pcplantdb

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

webmaster@pfaf.org wrote:

> > Properties
> >     Habit
> >     Height
> >     Width
> >
> > It looks like width here means caliper so shouldn't it say that
> > and specify inch or metric measuremen? Also, what about multistem plants like
> > some specimen river birch with two or more trunks branching at ground level
> > (hard to measure accurate caliper here).
>
> Height and width are in metres. I Don't understand about calipers, maybe 
> a US term? The width is generally the diameter of the whole plant not 
> the the trunk.

Caliper is the diameter of the trunk or main stem of a plant, tree, shrub, 
etc.
If they are multi-stem the nursery industry labels them as such plus 
approximate height
as container or field grown b&b stock, i.e. river birch, multi stem (2 or 3 
or 3, etc.) 2-3'
in 3 gallon container or b&b. Caliper label comes from measuring the diameter 
of the truck
near the ground with a vernier or digital caliper.

> Anyway, a great chance to experiment with a wiki-format. Find the page 
> where it would be helpful to list the units and click ''edit''.
>
>         Rich
>
> p.s. Sorry for intermitant access the DB is on my home PC which has 
> intermitant access.

Rich:

I mentioned before that I was going to submit a proposal to the group and 
since it primarily involves you I'll do it now.

webmaster@pfaf.org wrote:
>    http://82.138.219.137/mediawiki/index.php/Main_Page
> a semantically marked up wiki with the pfaf and a few other datasets in.

If you can mount a database dataset in a (Media)wiki then are you able to do the reverse after a period of time when 
that dataset has changed within the wiki, i.e. take all the data in a PFAF Mediawiki and mount it in the PFAF database.
If you kept the structure of the wiki rigid to conform to the field and 
record arrangement currently used by PFAF then
maybe it would not be an onerous task to convert back.

Proposal:

1) I could have new webspace created on ibiblio with group access. Could you install Mediawiki there for us to present 
to the public so we can start collecting guild data worldwide? Maybe it could be structured with certain pages locked so 
that the data structure would conform to that of Chad's PIW database; if not it would still be worth doing so we can get 
on with the mighty job of acquiring users and data.
With this we could have something to show permaculture people and Threshold. I think it is important to put something 
online soon while the PIW database moves toward completion.

2) An alternative would be for you to allow us to use the PFAF Mediawiki for 
the purposes described in 1)

What do you think?

LL