I can't believe how messed up the african violet Plant Files are. Someone must have gone through them gung ho and added cultural details that are completely inaccurate. Most if not all are incorrect now. Example: On some, things like bloom color will have a wide variety of colors listed for a particular cultivar. Also, pH is way off...5.6? Good way to kill or not have much success with violets. Spacing? What does that have to do with violets? That applies to garden plants in the ground.
I remember a while back there being this all out effort to enhance Plant Files for violets, but it looks like now all that was accomplished is a major setback. Maybe I shouldn't pay any attention to it, but I do and I'm sure many others depend on Dave's Garden information to be somewhat accurate. Now what?
I mentioned this on gessiegail's pH thread but thought I would post a separate thread for this topic. I would like to see the Plant Files straightened out for african violets but not sure how to go about it. If it were just a few, I could send error reports but the volume prohibits that from happening. What would be the best way to solve this problem?
African Violet *Plant Files*
Goodness Snow I never noticed that before.Thats too bad that had to happen.I wouldn't know the 1st thing about adding info for a plant in plantfiles myself....Thats why I have never tried I suppose.I leave all those types of things to the experts which I most certainly am not.lol.
I wonder if there is anyway to possibly allert administration to the problem as a whole.You are right..there are wayy to many errors to report each one separately.
Might be a good idea to contact Terry and set about doing a 'group' correction to those things that incorrect.
Perhaps they could arrange it so that when someone adds a new a.v. cultivar to the plantfiles, Dave could arrange a feature where the correct info would be automatically filled out? Then the user just has to add bloom color/leaf info, etc. That would probably encourage more people to add more cultivars to the PlantFiles as well.
Good suggestions....thanks. Some things can be easliy corrected as a 'group' correction such as pH, spacing which is N/A, hybrid propagation, and so forth, but, as far as individual cultivars with descriptive errors, that will be much more of a challenge.
The only description as to cultivar/hybrid that counts and is correct is the hybridizer's description in the AVSA 'Master Variety List'. Nothing else matters. True, some few hybrids are not listed in the MVL so those can be a little iffy and up in the air, but, any that are and that includes the vast majority, should have an official description.
Maybe we can start by changing the the easiest things to correct first and go from there. I wonder how keen administartion will be to getting error reports left and right on all these violets? A tremendous undertaking but can be done bit by bit.
I didn't see this post that you started SnowRose................glad you have done this.
I am going to attempt to add some African Violets this evening and see what happens.
This AVSA disc is wonderful for the descriptions of foliage, bloom, etc.
I am sooooooooooooo slow that it is taking me hours to even find my pictures and then to upload (LOL)
*****Yes, my pictures that I uploaded were there...........just didn't know to look at the most recently added plants and photos................ooooh dementia is setting in quicker than I had hoped for in old age!!!!!!!!
I saw the 'Ma's Winter Moon' you added.....
Ma's Winter Moon (O.Robinson) [10/15/2004] (9394)
Double medium blue star/wide white edge, variable gray-green tips. Variegated light-medium green and white, heart shaped.
I just posted on the AV forum that I am frustrated trying to upload photos as I don't have them organized in any fashion. I upload one and then find a better one................so I am stopping until I get my pictures organized.......
thanks for info on 'Ma's Winter Moon'.................I have a disc now with all the information that I didn't have when I uploaded that one.............jannich gave it to me but I will enjoy it so much for now........then when it is time to have to update it, I will need to buy one. Do you know where she purchased this one??
Ask your computer tech to show you how to file your photos in a organized way. I store mine in one of two ways. In my documents, I have 'My Pictures' and save some of my photos there each with a label name. I also save photos in my Kodak Pictures as I have the Easy Share system. I always label my pics as to what they are. If I am taking several shots of the same thing, I add a number. Example: Ma'sWinterMoon1....then, Ma'sWinterMoon2, and so on. Sometimes I do things like Ma'sWinterMoon080307, giving me the date. Whatever seems right, works for you and makes them easy to retrieve later.
MASTER VARIETY LIST (MVL)
First Class 2 (CD ROM) is available from the AVSA. Member price is 27.50
Online updates (1 year) for members is 11.00
http://www.avsa.org/Store/Books.html#First%20Class%20MVL%20Program
On the back of the paper cover of the AVSA magazine is an order form also for those wanting to order FC2 by mail.
What a wealth of info you have just given me. I am a member of the AVSA now and get the magazine. I did find in trying to organize pics that I do have a place where I can tag them individually ..................think I will do it by the date. My memory is better about when a plant bloomed well. I would like to also divide them into different categories of the gesneriad family, tropicals, etc.
You made me remember that I have soooooo many pics in Kodak Share...........had forgotten about them.
I also just learned that streps, etc are in the plant files.............cannot wait to do this project........
Thanks again, SnowRose..........
I just was looking at Plant Files for streps myself thinking about uploading photos. Well, it seems the same problem exists with those as well as the violets. Someone has gone ahead wildly and filled in data. Again all wrong. Things like streps are hardy to 20F. I'll tell you, this is all toooo much. Whoever is doing this needs to stop.
Good luck uploading your strep photos but now everyone's going to think you entered all the crazy info. LOL!
No problem if you are adding a new plant and have a clean slate. At least for now....
I noticed in just uploading a few avs tonight that the choices given for bloom color and foliage are not in the plant files.
For example, here is the AVSA description of 'Rob's Cool Fruit': double white pansy/rose-pink edge, crown variegated medium green, white and yellow, pointed, serrated. Yellow isn't even a choice with respect to the color of foliage, etc. Rose-pink is also not a choice to choose from.
***********If one did nothing but repeat what the AVSA description is, we would have a great idea of what the plant looks and behaves like. I still don't understand why (and I did bring this up in the discussion) we are trying to reinvent the wheel. AVSA does a pretty good job of what they do with descriptions of these plants.
I became aware of these a couple of months ago but didn't dare say anything because I am too new to this family of plants. It was discussed for a long time on the av forum but only two people made the decisions as to what would or would not be included. (they were the only two people discussing it)
On Rob's Cool Fruit, I probably would pay no attention to the bloom color choices. Leave it alone. Better to leave things alone than choose incorrectly. Same with the foliage. IF one of the choices is completely correct for the plant you want to add to PlantFiles, then fine.
You could upload your picture if it is true to the description and write the MVL description. That would be very helpful and informative as well as any personal thoughts you may have about the plant...positive...negative....or whatever.
The AVSA does nothing more than list the hybridizer's description for his or her cultivar which is the only one that counts. It all goes back to that whether growing or showing.
Good luck and thanks for wanting to add photos of your lovely plants. I know it takes time and effort. When well done, it benefits everyone so much.
Even before I read your post I started just leaving everything blank except where it says,
'do you want to comment on the plant'. Then I just copy the description from the AVSA database and add anything personal I have learned in growing the plant.
I will go back to the older ones and do the same thing so that people can get an accurate description and habits of the plant. I just added 'Heartland's Lime Sherbert' and I have never had a plant that has bloomed on three separate occasions since May...........this is Aug 3!!!
Sounds great....thank you.
I've never grown 'Heartland's Lime Sherbet' . I'll have to try that one as I like Dale Martens and appreciate all she has done with gesneriads in general. I read somewhere lately that it is a nearly constant bloomer. I guess you will agree with that.
It's pretty late, so I'll take a look at some of this over the weekend. I haven't been poking around the AV entries in PF this summer, mostly because I have more time for adding things to PF over the winter, so I had no idea things had gotten into such a mess... but any way that we could systematically update and correct the entries would be great.
It's awful to hear that so many entries now have wildly inaccurate information in them. That's an inherent risk in the way that PF is set up, that somebody can run amok like that. I don't know if admin has any way of figuring out who (if it's just one person) has been inputting all the incorrect details so that they can put a stop to it somehow. (I swear, it's not me! LOL)
There seems to be another aspect to this thread, questioning why and how the AV pages in PF came to their current form. Here's the thread where a lot of different issues were discussed until a consensus was reached on the "new and improved" checkbox lists for AVs, http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/702006/
Yes, the information in PF is re-inventing the wheel, but only if we assume that everybody has access to a database like First Class. I do think one of the best ways to get good information into PF about a particular AV cultivar is to add its registered description as a comment, as people have suggested. However, I don't think there's any way to search the comment fields to find, for example, a list of standard AVs with variegated foliage... for that, you have to have the checkbox lists of characteristics.
The additional details that were added to the AV pages were taken from lists of characteristics used by AVSA, Optimara, First Class and also as suggested by a number of people in this forum. Hopefully, the registered descriptions translate into the terms on the checkbox lists (that was the intent). The suggestion that just two people made decisions about everything (leading to the current messed up state of things) gets me feeling a little defensive, but maybe I was just reading that wrong. At any rate, I think the point of this thread is more -- what can we do about correcting all these entries?
I know there were errors in a lot of entries before these changes, and some of what people have mentioned (like wrong pH info) might date back a ways. Terry explained why details in PF can't just be set across the board for a genus... go to this post http://davesgarden.com/forums/p.php?pid=3329447 and read down a couple of posts for her response. That's how errors on things like pH end up getting into the AV pages.
I have no idea how to go about fixing such wholesale chaos with as much incorrect information as has been described. Case by case error reports would surely drive admin 'round the bend. Is the situation severe enough to wipe out all the details on all the AV entries and start again? I assume there's a way to do that without deleting the cultivar name, photos, and comments that have been added. Maybe Terry will have some ideas on this... could somebody who's been looking at this please bring this thread to her attention?
I've wished before that PF had an option for changing or resetting details... but maybe having to put "error reports" through admin is the only thing that saves us from complete chaos?
Complete chaos it is....
For starters, my error report request for this morning to delete cultural details on the following 31 streps.
"For the following streptocarpus, please delete cultural details for the following cultivars as they are erroneous especially hardiness, spacing, and sun exposure. No images have been uploaded to these yet. "
Bristol's Sixth Scents
Bristol's Anteater
Bristol's Birthday Surprise
Bristol's Blue Bopper
Bristol's Doo Wop
Bristol's Fifth Element
Bristol's Fourth Dimension
Bristol's Goose Egg
Bristol's Gum Drop
Bristol's Hey Mei
Bristol's Hot Rod
Bristol's Hush Puppy
Bristol's Leopard Skin
Bristol's Mello Jello
Bristol's Nightfall
Bristol's Nose Print
Bristol's Party Girl
Bristol's Pucker Up
Bristol's Ravishing Ruby
Bristol's Rhubarb
Bristol's Ribbon Candy
Bristol's Seventh Heaven
Bristol's Smelly Cat
Bristol's Snake Bite
Bristol's Star Light
Bristol's Static Change
Bristol's Sunset
Bristol's Tie Dyed
Bristol's Tiger Lily
Bristol's Tractor Beam
Bristol's Very Berry
***************************************************************************************
Unfortunately, this is only the tip of the iceberg, but is a start. Wondering if this is all a complete waste of time as there are so many, perhaps most in african violets and streps.
I just thought maybe plant files just stuck the info in pre filled in?? I added a pic of my Bristols Tropical Twister the other day. All of the info had already been filled in by someone for it and all it needed was a pic so I added mine.I did add a note to that effect in my comment about the plant.I thought it was strange all the culture info was there but no picture.Never thought to check any of the other streps in plant files as I only have a couple.
I think if they could it would be best if houseplants did not include such options as hardiness and spacing. It leaves the door open for someone to either purposefully or innocently to make it a mess in the future. That being said I hope whomever is doing this did it innocently but strep's to 20F might suggest it was a little malicious.
I have added plants when I received leaves for them and didn't see them here but I dont add the info because I dont know enough about colours and such to categorize things correctly. I just add the name and any hybridizer info I know and bookmark it to add a pictures at a later date. I assume someone else will add the correct info at a later date but maybe this is the wrong way to do it. I think in the future it might be a good idea for anyone adding a new cultivar to try fill out all the info. It may mean some of us aren't comfortable adding new PF's but it could also stop the spread of misinformation by those who are filling out our entries.
It seems as if there was an all out blitz for someone filling out incorrect information in PlantFiles for violets and streps. May have been done sincerely but who cares. Feels more like sabotage at this point.
I'm hearing you westocast...
I think just anyone can fill out that information...being a subscriber or not. I honestly wouldn't think anyone in here would do it. Maybe that's just me being naive, though. However, I think the spacing and hardiness should remain on there (just have them corrected) for those who live in more tropical areas and can grow these in their yards (lucky them).
cedarnest - I saw that and knew you didn't add the false details. Nice photo btw ;)
cjolene - no, it's not anyone here now in this forum that has been posting lately. It was someone with a lot of time on their hands and didn't know what they were doing (giving them the benefit of the doubt).
Critter, I don't think it is fair to blame all this on Plantcrazii...............first of all, it was done in good faith and you were in the middle of it with Plantcrazii the whole way.................you just picked a thread where you were not in on it and you were with Plantcrazii.................I am not upset with you..............it needs to be fixed but we don't need to be passing blame on how it was set up. No one benefits from this blame game.
Snowrose,
I took a lot of overgrown and tired AVs and took off all but 4 leaves and let them start all over again. Look at Heartland's Lime Sherbert today. She is the only one blooming besides Shoshone..............
Am I wasting my time to be uploading photos now to the gesneriad family until the problems get worked out?????????????????????????????
Where did I say I was blaming anybody? Let's stay focused on how to get the AV & Strep pages fixed.
I think the new checkbox lists for the AV pages are a good thing. And I don't think that's the source of the current chaos, although having new headings for adding details may have created more opportunities to enter incorrect details. If this is being done maliciously, then there probably is a person to blame, and I hope they can be identified and blocked. But I sure don't think it's anybody on this forum!
I'm not sure, but I think there might be a way to "reset all details" for all of the Saintpaulia and Streptocarpus entries, hopefully without losing hybridizer info, photos, or comments. Those of you who are flipping through the PF pages... Is the problem widespread enough that it might have to be fixed by this brute force method? I guess we need Terry to tell us how many entries she can go through and reset individually before resorting to a different approach.
I was telling DH about this, and he says Wikipedia (the online encyclopedia which similarly depends on user input) has run into similar problems from time to time, with somebody inputting vast amounts of bad information. I wonder how they cleared the wrong information from their files?
Gail, I'd hold off for just just a bit on adding new photos. Even if there ends up being some wholesale resetting of details across the genus, I *think* that photos that have been uploaded will remain on the pages with no problem... but it might not be bad to wait until Terry or somebody in admin confirms this.
I am referring to the choices available for leaf descriptions and bloom colors, etc..................we were all there during that lengthy discussion................there isn't a yellow choice for foliage, example...................(just a small thing).................
My argument from the beginning is that all we needed for each african violet is the AVSA description and the person's familiarity with the cultivar being entered................
***********edited to say we were cross typing............i will hold up on more uploads.........thanks
This message was edited Aug 4, 2007 10:39 AM
Wow! This is not going to be something that is figured out quickly.
For starters, there are over 1700 Saintpaulia entries and 74 Streptocarpus entries. Are the errors present in the entries for both genera, or only the Streps?
What we really need, is for you all to tell us specifically which details are wrong in most of the entries, and give us some reputable resources for us to research. The details I'm referring to here are the "generic" ones that would be true for all the entries, ie: pH, spacing, hardiness, sun exposure, danger, propagation methods and seed saving.
Then, for the cultivar specific details, ie: color, height, bloom time, foliage, etc, is there a registry or something online for these? I know Iris, Hemerocallis, Hosta and a few others have a registry with this information.
To answer a few of your questions that I can remember from reading this thread, there is no information that is automatically filled in when an entry is added. It's all done manually by someone.
If we can start with figuring these things out, and you can give me reputable sites to verify them, I'm willing to take a good look at this. I've also alerted the other Admins tot his potential problem also, so we will all be taking a look at it. As far as getting the detail categories changed, let's look at this closely first. It may turn out that we don't need to do that.
good luck................all these decisions were made on the av forum............i watched them happen before my eyes..................a couple of people were very active in these decisions and they were approved by administration..................I think personally that administration thought the people discussing the changes knew what they were doing...............just my humble opinion.
i am not uploading anymore until it all gets worked out................SnowRose would be the most likely one to tell you exactly what is wrong.................it was discussed as to the pros and cons of just using the AVSA information and .........................that was knocked down at the time...............I well remember the discussion ..............it is all on past threads..............and takes place over a period of a couple of weeks.............
Can you give me links to those discussion threads?
"For starters, there are over 1700 Saintpaulia entries and 74 Streptocarpus entries. Are the errors present in the entries for both genera, or only the Streps?"
JoanJ - I sent you a dmail. As you know, I sent an error report on 31 Bristol's streps as they seemed the easiest to tackle for starters. No images had been uploaded on those yet. So, only 43 more streps to go through.
The 1,700 saintpaulias on the other hand is a different matter. I can start by at least correcting my own african violet PlantFile entries that someone added wrong info to. That in itself will take a lot of time and effort to do.
The African Violet Society's - Master Variety List - is not available on line. It is available from the AVSA on CD called First Class 2.
Much more I want to write to help clarify and solve the problems but will do so later as I am tired for now with it.
http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/702006/
this is a long thread but there were many after this................but this is what started the whole thing...........but no one listened to SnowRose....................read the whole thread but there were other threads after this also..............
I just read through that thread, and it looks like it was mostly about determining what the detail options should be. Unless I'm missing something, the available options isn't the problem, since it appears that was hashed over and done just this past March.
The problem is that some of the details are checked off incorrectly on most all of the entries, right?
Edited to add that I will be happy to look at any links that have factual information concerning the details in question that are common and consistent for all of these entries. pH, spacing, water needs, etc. Even though we all have our own opinions about things like this, we need to stay with published facts from reputable sources. Let's deal with that first.
Any of the entries that have errors unique to that entry, (bloom time, foliage options, bloom color, etc.) would be better handled through individual error reports that include links to references supporting the correction.
This message was edited Aug 4, 2007 1:04 PM
Right. I don't think the issue here is the new way the options have been set up (except that having new lists of details that hadn't been checked off yet created more opportunity for entering wrong info).
That's the same thread I linked to last night. By the end of that lengthy thread, we seemed to have reached a consensus on how to incorporate information in the registered descriptions into the PF pages. Let's not rehash that discussion now. I don't think that thread or the changes it led to started the problem of the sudden appearance of so much incorrect information in the PF entries for AVs.
Joan, how do we even start such a massive job of corrections? I'm willing to take a "block" of entries (maybe alphabetically) and go through them, adding descriptions from First Class (the AV database) if the description isn't already in the comments section and checking off details as appropriate... and I'm sure other folks here would be willing to take a sections of entries and do likewise... but we need some guidance so it's an organized effort.
How do we go about helping with the corrections? Is it better to send in error reports for what might be hundreds of incorrect entries, or are we talking about clearing all the details and re-entering them across the board? If the latter, is there a way to do that without affecting the photos and comments that have been uploaded for many of the entries?
Thanks for your input!!
Jill, see my post above yours. I edited it. :)
First of all, I'd like to determine for sure what the proper details are for the categories where the information would be consistent throughout all the entries. That way the admins won't have to research each and every error report for that information.
The information that is unique to the entry, foliage, bloom, etc. is best handled by individual error reports with links that verify the information to be corrected.
Once we have that figured out, you all can figure out how you want to get the errors to us. We like having them come as error reports, because then we have a link directly to the entry in question.
Joan, thanks, I'd missed that edit!
Some of those consistent details for all AVs are in the post I linked to above. We were trying to figure out if there was a way to set these details for all AVs rather than inputting them for each cultivar entry.
from "other details" and "pH requirements"
This plant is suitable for growing indoors
Average Water Needs; Water regularly; do not overwater
Suitable for growing in containers
pH 6.1 to 6.5 (mildly acidic)
We can certainly figure out a way to organize a review of PF entries and send error reports... I was just worried that this might be overwhelming if there are so very many messed up entries.
once again, the only pertinent information is the description that the AVSA uses and that is not possible with the 'fill in the blanks' or check boxes as listed.................
the way it is set up now means every checkbox is subjective.................AVSA is not subjective information to be determined by each individual who grows the plant
'Me thinks' there is a lot or rehashing to be done, Jill. I am certainly not the one to do it, but the plant files for Avs is not the way to do it either................very little thought was given to the subject.....................
For propagation information, what is "correct" depends on whether the plant is a named cultivar or a chimera.
These are the checkbox options under propagation:
May be propagated by seed
May be propagated by tissue culture
May be propagated by cuttings (leaf, sucker, or bloom stalk)
Chimera; may come true only from crown suckers or bloom stalk cuttings
Hybrid AVs can set fertile seeds, but they will not come true from seed, so I don't think this should be checked off for named cultivars (with the possible exception of some species strains?). Hybrid AVs will come true from vegetative cuttings and also from tissue culture (as far as I know... I'm not experienced with TC methods).
The 4th option is the only option that should be checked off for chimera varieties.
Is that the kind of general info you're looking for?
i am speaking of foliage colors left out and shapes of leaves, etc.................it is hard to take the description of a plant from AVSA and make it fit the given categories............
Example: Robs' Cool Fruit is: double white pansy/rose-pink edge, crown variegated medium green, white and yellow, pointed, serrated.
****edited to say I am through with this as I do not have the expertise and know that i don't. However, I do recognize a broken system when I see it.
Another example of simply posting what the AVSA says will cover the description:
'Golden Eye' is Semi miniature, double white star/yellow markings, variegated dark green, pink and white
This description cannot be accurately conveyed with the check boxes in place..........
This message was edited Aug 4, 2007 3:11 PM