PIW:Community Portal

From PIW

Jump to: navigation, search

This page is for general discussions regarding the whole project.

Please sign your posts using --~~~~ which will insert your username and time.

Contents

[edit] Discussions/Guiding Principles

Lets have a chat. --Salix alba 10:59, 1 May 2007 (EDT)

Some elements of a system are 'drivers' while others are 'passengers'. Location (and associated climate, hydrology, landscape position, geology) is the prime 'driver'. Trees 'drive' surrounding plant assemblages. --Paul Cereghino 01:14, 9 May 2007 (EDT)

Guilds dont exist in reality. Guilds are just ideas. So a 'design solution' is just a conceptual guild with the elements selected based on local 'drivers'. The number of three species guilds that combine elegant interrelationship is infinite and not necessarily worth documenting (execpt to demonstrate a transferable concept). What is worth documenting are conceptual guilds that a designer can take off the shelf and try to fill in the blanks with species that appropriate for 'driving' circumstances. --Paul Cereghino 01:14, 9 May 2007 (EDT)

I thought guilds did actually exist, i.e not manmade, inasmuch as they are plant/animal communities naturally adapted to occupy a common unique ecolgical niche to the benefit of all or through natural attraction to attribute(s) of each member exist as a mututally beneficial community or co-exist in a symbiotic community. --dirtfarmer 05:21, 23 October 2007 (EDT)

Natural vegetation structure (physiognomy) is driven by climate and is the starting point for guilds. Alternate physiognomy is driven by some other driver (i.e. meadow in the NW US is a function of 1) soil saturation, 2) shallow soils, 3)burning, 4)priority effects from abandoned pasture (grazing).) --Paul Cereghino 01:17, 9 May 2007 (EDT)

What are guilds anyway. --Paul Cereghino 02:50, 11 May 2007 (EDT)

[edit] Work plan

On the mailing list Paul Cereghino wrote:

  1. DEFINE PRIMARY OBJECTIVES - who is the user and what does it do for them, we need a finite set - Play through scenarios of how users will interact with the application to CATALOG THE FUNCTIONS we want to achieve through the application even if it is a Wiki -- what kind of conventions guide wiki development... do PFAF fields allow for the queries we are talking about? [I think that 1 and the old #3 were doing close enough to the same thing --Paul Cereghino 00:55, 9 May 2007 (EDT)]
  2. DEFINE KEY CONCEPTS within these objective statements .. for example, the word "guild" is still a pretty fuzzy pile of concepts - so we and others know what the hell we're talking about... this is the beginnings of a data dictionary for structured data...
  3. IDENTIFY SOFTWARE ALTERNATIVES -- how can we build our set of applications with different existing or created software... feasible?!
  4. EVALUATE AND SELECT ALTERNATIVE
  5. DEVELOP PROTOTYPE - incl test data acquisition, testing,

I think we should add another item in there: use cases (e.g., 'Jim is a market gardener. He wants to...'). --Paul d'Aoust 13:41, 11 May 2007 (EDT)

[edit] Primary Objectives

What are objectives? They are the concrete services that the on-line information tool provides to users.

Here is an attempt at synthesis -- I tried to integrate ideas below [--Paul Cereghino 00:57, 9 May 2007 (EDT)]

  1. A repository for permaculture infomation -- but what makes the information permaculture information, and what services does a repository provide? The repository contains information, but it provides it is such a way that it assists the function of the human brain to create effective designs.
    1. RECEIVES and organizes bits of user defined information so that they can be retrieved easily by others
      1. recognizes and stores the bioregional location of the observer
      2. organizes information into information types (techniques, patterns, guilds, elements, places, hypotheses)
      3. also accepts and organizes files (PDF/Images/text) that can be linked to ideas or discussed
      4. allows the creation of 'domains' where users can take ownership of their 'knowledge store'.
    2. DISTRIBUTES INFO - allows users to follow intuitive design algorythms that lets users build idealized systems while feeding inspiration in the form of related information provided by others on similar topics.
      1. assists with all/each phases of design: assessment, conceptual, detail, install, maintain
      2. assists with both creation of new systems and enhancement of existing systems
      3. allows users to 'accumulate' information as they develop a 'guild/pattern' (shopping cart model).
      4. by recognizing linkages between the system currently in the 'shopping cart' and other elements in the knowledge base, the tool provides the user with potential directions and ideas (the internally referencing 'pattern language' model)
      5. also allows for simple information retreival (i.e. plant attributes)
      6. catalogs 'elegant permaculture solutions' and allows for commentary by their stewards over time.
    3. DYNAMIC - alternately uses wiki, database, discussion board, technologies depending on functional need
      1. The tool has starting points that give the users approaches to info
      2. users of one tool type can easily create conduits to other tool types.
      3. some mechanism for avoiding duplication
      4. allows for public QC/QA

---

  • I can think of three types of users. (1) the person who simply wants to find out information on a specific plant -- its yields, cold tolerance, light tolerance, etc. (2) the person who wants to discover interactions between various plants, for purposes of designing guilds, polycultures, etc. (3) the person who wants to keep an online gardening journal, and make their findings available to the world. --Pdaoust 14:55, 7 May 2007 (EDT)
  • "I can think of three types of users." A fourth: -LL 5/08/2007

4) a) I think globally, of all who work theirs or other's land for the purpose of raising food crops, fiber, herb, ornamentals, grass, bean, grain, nursery stock, forestry products, maintenance of native plants and wild spaces and any other hands-on land-based endeavor. As done here: Image:Riceterraces&pond.jpg [for purposes of brevity can we call this 'stewardship' --Paul Cereghino 00:53, 9 May 2007 (EDT)] b) They need a broad array of permaculture information so that when they do an inventory of onsite resources they will be able to gain expanded knowledge of what they have plus managment and development information. This translates to encouraging and putting into practice conservation and stewardship of the land in one's care. c) Land stewards can use this permaculture resource to discover guilds they may already have components of on their land and complete new guilds they can install that fit in unique ways with their land ecology and planting and cropping schemes they work with. This could be a powerful design and long term planning tool for them. d) Permaculture can help as it is an umbrella discipline made up of many common, familiar parts. With PC you don't think of the parts individually, you ascend to a higher plane and use a synthesis of the whole body of knowledge to visualize creative solutions.

The rice terrace image is nice. Indeed we can have a page about this Rice Terrace. To me this seems like an example of a pattern. --Salix alba 04:06, 8 May 2007 (EDT)

[edit] Objects

I just added a bunch of object types, but don't know if the structure is useful --Paul Cereghino 00:47, 15 May 2007 (EDT)

I started a page typology to define which of these potential objects types could be used as categories within this wiki and some business rules for their use --Paul Cereghino 22:49, 30 May 2007 (EDT)
  • Guilds (heres a working definition of Guilds --Paul Cereghino 00:47, 15 May 2007 (EDT))
  • Permaculture patterns - how is a pattern defined? --Paul Cereghino 00:47, 15 May 2007 (EDT)
  • Elements (Active)
  • Elements (Contextual)
  • Location --Pdaoust 15:03, 7 May 2007 (EDT)
    • Project Site--Paul Cereghino 01:05, 9 May 2007 (EDT)
    • Biome
      • Biological Region
    • Typical/extreme winter cold temperature
    • Period of rainfall deficit
    • Total annual precipitation
    • Monthly mean high temperature in hotest month
  • Technique --Paul Cereghino 01:05, 9 May 2007 (EDT)
    • Tillage
    • Grazing/browse management
    • Harvest
    • Processing/Storage
    • Irrigation
    • Seeding
    • Planting
  • Cultural Systems
    • Zone 1 - mulch based systems
    • Zone 2 - clean cultivation
    • Zone 2 - living mulch
    • Zone 3 - system manipulation

[edit] Links Between Objects/Attributes of Objects

  • Inputs, outputs, and functions --Pdaoust 15:02, 7 May 2007 (EDT)
  • Tolerances and requirements (but that might just be another way of saying 'inputs) --Pdaoust 15:02, 7 May 2007 (EDT)
  • Specific relationships. It may not be enough to simply list the inputs, outputs, and functions of an element and hope that the database will be smart enough to connect those to other elements in a useful way -- we will probably need to define relationships in a more concrete way. This creation of a 'relationship' node will allow us to comment on the relationship. --Pdaoust 15:02, 7 May 2007 (EDT)

[edit] Software

[edit] To wiki or not to wiki, that is the question

Mediawiki is as good as it gets. I'm satisfied with this for getting started but also think we should make it a permanent fixture.

Good for development purposes -- in particular Wiki is too organic to run effective queries.. data attributes must be constrained. --Paul Cereghino 01:19, 9 May 2007 (EDT)

[edit] Using/Tweaking MediaWiki for Permaculture Articles

It will take a long time to discover all the bells and whistles this software offers. How do I get a time/date stamp appended to all my submissions as with Paul A.'s? - LL

Type --~~~~ at the end of your post. --Salix alba 04:43, 8 May 2007 (EDT)
It appears difficult to maintain a finite set of categories as pages are developed. For example if you are author wanting to link to or tag a article with the category "nitrogen fixer" you have to know that the category exists, otherwise you might create the category "N-fixer" or "Nitrogen fixing". Is there any way to standardize categorization... for example, in the edit screen, there could be a list of all available categories (and possibly categories of categories) with a toggle box, allowing an author to tag the page with all appropriate categories, as well as see the underlying structure of information in the wiki --Paul Cereghino 00:34, 15 May 2007 (EDT)
If you install the <charinsert> extension, you can make a section of the edit screen appear that has code that user can click on to automatically insert into the page they are working on. See the edit screen of any Wikipedia article for an example. The list that shows up can be modified using the MediaWiki:edittools page. You can then update that page with the categories you want people to use. ---WildeRix 12:11, 21 May 2007 (EDT)
Lets try to identify a set of categories of information that can be used to serve as a high level navigation tool for wiki content. --Paul Cereghino 23:53, 21 May 2007 (EDT)
I just noticed that you can upload PDF. This would allow creation of a document library. Is there some simple way to query for all documents... a category of pages that are the index cards in the card catalog that provides a synopsis of the reference. --Paul Cereghino 00:34, 15 May 2007 (EDT)
PDF upload now enabled (fingers crossed). --Salix alba (talk) 05:25, 22 May 2007 (EDT)
The <charinsert> extension is now enabled MediaWiki:Edittools contains text which allows character to be inserted so it now easy to insert some special characters say 15ÃÂÃÃÂÃÃÂ