Korean Natural Farming Acronyms

r ranson wrote:Moderator note.

Just a reminder everyone, people from all over the world and all levels of experience use this site.

Please, if you are going to use an abbreviation or acronym for something, please say what it stands for.  

Throwing letters around leads to, at best, frustration on the readers part and at worst, miscommunication and strife.


Please be courteous to your readers.  

Nowhere in the KNF community does anyone NOT talk or write like we have been here. Everyone that practices KNF, calls FPJ, "FPJ", etc.

We all learned it the same way, and that's how all websites, and real life people communicate about KNF. Those are, in general, the terms we think, speak, and write in.

I personally don't think it's fair for this website to expect practitioners to completely alter their organic way of communicating about KNF.

If you took a KNF class they would say "this product is called IMO#1, IMO#2, IMO#3, IMO#4.. . Then they would tell you that IMO stands for indigenous micro organisms, then they would go back to calling it IMO. They do not ever refer to the product as anything except, IMO, FPJ, WSC, WSCaP, except for one time only.

KNF is pretty much the cutting edge of permaculture, and the next stage in the evolution of organic farming.

If this website hopes to have some of that here I think it would be wise to accept it for what it is rather than expect all the practitioners with knowledge to spell everything out every time when in real life, and on the face book groups or virtually any other website or venue this is how we talk, write, think and communicate about the products and system.

Kids that grow up around KNF learn that it's called IMO, because that's what everyone calls it.


There are other threads on this site that the mods bent the rules for, such as the "I am an INTJ, what are you?" where there is something like 15 pages of people communicating with the initials of the terms they are using.

It could be argued that that thread is entirely useless compared with a thread about KNF.

Although the initials do stand for something, the product names are always preferred to by the shortened version.

I notice it's similar with farmers when confronted with KNF.

They want the KNF system to bend and conform to them and their way of thinking and their ways of doing things, but it is a wholistic system that operates differently. You can't expect it to work if you are just trying to assimilate aspects of it into the old system of "modern ag".

Ag needs to conform to KNF, not the other way around.

KNF is practiced in over 40 countries around the world and we all refer to to the inputs and system the exact same way.

It is easier for an English speaker to communicate with a , Thai, Korean, or Indonesian farmer in the globally accepted terms like IMO then to spell everything out in English.

on other websites people from all around the world have assimilated the terms and it makes it easier for people from multiple cultures to communicate in terms like FPJ, and IMO.

I moved your post here to Tinkering, as Tinkering is the place where we discuss moderation. Another moderator may very well delete this thread, as that is generally what occurs to posts that discuss moderation outside of Tinkering.

People here on permies have NOT been to Korean Natural Farming classes. We cannot and will not expect them to do so. Currently, your rudeness is making many people think that Korean Natural Farming is some sort of religious cult, and not a scientific method. If it is indeed religious, it needs to be in the Cider Press, and you would need enough apples to post there.

As for the "Are you an INTP?" thread, that is in Meaningless Drivel, and the first post also links to a place that describes the terms, and people also describe them in their posts. I'm going out on a limb here and assuming that Korean Natural Farming would not like to be considered "Meaningless Drivel." But, without defining terms that are supposed to help people, especially after multiple people have asked for definitions, is against our publishing standards, and certainly makes all those accroynms seem like meaningless drivel.

Here on permies, we do not ask people to google something or look something up. Permies is a place to learn information. People should be able to come to permies and learn things, rather than be told that terms will never be explained.

If you took a KNF class they would say "this product is called IMO#1, IMO#2, IMO#3, IMO#4.. . Then they would tell you that IMO stands for indigenous micro organisms, then they would go back to calling it IMO. They do not ever refer to the product as anything except, IMO, FPJ, WSC, WSCaP, except for one time only.

I think that is all anyone here was asking for...just what the initials stand for, once, in the beginning of the post to refer back to.

I can understand the shorthand from then on.

It's common practice to give the full version once in the beginning of an article, essay, etc and then go on to use the initials.

As others have said, we are all here to learn and most of us don't mind filling in the blanks for others if we're able or asking more questions if we are curious about something, sharing information is what this site is about.  

Permies.com is a very special place on the internet.  Things work differently here.  It's a place for a very particular kind of person who likes talking about permaculture and related topics in a specific kind of way.  In my signature, you can find a link to how permies works.  It might be a good idea to familiarize yourself with some of the threads in that tutorial, especially what Paul Wheaton, this site's owner, has to say on publishing standards before posting again.  

A little more about how things work here.  https://permies.com/t/24787

Thanks moderation staff for dealing with this issue in a straight-forward manner. My head sure was spinning trying to understand all those code-words.