Almost a year ago we launched a collaboratively edited plant database called
Practical Plants. For those of you who don't know of the
project, we're building a globally relevant plant use database, fully searchable by properties relevant to permies, and also to model plant interactions and build a data-set of successful polycultures/guilds. The database is available under a Creative Commons BY-SA license to build a resource owned in common.
We've made some great progress on the database, and we recently moved the website to an EU and University backed server farm, so we are able to stay
online without commercial pressure of hosting fees. That's huge news for a project like this, as it means we know we're working on something with a secure future.
It's been a great first year but building an active community to run it has been hard. We've had some great contributors but we've had a hard time building the sense of an active community that keeps people coming back to participate in democratic control of the project, pick up small tasks that need doing, etc.
Helping out doesn't take any special skills, nor necessarily much time;
even just a few hours every now and again will be a huge help to a small project like this. We need help with things like:
* Welcoming new members and turning their feedback into points for discussion
* Helping manage community decisions
* Posting content to the
Facebook page
* Spreading the word to help grow our community and get the data in more hands!
* Writing documentation to help new users
*
... and most importantly of all, sharing your opinions, being active in making decisions and making the community vibrant!
If you're interested in helping out in some way, join the discussion here:
http://practicalplants.org/community/discussion/90/how-can-you-help And if you know of anyone who might be, please pass the word along.
If you've any questions, don't hesitate to ask!
Thanks
Andru, Practical Plants
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