Online Ethnobotanical Education Centre

[apothecary]

Hi,

I've been toying with this concept for a fair while now, and recently contacted brian to discuss it with someone else.

What I think would be very cool is if there was an online collaboration attempt to collect as much up to date and relevant data possible, centralised and peer editable/reviewable.

Basically, this means I'd like to set up a wiki for people to get the most accurate information on various ethnobotanicals.

Why not just use erowid you say? Well erowid is good, but it encompasses a lot more than just ethnobotanicals, and a lot of the vaults are simply dumps of information from alt.drugs and the like, which leads to a lot of old information that could be elaborated on, or updated.

What about SAB itself? Sure, when the information is there, Torsten has done a job he should be proud of. However, only the first third of Ethnobotanicals has been documented and none of the cacti & succulents, etc.

I'm willing to host this myself if need be, out of my own pocket.

At the moment because it's just a concept, this call to arms isn't all that serious. What I'm looking for are people on this forum who have done their research on ethnobotany. You know who you are. If you don't want to participate, that's cool. The wiki will be built from the ground up with only a few people working on it at first, but once it's up it will be viewable and editable by the entire community.

Yeah...so if you feel like you know a lot about a certain plant, or cactus, or some chemical process, or the brain, or any number of related topics, you should let me know (preferably in this thread) so we can start co-ordinating efforts to compile things like bio-assays, taxonomical data, pictures, etc. That way everyone has a set task to get things going, and none of the work is done twice.

This is our chance to do something big, to have a reference for newbies to look at before asking questions (nothing wrong with that though), and make a decent attempt at stopping the misinformation being spread by various parties with their own agendas.

[ 20. February 2005, 18:51: Message edited by: apothecary ]

[Torsten]

I think this is an excellent idea.

Just a note though, that I have done a lot more than just the first third species. Problem is I haven't moved them from the old webstore to the new one yet. The info is actually still available in the old webstore for those who know how to find it . It is being updated and rewritten for the new webstore.

I think the main reason why a knowledge database that is not connected to a commercial operation is important is because us traders are legally quite limited in what we can and should publish. That's why these forums are so important as they are not covered by the same restrictions.

And while I have the highest admiration and respect for the erowid project, it does not cover australia very well even though we are disproportionally represented in the international ethnobotany online community. Making the australian database a pure plant database would also circumvent a lot of the legal and perception issues.

As noted elsewhere I am just about to move the ethnobotanica domain to a new server. To get access to the required mailing lists features I have to purchase a rather expensive package and I cringe at the thought of all that webspace (1000Mb minimum) and bandwidth being paid for unused. The server will likely come with a wiki or other portal preinstall. I am simply unable to dedicate any more time to this, but if you or a group of people are interested in taking on the full running of this project, I would assume the association would be more than happy to host it.

[apothecary]

Torsten, you share the same gripe with erowid as me and my gnome.

When my gnome was young and knew a little less than he does now, he was often frustrated by erowid, especially the "Cultivation" sections.

Plant cannabis seeds in April? Poppies in January? This doesn't sound right! (my gnome would say).

Also, a point I thought of right after I posted the thread...cannabis is considered by many (including me) an ethneogen, but I don't feel there is a need to document it further, sites like overgrow and cannabisworld have done an amazingly good job already. If we can reach that amount of information for many other plants, I think we will have done a very good thing.

Finally, like I said, I'd be glad to undertake this project outside of my work hours. Even if the domain package doesn't come with a wiki preinstalled Torsten, I can manage... I have a fair amount of experience with them, and am on friendly terms with many in the mediawiki development team.

[mescalito]

Personally I feel that a 'community' like this forum and others that are alive and growing seem more conducive for research and development of ideas and reports.I wouldn't like to think that people should be able to shorcut the process of learning parameters for the sake of missing the learning curve just by looking it up,mixing it up and making it up.

The database system is just too mechanical for me and I wouldn't contribute though I'm sure I have certain attributes,experiences and connections to plant spirits...it's more to do with the 'alive-ness' for me.

But that's just me hey *shrug*

Not dis'ing your idea just adding my 2c because I can and that's the part I like .

[apothecary]

Maca, that's cool, but if you feel like a wiki is too mechanical, maybe you should look at some of the huge wiki projects on the internet.

The best example is http://www.wikipedia.org, a massive online encyclopedia, covering anything and everything. There is a huge community built behind that site, pulling in knowledge from almost every single category possible.

I don't feel that a project like this will allow people to bypass the traditional set of etiquette and research, or allow people to mess up the information and make things up.

If anything, it'll finally allow us a comprehensive place to point the newbies at before posting questions that have been answered many times over.

[teonanacatl]

is it a website where people can post how they grow their plants of where research documents can be posted and stored. everyone grows their plants differently, im in the tropics so i grow different to people down south. i like the idea but i think it does need to be selected material only, eg someone posts a document and then peers review it and then they make required changes and its done. i love forums, great places to get info, only problem is its quite time consuming to search out info in them as the topics can be pages and pages long with many posts not saying anything. a summary of great topics would be good. i also think this is a chance if done right for australian ethnobotanists to show their skills and share information, books could be made. i can think of many many people here that are very knowledgable in many areas surrounding ethnobotany.

[apothecary]

teo, yeah it can work that way too.

The great thing about wiki's is how flexible they are.

I'm sure you're right and growing conditions are quite different in the tropics to here in Sydney, but don't you think the best place to have different methods of growing is under a collaborative effort, rather than scattered randomly through forums in tidbits, etc?

Anyway, yeah, I won't be able to post for the rest of the day, but if anyone wants to put their hand up, I'll try and do some more tangible organising tonight.

[teonanacatl]

quote:

---

I'm sure you're right and growing conditions are quite different in the tropics to here in Sydney, but don't you think the best place to have different methods of growing is under a collaborative effort, rather than scattered randomly through forums in tidbits, etc?

---

yeah i think it would be good but if everyone posts their growing teks it would be confusing for a beginner. im happy to write up about the plants i grow here and propergation of them.

[Dirty Old Man]

I am far from experienced, but would love to contribute.

The main things I could help with are:

photography - my partner and I have a keen interest in photography and go to look at plants in the bush, botanical gardens and nurseries pretty much every fortnight.

experience reports

Also I think sites should be more active in letting users know they can donate much in the way erowid does.

I know that most people who find a resource useful and are not too broke, are more than willing to contribute.

[Torsten]

the reason I like this is because it provides a permanent home for pics and allow for localised contributions. eg the 'problem' theo pointed out should really be turned into an asset by structuring various regions into the growing guide. eg, under each species allow for 5 or so growing zones.

I've got the ethnobotanica server all organised and it should be up and running within 3 days. It will have a few different wiki type system on it so we can discuss that then.

Are u intending 100% free edit access or will you restrict it somehow? Given the difference in quality of information I have seen in various free or restricted wiki's I would opt for the latter. Even if the restriction is only to keep out malicious damage. What do you think?

[apothecary]

Torsten, what we can do is limit write access to only people who have accounts, and basically only allow them an account on a per-user basis, i.e. we review their posts here, or review the content they want to submit.

That way it isn't too hard to stop misinformation spreading, and it isn't too hard to submit info either.

EDIT: You're right though Torsten, the different growing regions could easily be turned into an asset. e.g. Teo's template to tropical Trichocereus or something isn't just applicable to the tropics here, but is a useful reference for anyone who lives in tropical regions internationally.

[ 22. February 2005, 08:02: Message edited by: apothecary ]

[Torsten]

I was hoping you would say that about the access. I think anyone with something to contribute should have free access (with back up functionality), but their needs to be some accountability and most importantly some way to safeguard every contributor's work.

In regards to growing guides, setting down a few simple rules will make the guides universally usefull. For example, rather than writing 'sow seed in january and harvest in late June' it could be phrased as 'sow seed midsummer and harvest at winter solstice / early-mid winter'. ie, compell people to use universal terms when making such descriptions. Strangely enough australia is leading the way with the cultivation of many species and many folks from overseas look to us for guidance. We might as well not exclude them.

[apothecary]

Torsten, 100% with you.

The good thing about the wiki is that even if someone decides to be difficult, any other contributor with an account can edit their stuff appropriately.

If anyone decides to be a tool about something, we can simply disable their account and edit any bull/misinformation/agenda bias straight out. Mediawiki makes this process really simple, each change made to the wiki comes with a "diff" (which shows before and after excerpts of the edited sections) and a "history" that shows the editing history.

Damn. I'm getting very excited about this project.

[woof woof woof]

Would be nice to have something like wikipedia indeed. where it allows to add information to later be edited.

would be nice to have a more interactive,... like criss crossing from biochemistry to psycoligy to plants and budhism.

Lots of work,..... so basically start compiling th things you are iterested in in word files and see where we connect. this means that we have to communicate our work to eachother regularly.

soooo,.... pick a field of intrest post what it is so we do not have the same subjects and start putting down somthing in a file

[smogs]

its a great idea but by the sounds of it unless you have someone gathering the individual submitted materials and intergrating them together it would just be like this site or erowid.

the problem with erowid is that alot of it is written badly, from the perspective of one person with many small bits of information on the same bit.

what really needs to be done is an actual edited write up of each subject

for example you have the species kratom... under that the subjects of cultivation (for different climates), preperation, traditional uses (with a bit of history in there), experiences

then a seperate subject which is appensixes or some such... which will be where people submit growing techs and experiences etc

then you need a person to regularly go through the apendixes and intergrate them into the intial text (at which point they get removed from appendixes)

but unforetunately thats a hell of alot of work. I would volenteer for one of the editor jobs tho.

oh also it would be a good idea to have a list of credits for each species

i think this would be the best method ebcause then if u get a new species or woteva u have evrything at your fingertips

really it would be an encylopedia

[apothecary]

"its a great idea but by the sounds of it unless you have someone gathering the individual submitted materials and intergrating them together it would just be like this site or erowid."

That someone is me. Or you. Or anyone who was nice enough to submit an article and earned themselves an account on the wiki.

You don't have to volunteer. If you think a chunk of information isn't written perfectly, ask for an account, or if you have an account, rewrite it as you deem appropriate for the community

[Cyjack]

smogs:

what really needs to be done is an actual edited write up of each subject

for example you have the species kratom... under that the subjects of cultivation (for different climates), preperation, traditional uses (with a bit of history in there), experiences

then a seperate subject which is appensixes or some such... which will be where people submit growing techs and experiences etc

This might be the way to resolve the conflicts in different reporting styles and techniques. If you come up with a list of criteria to be filled in, like a scientific documentation of the event, then you might be able to universally house all the different pieces of information without the messiness of scattered reporting.

Sounds like one big database waiting to be born...

[apothecary]

I'm really excited.

A collaborative attempt like this means everyone is almost guaranteed to learn something they never knew before.

For example, I learnt tonight (spending some time with a hippy friend) about columnar chromatography, which is a just as effective industry standard chromatography method. Just as good as gas chrom!