Eliminating journal requirement for natural medicine?

We were requiring people to keep a journal for their natural medicine stuff to try to measure efficacy--for instance, is a plant that you wildcrafted more effective than one in an irrigated garden? What about an unirrigated hugelkultur? But we eliminated most of the really powerful herbs for Reasons, and now are left with mostly things whose actions are very gentle and hard to overdose. So it's really hard to measure efficacy. If the chamomile or peppermint or comfrey from one area was 25% more potent medicinally than from another area, would you really be able to tell? Probably not. Does it matter? Maybe, but if we can't measure or record it effectively, there's not much we can do about it. So we are thinking about just eliminating the journal requirements for PEP natural medicine. People could still keep a journal for their own reference, but we won't require them to show it to us.


We are interested in feedback on this decision. Thoughts? Objections? Ideas?

I'd be fine with removing it as a requirement.  We don't require journals for foraging or gardening or other badges where good notes could come in handy.  It's probably more handy for natural medicine but I figured the main purpose was to document your recipes somewhere as in a cooking recipe book.  I wasn't even realizing the intent of monitoring the potency of various herb plant locations

Personally, the biggest problem I have with creating wild-harvested and natural medicines is record keeping.  A few years later, I want to make that burdock, origan grape, and teasel thing again, and I can't remember how I did it.  Or where I harvested it.  Was it the patch in full sun, or that shady patch?  I know I did a bit from both, but I can't remember which was better.  But one of them was a lot better tasting.  Like HUGELY better tasting.  Oh well, I guess I don't really need to make another batch. I don't feel like doing the experiment over again.

Maybe if the record-keeping wasn't so much about keeping track of effectiveness but about proving good record keeping skills and the willingness to experiment (try more than one thing and write down the results of which method they liked best) that might be useful?  

It would increase my chances of doing them, and I imagine others might feel the same.

I think the deciding factor is whether or not it helps prove that you made the tincture or applied the ointment.  I can or should have a journal/record for my garden, for reloading ammo, for cooking recipes and several other things that could be in PEP.  But if I do that or not, it's really just on me and how detail oriented I want to be.  Joseph doesn't keep many records for his plant breeding efforts which I think is a good parallel.  

I think that as far as PEP is concerned (prove you did a thing), I don't think it's really needed.