Otherwise that comment - which doesn't show any common names, only latin 
- would look like just another irrelevant result.

I would surmise that PIW has nothing to offer me about this amazing 
plant I've just heard about called 'groundnut' or 'ground nut'.

Also - the text of the comment mentioned above appears to be truncated, 
as follows:

"Prefers a light rich soil and a sunny position. When grown in a warm 
dry situation in a well-drained sandy soil, the plants will be long 
lived with the tuberous roots increasing in size and num"

When I click on the link to go to details of the plant, there is no info 
beyond what is already listed on the results pages.

I assume this is because that's all that was in the PFAF dataset, correct?
So all the info just spewed out about ground nut on the PC list needs to 
be added by users, correct?
Not an issue - just making sure I understand where the current dataset 
is at.

And while I'm at it - there is no way to tell what page of multi-page 
results I'm on.
And the nav links for multi-page results needs to be at top of results 
as well as bottom.

I will see about putting some of these into the tracker RSN.
For now I would like to strongly question the idea that PIW is ready for 
a larger audience...mainly because I think people will find experiences 
like mine above frustrating and decide PIW is not much use compared to 
other existing tools.

Scenario:
Wow, here's a cool new plant somebody just talked about on the PC list.
I'm gonna go get some more info at PIW!
Hmmm...2700+ results and I don't see 'ground nut' anyhwere in the first 
three pages...hmm, what page am I on anyhow?  OK, never mind, how about 
'groundnut'?  Hmmm, nothing there either.  None of these results even 
have 'ground nut' or 'groundnut' in the text.  This thing must be 
broken.  Guess I'll go look somewhere else.
Let me try google...'groundnut'...wow, here we go, a whole first page of 
obviously relvant results.  How about 'ground nut'...cool, another whole 
first page of obviously relevant results...did I mean to search for 
'groundnut'?...yeah, already did that...pretty smart of google to ask 
though...

'nuff said.


cheers,
John S.


Jill wrote:
> I had apios volunteering at my place in NC. It's a great plant! A 
> diminutive vine, it climbs up neighbors without causing them any 
> difficulty. The flowers are GORGEOUS!! And the beans are quite tasty, 
> maybe most like lentils. I never got around to digging the tubers, but I 
> think I read that you can prepare them like potatoes. There's some good 
> info here: http://www.pfaf.org/leaflets/groundnt.php and I've posted a 
> not very good picture of it on the frappr site at 
> http://www.frappr.com/permaculture/photos/0.
>
> Jill
>
> _______________________________________________
> permaculture mailing list
> permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/permaculture

--

John Schinnerer - MA, Whole Systems Design
------------------------------------------
- Eco-Living -
Whole Systems Design Services
People - Place - Learning - Integration
john@eco-living.net
http://eco-living.net