Permaculture Information Web

[Heide Hermary <heide.hermary AT gaiacollege.ca>]

Richard, I will e-mail you separately to get in touch so you can get 
access to our database.

Other comments within your text below:

Richard Morris wrote:

> A solution I've though of to the Guild question is to treat a guild
> as a seperate object or page in the database.
>
> You can then have a relationship between a plant and the guild. And 
> have some text in the Guild page describing the relationship in more 
> depth.
>
> One example of this is the "White Oak Guild" which I gleaned from Toby 
> Hemingways work.
> http://www.ibiblio.org/pfaf/pcplantdb/showthing.php?BOTNAME=White+Oak%2FHazelnut+community 
>
>
> Currently we are lacking on much data about guilds, this is the only 
> example I've been able to find.

Actually, the way I see it this is exactly what the diverse data entered 
into the database will CREATE upon a SEARCH.  Some of the information 
you refer to as "guild" is available as "ecosystem" information: such as 
the Garry Oak Ecosystem, the Cedar-Maple Ecosystem (where I live), 
etc.etc.  But this only refers to native habitat, not to food plants 
(except the wild ancestors of our food plants, but I doubt many of our 
cultivated varieties would survice in that habitat any more). Also, 
plants usually belong to many different ecosystems, as there is seldom 
an abrupt change in nature but a gradual interphase.

> > I've thought about this a lot and finally decided not to worry about 
> > categories, but to describe the relationships.  Too much is lost by 
> > trying to fit organisms and dynamic relationships into tight little 
> > boxes.  That's not how life works.  And that's why we don't have much 
> > easily accessible information on exactly these things.  Which is the 
> > reason for developing this database in the first place.  So let's not 
> > condemn it to superficiality right from the start.
>
>
> Agreed. This is a good case for keeping the DB loosly structured
> so we can allow for a lot of flexability.
>
> Categories do have their uses. Computers love them! It can make for 
> easier searching, i.e. you can search for a particular category.
> There is a problem with the same thing being described in two
> different ways, using two different labels.
>
> > Unfortunately I have absolutely no idea what the techies are talking 
> > about. PLEASE allow for plain text entry into these fields!! 
>
>
> What you can have is a list of exsisting relationships, say a drop 
> down list. But also allow for a new type of relationship to be added 
> in a text field.

I think you are looking too narrow.  You (we) are trying to portray  
very complex  relationships, AND we don't even know what they are.  So 
boxing them in at this point is trying to fit nature into our limited 
perception of how we thinks she works. That's the BIG problem with 
conventional databases, which limits their usefulness and makes them 
obsolete so quickly.

We want to invite all the concerned people out there to contribute their 
knowledge about these plants and ecosystems, and many years from now, 
when we do a search for a particular plant,  we will find a wealth of 
information that allows us to make ecologically sound decisions in our 
area, and for our application.

I think you need look totally beyond the idea of a normal database.  
Maybe the place to start from is the search. I don't know what the 
current state of the technology is, but I will e-mail you separately 
about that too.

Cheers, Heide