permaculture and money.

Oh well, I thought it was a permaculture wiki.  If it's a bad wiki template, I guess it's up to you to build a better one.   

saskia wrote:
Paul Wheaton might be persuaded to dedicate a subforum to this? the noble art of distributing permaculture info for free to the masses, in a simple and structured enough way that kids can apply it? If Paul wants to appoint one or two admins it could be self regulatory (no extra work for Paul, yes?) It could become famous in time once people start linking to it? Does it sound like I am luring him? 
Paul? Are you there?

Should I message him or does he read every post on the forum???

He never reads his personal messages, and I don't think he has much chance to read all the posts on all the forums.  But he does, as far as I know, read everything on the 'Tinkering with this Site' forum.  Maybe the best is to start a thread there, with a link to this thread. 

I think a formal, well structured and internationally-scoped Permaculture wiki is a brilliant idea and I wish I had the technical know-how to help get one started. I can buy a domain and get it hosted and that's about it sadly.

The permaculture.wikia.com site doesn't seem to be very comprehensive... There were no dedicated pages for 'guild' or 'mulch' when I searched for example. I think that a wiki with the full weight of Permies.com behind it would be able to achieve much more

Well, it would be a good start. Is there no one on this forum with the technical know-how to administrate a wiki page? If no, do you know of anyone who would be prepared to set one up, for instance on Sam's domain?

I'm a systems admin.  Setting up a wiki is no problem.  I just need to know where to put it. 

Hey, that's great! I knew we had everyone we needed right here 
Sam & Cholcombe, can you work something out between the two of you???

I ran a quick domain availability check. It seems all the interesting "permaculture" ones have been taken, but permies.us and permies.me are available. That could be nice ones?

Well I guess the problem becomes money then.  I haven't been following this thread all that well.  Is there some kinda money available to pay for a domain and server? 

Cholcombe, this is what Sam said a couple of replies higher up:

Sam wrote:
I think a formal, well structured and internationally-scoped Permaculture wiki is a brilliant idea and I wish I had the technical know-how to help get one started. I can buy a domain and get it hosted and that's about it sadly.

Oh!  I apologize, I didn't see that.  Well this is great.  HostGator has some cheap virtual hosting and godaddy also has cheap hosting. 

Cholcombe, do you think you can work this out with Sam messaging each other? Thank you so much!!! <jumping up and down with excitement>
I left a post for Paul in the "tinkering with this website" subforum, asking if he would set up a part of permies.com to discuss the wikipage...
Keep fingers and toes crossed, everyone...

Sure I don't see why not   I'll send him a message and see where it goes. 

If we could get some sort of sponsorship long term that would be ideal. I'm an almost penniless student (just paid for my MSc) and, although I can afford to pay for a domain and hosting at the moment, there's no guarantee that I'll be able to keep paying in the future

Saskia, if you already have hosting for changemylife.info, maybe it would be best to use that for the wiki in the short term until things are sorted out?

Sam, you disappoint me! You could have said you were an "almost penniless student" when you posted

I can buy a domain and get it hosted and that's about it sadly.

Made you sound more like a millionaire to me. Didn't think anyone would take you up on it? 

I should think if the site survives a year and has some decent information it shouldn't be that hard to find funding, maybe even from folks here. If everyone donates one dollar to keep the site going that would be plenty...

I don't mind having the wiki on changingmylife.info, but you get huge problems later if you change the name, people getting lost etc. And I have other things running on it already. I can make a subdomain, but t would really be better to get a dedicated domain name.

So Sam, seriously now. Will you register the domain for 1 year yes or no? I will put in my one dollar if you can supply a paypal account to put it on. That's a promise.
Other folks here might be persuaded to do the same. The penniless student is a good line and a dollar is not much nowadays. You might even make a profit 

If you say no I will host it on my existing domain if no other solutions pop up in the meanwhile, but I will call you chicken 
What are you studying by the way? Marketing maybe? 

I can buy a domain and get it hosted and that's about it sadly.

Made you sound more like a millionaire to me. Didn't think anyone would take you up on it?

I actually said that as a demonstration of the limits of my website development skills (i.e. almost non-existent)

I'll talk to Cholcombe, see what I'd need to do. I'd be happy to buy a domain and host it for a year if it remains the best option - there may be a few that haven't been explored yet. 

And no, I have a BA in business and enterprise management, but nothing in marketing. My MSc will be in advanced environmental and energy studies

Sam wrote:
I'll talk to Cholcombe, see what I'd need to do. I'd be happy to buy a domain and host it for a year if it remains the best option - there may be a few that haven't been explored yet. 

OK, no chicken then!
Keep us posted on your progress (or lack of it) out here, ok? We always love to comment! 
I'll host the wiki if need be (and ask for contributing dollars  ; I'm not almost penniless, but like most folks need to watch what I'm doing - my money has got this irksome the tendency to run out faster than it comes in...  )

And no, I have a BA in business and enterprise management, but nothing in marketing. My MSc will be in advanced environmental and energy studies

Good on you! Hope it works out for you! 
Nice to hear you took my comments in good cheer!
Rgds

Creating a wiki for permaculture aspects is a fantastic idea.  I'm sure with a community so willing to share information pulling in the knowledge as well as the money it would take to keep some servers ready would not be a huge problem.  Where the concern in my opinion comes in is editing in this format.  So much of permaculture information is debatable; this is why we even have a forum.  Who do you get to edit the wiki, how do you police the editorial staff, and most immediately are you going to be able to raise enough money to pay for an editorial staff.  It seems like a self policing community based on such wide ranging ideas could be very unpredictable and the last thing you want to do is dissiminate incorrect of inconclusive information. 

I think that you are on the right track to getting out important information to the masses but unfortuanately 3 pages of forum jargon is not enough to support a well oiled "company".  I will be the first one to throw in what short supply of funds I have to make this a reality, but more reasearch into what it would take to make this a solid practical documentation is definitely needed.

RegretsHD,
I'm starting another thread to discuss the wiki page. You have some interesting points and they do need to be addressed.

The last thing we're looking for is to add one more messy and unreliable website to the existing chaos...

Anyone interested in the faith of the wiki soon to be, look for the new thread entitled WIKIPAGE (insipred huh?) 

(I've been on vacation)

Several years ago, somebody said "paul, if you set up wiki software, I will fill it."  So Jami and I spent a big gob of time setting one up, only to realize it sucked.  So we took even more time to set up another and then a bunch more time to polish it and then set it up so this person could fill it.  I'm pretty sure nothing happened.

See https://permies.com/permaculture

I've been pushing stuff out to the appropedia site.

OK, Paul, thx for your reply.
I had a look at the defunct wiki; there are 6 pages available, text only, so not very appetizing for newbies, apparently nothing done on the site since 2009.

But what does this mean concretely for us? It's not clear to me whether your saying:
- This kind of thing doesn't work
- You can use and revamp the existing wiki
- I'm not willing to set anything else up
- Convince me that your project is going to be different before I make a move
or anything else...
Please clarify your stance...

The goal of the (our) wiki is a free online PDC. I think this focus and a participative structure with lots of member input, submitting their pics and everything might make it work.
Is it possible to set the wiki up so that all registered forum members can edit, add photos, etc? Or does it need to be restricted to a (small) group?

The project will likely  fail if we can not manage to get the community enthusiastic about participating, because this is certainly NOT a lone wolf project. But that is precisely the beauty and strength of the forum: together we know most of what there is to know on permaculture and certainly enough to fill a PDC. The demand for the resource is definitely there, both on the forum and in the world at large.

Rgds,
Saskia

1)  It seems every six months somebody gets the idea.  It's a lot of work and follow through seems rare.  We set up the wiki with the idea that, if nothing else, folks could create summaries for the really big threads.  In time, a knowledge base would build.

2)  The appropedia folks started down this path and came through with the work.  Rather than create a whole new thing, I like the idea of supporting their work.  I've mentioned this several times in the past and several people have written to me that they are concerned about appropedia: present and "what will happen if ..." - these folks have asked to do stuff on my wiki because they think my path is somehow better.  Frankly, I don't fully understand what they don't like about appropedia.  But I already have the wiki running, so what the hell.  I give them access.  And then I don't see much going on there.

3)  I think that if you are gonna start your own thing, that's probably the smartest.  That way you don't have anybody saying "I don't like that part so I'm deleting it."  All of your work can last forever.  Beware:  if your wiki is fully open, it will be filled with hundreds of spams on the first day.  That's what happened with my first wiki. 

4)  I like the idea of hosting a free online PDC.  But I would rule it with the same iron fist I use for all my stuff, which turns a lot of people off.  Therefore, I suspect that most folks would not want to put a lot of work into something like that here.  I mean somebody might put work into it, then decide to make it clear to me that I'm stupid and doing everything wrong and then I will feel compelled to lock them out.  On the other hand, every wiki has an iron fist. 

I've had this chat with folks several dozen times.  My advice at this point is to check into appropedia first.  They seem very open and already have a lot of content.  My experiences with them have been very good.  I predict greatest happiness for most folks down that path.  Of course everything done there probably needs to meet a collaborative path with the permaculture masses.  This might include some philosophies that are different from my own.  If people want collaboration that is more aligned with my stuff, then it does seem that my wiki might be a better fit.

paul wheaton wrote:
1)  It seems every six months somebody gets the idea.  (...)
2)  The appropedia folks started down this path and came through with the work.  Rather than create a whole new thing, I like the idea of supporting their work. 
(...)
I've had this chat with folks several dozen times.  My advice at this point is to check into appropedia first.  They seem very open and already have a lot of content.  My experiences with them have been very good.  I predict greatest happiness for most folks down that path.   Of course everything done there probably needs to meet a collaborative path with the permaculture masses.  This might include some philosophies that are different from my own.  If people want collaboration that is more aligned with my stuff, then it does seem that my wiki might be a better fit.

Oh, and we thought we were being original 

I didn't know appropedia. It seems a very cool site with lots of useful info.

For the folks who didn't check appropedia out yet: main page: http://www.appropedia.org/ and permaculture wiki main page: http://www.appropedia.org/Permaculture_wiki

They do have a lot of stuff up already, which might cost a new - even enthusiastic - team a year or more to build up to that level. There's nothing specific about a free PDC, but I don't see why we couldn't add  that on to the existing structure. Would avoid us doing the work all over, and permaculture is all about efficiency 

Sam, Cholcombe, everyone else, what do you think? Personally I like the idea of joining forces with something existing, rather than start from scratch and maybe never get anywhere: these folks are past the beginner's stage...

I feel that "open editing" is a two edged sword.  It allows anybody to expand the knowledge base, but it also allows some opinionated person (and yes, they do exist!) to go in and delete the entire thread, and substitute their "corrected" version of "the truth".

Wikipedia is a fine example of this.  As well as the site has been run, I have gone back several months later to a thread, looking for a 'fact' that was there, only to find that a multi-paged entry had been entirely replaced with somebody elses interpretation of an historical event.  Better written, more complete, BUT lacking some critical information that didn't sit well with the 'editor' that revised the original article I had read.  Neither version included information that "I know" was the prime reason of the event.

So i joined appropedia (try spelling that 3x quickly ) and contributed some information and it popped up immediately!  no checking, no reviews, no nothing... 

Seems to me that this site could very quickly be filled with all kinds of 'stuff' .  Wikipedia had some real sharp learning curves... will appropedia be the same?

I love the approredia site, there's a lot of info there I've never seen before... very cool!

The guys that run appropedia are really reasonable and great.  Way better than the wikipedia people.

I hope that all of your future contributions to appropedia will include links to my empire. 

winsol3 wrote:
So i joined appropedia (try spelling that 3x quickly ) and contributed some information and it popped up immediately!  no checking, no reviews, no nothing...   

Seems to me that this site could very quickly be filled with all kinds of 'stuff' .  Wikipedia had some real sharp learning curves... will appropedia be the same?

I love the approredia site, there's a lot of info there I've never seen before... very cool!

I think a certain amount of trust in other people is necessary to pull off any kind of participative project, even if the occasional disaster occurs. Let's give them our best, and like here, if we notice obviously wrong or inappropriate content, warn the moderators....

"saskia" wrote:Sam, Cholcombe, everyone else, what do you think? Personally I like the idea of joining forces with something existing, rather than start from scratch and maybe never get anywhere: these folks are past the beginner's stage...

Sounds good to me... We'd be saving on any duplication of effort at least, and we'd be saving on some money too I think having a separate project would give us some flexibility in the future to develop some potential  features (a comprehensive permaculture-plant database/wiki for example) but for now I'd be happy to just see the free PDC come to fruition!

If there are alternative ideas that don't fit with the rest of the folks at appropedia but do align with my stuff, you can post those things here and, I suspect, that while the rest of the appropedia crowd might be against publishing that stuff, they would probably be okay with making a link to an alternative.

Further, I like the idea of having discussion threads here for bits of appropedia. Make a link from here to the relevant stuff at appropedia.  And maybe there can be link from appropedia to the discussion thread here.

Ur right Paul... a few days after i posted on Appropedia (community microgrids)  i got a personal note (imagine getting that at Wikipi ) and asked me to move my stuff over to

Q:  Unless there's a specific track - like RMH's and value added information, adding links to this forum on specific things is kinda difficult.... on the other hand, links to videos, etc. would be great... but that's mostly through you-tube??

To me, Appropedia is way too lame.  I have yet to find any meaningful info there.  I put them in the same category as ehow..."how to convince your teacher that the dog really ate your homework".  Too many middle-schoolers that want to see their "works" published, regardless of context (or lack of).

winsol3 wrote:
Ur right Paul... a few days after i posted on Appropedia (community microgrids)  i got a personal note (imagine getting that at Wikipi ) and asked me to move my stuff over to

??  incomplete sentence?

Well, I can turn a few of you loose on the wiki here if you want.  I don't wanna make it super open cuz of the spam stuff.  But, much like any wiki, for this one, I want to be comfortable with everything written there.

And, frankly, I still like the idea of linking to appropedia and them linking to us. Surely there is room for some overlap/collaboration.

paul wheaton wrote:
Well, I can turn a few of you loose on the wiki here if you want. 

That would be cool, Paul! Apart from the people expressing interest in the project on this thread there's also Dan Poole on the other thread "wikipage"...

I set up the username "permaculture" and the password "hugelkultur".  Y'all have a good time.  If things get wonky, I'll just change the password and dole out individual names and passwords.


And so I was tinkering with the software a bit and ...  screwed it all up.  And the backups are failing.  Looking into some other backups  ....

Okay - seems to be working again.

Permaculture education IS already available to all for free.  I am currently reading the LONG list of suggested reading that is published on the permacluture website; http://www.permaculture.org/nm/index.php/site/permaculture_design_course

There is so much free stuff here to wade through that when you are finished with it the only thing you won't have is a piece of paper saying you did it.  That costs money - a lot less than even community colleges.

Add to it the endless numbers of videos on youtube and free podcasts and you have yourself an education - all the while sitting in your PJs in your living room.

And who has time to read, watch and listen to all of that stuff?  Well it is all available when it is most convenient to you without your having to travel to far away lands and spend tons of money. 

I am thrilled that there is so much free education out there and when - and if - I get the money and time to go to a formal course it will just be to enhance what I have already learned. 

In the meantime I think it is going to take me a VERY LONG TIME to put into practice all that I have learned for free - after all, it is about actually going out and doing the stuff - not just learning about it.

Oh, and BTW,  I am going to call it anything I want to.  Out of courtesy to the founders I will not call myself a teacher or designer or anything of the sort but there is nothing wrong with me or you or anyone else saying that we are practicing permaculture methods.

I don't think Mollison ever intended anyone to get so hung up on the term.  I believe he just wants us all to put into practice systems that make the world better.

Could we please add posts concerning the wikipage to the thread "wikipage" in the future? Thanks all...

Sorry, my bad.  I only read the first 25-30 posts.  It wasn't until your last post that I went back and read the other two pages and found out that this has taken a different direction.

Paul and Kelda Miller talk about permaculture and money in this podcast, reviewing the first chapter of Sepp Holzer's Permaculture: http://www.richsoil.com/permaculture/426-podcast-074-sepp-holzers-permaculture-preface-ch-1/

gobeaguru wrote:
i would like to see it open source... to see permaculture design courses that are taped in their entirety for people to enjoy and mull over.  I have been listening to the audio from a permaculture design course that bill mollison did in the early eighties and it is incredibly useful to me... i have yet to get anything like that on youtube... (although this website is awesome)

Here ya go: http://mediasite.online.ncsu.edu/online/Catalog/pages/catalog.aspx?catalogId=f5a893e7-4b7c-4b79-80fd-52dcd1ced715

/end thread. 

There's nothing saying you need a permaculture certificate to be able to practice it. Adhere to the principles and do/implement a few designs on your own. Build your portfolio and consult. The world's your oyster, so to speak.

Side note: I didn't take a second job to pay for my PDC, but I did eat Ramen for a while. People complain about the inaccesability of things a lot these days instead of figuring out a way to make it work. Be like Nike: Just Do It.

permaculture can not be industrialized through patenting it and raising the barriers to enter permaculture... it is impossible because it is the inverse of keynesian economics, it is a wholistic practice.

I have my PDC and sure it taught me a lot, but nothing I couldnt have learned on my own.. and I think a PDC is just a way for the API to spread the message through institutionalized culture which need a status to expert in order to play in the market.

there is no market for permaculture because permaculture is an entire system in and of itself, so no worries about false capital exploiting permaculture and industrializing it... it simply can not be done. 

A Permaculture is a free market, it is impermeable because it is an entire economy on your individual property