Are any Australian Free Seedring chapters or regional Ethnobotany groups still using the ethnobotanica.org website or mailing lists

[Torsten]

Are any Australian Free Seedring chapters or regional Ethnobotany groups still using the ethnobotanica.org website or mailing lists.

I want to do a major overhaul of the site to give it new life, but not sure if I can delete all the remnants or if they are still in use.

if you know of any activity [eg if you get mailing list emails from any address ending in ethnobotanica.org] please let me know here or by PM asap - even if you're not 100% sure.

I am particularly curious if the sydney seed ring still uses the address given on the site.

[vual]

Semi off Topic but i been meaning to bring it up, Question regarding the seed rings, .... It has been taken around 3 months for me to get my package's back, and recently I have been getting "Return to Sender" back from the NSW chapter, Now i know it s hard work volunteering but there still needs to be a level of organisation and professionalism. I volunteer myself to organize the QLD chapter, i will Fund the P.O. BOX myself, just a option, PM me if you need me to step up. Are any Chapters of the SEED RING active?? .. Any? Are you still active Neo?? Should this reply should go into the "Free SEED ring" thread... ? If so sorry.

Kinda sucks because i think AU POST stole my cash.....

Next "Australian Ethnobotanical Conservation Association Inc" Meeting in 2004 dam i missed it

Should really stick wordpress or similiar CMS up on ethnobotanica.org the site isnt the most professional ^_*

Please let me know what chapters are still operating so i can direct my donations there,

-vual

Edited June 8, 2010 by vual

[gerbil]

Are any Australian Free Seedring chapters or regional Ethnobotany groups still using the ethnobotanica.org website or mailing lists.

I want to do a major overhaul of the site to give it new life, but not sure if I can delete all the remnants or if they are still in use.

if you know of any activity [eg if you get mailing list emails from any address ending in ethnobotanica.org] please let me know here or by PM asap - even if you're not 100% sure.

I am particularly curious if the sydney seed ring still uses the address given on the site.

 

All good for me mate re: melb seedring and email; I vaguely recall getting the email shut down a little while back 'cause i forgot to tell you and then it got spammed and jammed your server sorry hehe

That Sydney page is from Rkundalini i think; I haven't been able to contact him for quite some time, having tried a few times.

AFAIK whatever's left of seedring happenings these days, it should all be at seedring.org, but haven't seen much activity over there. However Rkundalini disappeared around collapse of EBA, so didn't know about the seedring transfer afaik and therefore all his stuff is on the ethnobotanica server, I'd find it hard to believe he'd be still running from that site, but could be wrong

[gerbil]

just caught your post vual;

http://seedring.org/seedrings.php

afaik it's just the central coast chapter running, which is neoshaman on here as you posted.

The NNSW isn't operational through the site AFAIK (and never really has been), if at all, I haven't spoken with the operator for a while, last i remember it was still sort of running, but being hand distributed etc. instead of a mail order, i could be wrong.

edit: oops say the picture, contact neoshaman re: addy issues, it may have expired or he moved.

Edited June 8, 2010 by gerbil

[vual]

Thanks for the swift reply mate, I will follow up the NSW chapter to find out if its active.

Being in QLD can i direct my donations and orders to your ring ? There is no QLD ring

Sorry to hijack the thread.

Thanks again,

Vual

[gerbil]

Nah can't send them my way, i don't run it anymore, closed the melbourne chapter and sent the stock to neo at the central coast.

AFAIK the only options really are the central coast seedring (it should still be active i think neo just got very busy); else start up a QLD chapter, it's a lot of work though and you'd have to familiarise yourself with the QLD legislation etc. as well as have a customer base that makes it viable, otherwise just distribute your seeds through the forums

Cheers, (sorry for the off topic T)

[obtuse]

from what i remember Neoshaman has been quite busy these last few months.

pm him to see whats going.

the NNSW seed ring is def not active. and last time i updated the site i didnt get a clear answer as to whether or not it was still going, but it definitely isnt now becasue he has moved, and while there was meant to be someone taking it over, it didnt happen.

there is a listing there for melbourne, which is not right because its negative.

and i have been too busy these last few months to keep an eye on things.

i know its very unprofessional and i apologise for that. remember tho im only the site administrator, you need to chase up details with the specific chapter.

give me two weeks and i can get onto it, and update the site, and chase people up and see whats going on.

If you want to volunteer, sounds great. pm me and we can organise details, and site specifics.

cheers, Obtuse.

[obtuse]

oh yeah, and what gerbil said.

oh, and sorry T, getting very off topic.

cheers, ob.

[occidentalis]

I think I made this clear at the time, but just to ensure - Perth is no longer active.

I think the seedring is a great idea but I don't know if having regional chapters is very useful as in my case there simply wasn't enough interest to make it a worthwhile project.

[Torsten]

Vual, when the ethnobotanica site was made there was no such thing as a CMS. In fact php was still a rarity.

The association pretty much died before it got off the ground. Only darklight and myself did any work for it, with rev doing a little bit for the conference. It was an experiment to see how cohesive this community can be as I had a lot riding on it. ie, I had intended to turn wandjina gardens into a trust and bequeathe it [along with my library, the forums and any associated information resources] to the association for future management and community benefit. Seeing that this community [like most others] largely fits into two broad categories [the selfserving individuals and the transient ones] it became obvious that such a move would not be beneficial for the gardens or the community. I may reconsider in the future if I find the community has matured enough to take on such a responsibility [which is what is happening in the EGA crew for example].

For all these reasons the site has not been upgraded. It had no direction from 2004. There is another community project that failed along the way which is the ethnowiki. Again this failed for the same reasons I suspect. However, I have always wanted to have an australian site that is a central source of edited plant species information. The SAB shop started that way, but eventually it became clear that there would be a legal conflict some years down the track. eg a site selling herbs can't make any claims about that herb and this includes posting of scientific articles. So for the last few years [even before the ethnowiki started] I had intended to create a separate information site that is not owned by SAB and hence isn't restricted in the information it can provide. Wikipedia has largely filled that role in the absence of an australian site, but I am very unhappy with the quality and substance of wikipedia ethnobotanical content. With the ethnowiki being in limbo I have decided to finally move ahead with this. So, over the next few months or years I will build a species content site on the ethnobotanica domain which can then be utilised by any businesses or non-commercial interests as an information source. But first I need to clean up the site and archive the interesting bits, which is where I wanted to make sure not to delete anything of significance.