I goofed, Dave

Dave,

I forgot to un-check the box when uploading a photo. The photo is not mine, but is "free" for use as long as it's not done for commercial reasons. I've tried to be as clear as possible to credit the photographer and the web site.

The one I need to change is:
Boxelder - Acer negundo

I'll try to be more careful from now on. Thanks for your help.

~Carla

Here's another one...sorry, Dave....

Common name: Queen Anne's Lace, Wild Carrot
Family: Apiaceae
Genus: Daucus
Species carota var. sativus

My fingers are too fast for my brain....

Carla, I'll take care of them :)

Oh, thank you, thank you. I'm trying to add a bunch of photos from a web site that allows "use" of their photos for non-commercial purposes and want to do all I can to post them in the PDB, but unfortunately, my fingers zoom faster than my brain can keep up with.

Smiln, (I don't want to be a wet blanket), but you might check and make sure they don't consider the PDB a "commercial site" - some do, some don't, and I'd sure hate to see a lot of work put into adding them, just to turn around and have to remove them...

Dave is definately not making any money at this, so it's a non-profit company, right? :)

I'll check into it to be sure, though. Thanks. I'm too naive for my own good...just think everything is open and honest and for the general welfare of the world.

What do you think....here's the link to their site?

http://plants.usda.gov/intellect.html

I've carefully inspected the copyright information from the USDA PLANTS site and have determined that it's okay to use the information, as long as they are properly attributed.

Before starting the PDB, I used to borrow heavily from the PLANTS website. That was 2 years ago.

dave

Dave,

Here are two examples of my wording on attributing copyright information to the site/photographer.

http://plantsdatabase.com/showpicture/8171/

http://plantsdatabase.com/showpicture/8174/

I really am trying to do this "right", so bear with me if I'm being obsessive about it.

Do those examples look ok? I wouldn't ever want to do anything to cause DG problems.

It's Dave's call - From reading the disclaimers, I'm not sure that the PDB falls under the mantle of "education or scientific purposes", and could be considered a "commercial site" (as opposed to someone's personal webpage.)

Thanks to everyone's efforts, the PDB today is a far cry from where it was two years ago, especially in terms of size=traffic=exposure. The bigger we get, the more I lean toward using mainly members' own images, rather than relying on public domain images (my conservative side is showing :) And Dave may feel otherwise...

Terry, I understand how you feel. I have two thoughts on that.

First, we are human and make mistakes. Not all gardeners are as knowledgable as others (like say the garden gurus.....YOU, Baa, Poppysue and others). Getting one plant mixed up with another, or being given wrong information from a friend or sold a plant with an incorrect nursery tag, etc in not uncommon. That's not to say something on the USDA plant site or any other is completely accurate, but I imagine they have some safeguards in place to protect against misinformation. Also, I wonder if there is any inaccurate information in the PDB simply because we, everyday ordinary people, don't have all the information.

Second, we can't possibly grow everything in our own yards that exists in plant-land. I would think it's good to borrow from other sites (when appropriate and allowed) to enhance what we have in our PDB - especially if it's something uncommon, grown outside the states, etc.

Most of what I have entered in the PDB recently are entirely new plants...nothing was ever recorded in the PDB about them (as opposed to just uploading new photos of plants that were already there). I figured that it would be better to have something at all rather than nothing.

By the way, I think this is a very healthy discussion to have on the PDB. I realize that we won't all view it the same way and it's good to think about things from different perspectives.

I fall right in the middle of the road on this one (a dangerous place to be in most circumstances!).

On one hand, I think that it's a grey area whether the PDB is a site that can be considered educational or scientific. We're are not making money on the PDB, however that may change one day, and it may not.

On the other hand, the PDB, as vols said, is a different beast than 2 years ago. I, like vols, would very much prefer to stick to members' own images. We're big enough now and the database is complete enough now that we don't have an inferiority complex (as I did when it was still beginning).

Also, having our own images in the PDB gives us a certain level of freedom. We -know- that we (the members) have rights to all those images. Tainting the database with public domain pics does indeed lessen the value of the database, but I'm not sure by how much.

As I said, I'm still in the middle on this one.

dave

I agree it's a healthy (and timely) discussion topic - I'm hoping more of those sitting on the sidelines will speak up :)

To try to address some of smiln's questions, I'll tell a story on myself: when I began working in the employee benefits department of my employer (a loooooong time ago), one of my jobs was to oversee the annual review and revision of the health plan documents with our legal staff. My first thought was "Who am I to think I can change these documents?" Then it struck me - those documents were written by human beings (or beans, as Wintermoor calls 'em) - just like me. Specially trained in these matters? Maybe, maybe not. Striving to do things correctly and accurately? Yep. And error-prone? You bet. Every year we re-worked those documents to try to make them clearer and plainer for employees and claims processors. A few times, we tore sections to shreds and started over - nothing was off-limits during this process.

Why have I shared this story, and what does it have to do with the PDB? That "moment of revelation" is what let me think I (or anyone else, for that matter) could add to/edit/build a database of plants. Of course, at the time it had ~ 100 entries, most of them courtesy of PoppySue and Dave.

Now that it's a wee bit bigger (*grin*) some think it should be handled only by "experts." But our database here (and the USDA's database, and any other one out there) is the result of people just like us, working on it.

Some have educational or vocational backgrounds that lend themselves to this work; I'd hazard a guess that most are self-trained. (Think about it: where would Carl von Linne have trained before he set out to classify every plant and animal on the planet? He was just a guy with a good, common-sense idea - which was initially rejected by many, but eventually it took hold.)

And I hope what others are gathering by reading this is that there is nothing sacred about this database of information - taxonomy changes constantly, and new plants are discovered and cultivated routinely.

Even if there was a committe (ugh) of editors, they'd still be just a group of human beings/beans (lol), using a wide variety of resources to validate and verify the information - something that each of us can do.

Are there mistakes in our database? Absolutely. I constantly scan for them, as do Baa, PoppySue, and Dave. When we find them, we correct them. There are some members here who routinely send me (and probably others) mistakes that they spot. Which is wonderful - I know there are many sets of eyes looking over the work that goes on here.

When it comes to photos, yes there are times when a photo is erroneously attached to a plant's entry - it's the wrong variety (or even the wrong species or genus.) There are no guaranteed safeguards we can use to prevent that from happening, without creating a bottle-necked beauracracy to review and accept/reject submissions.

Everyone is responsible for comparing their photos to others they can find, and - to the best of their knowledge - ensuring the accuracy of the photos they submit. And under the watchful eyes of those who scan the newest entries, innocent errors are uncovered and corrected.

IMHO, Dave has created the best of all possible worlds - a database that is truly for and by gardeners :)

Well, I suppose in the event that down the road we decide to cull out the photographs unsuspecting folks like me have added to the database (photos which are not "owned" by us), they can always be deleted.

The photos that I have added are clearly noted as to whether they are mine or not.

I guess my next choice is to go to a local nursery and start snapping pics. I've photographed everything in my yard...at least twice. :)

Good idea, Carla. There's a lot better specimens of plants at our local garden centers than I grow, LOL. :)

I sometimes go to the University of TN and snap photos for my collection (and for the PDB). They have billions of plants there, in excellent condition, that make for great photo opps.

dave