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--- foragemarkuplanguage [2010-09-09 19:27] – 86.95.48.238
+++ foragemarkuplanguage [2010-09-10 10:19] – 86.95.48.238
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 ====Forage Mark-Up Language====
-There are so many edible city/urban forage projects mushrooming all over the place, as the latest fad for artists, environmentalists and culinary types, I notice a certain perpeptual reinvention of the wheel. All that data on where to find edible foodstuffs is locked-up in different formats usable only for that specific project. There is no technical reason why local data collected in Utrecht ([[http://plukdestad.nl/]]) or Amsterdam ([[http://urbanedibles.blogspot.com/]]) can't be dropped on worldwide maps ([[http://www.foodspotting.com/]] and [[http://forage.rs/]]) or why old/dead projects can be imported as an initial dataset for a new project. It makes sense for local communities to maintain their own applications limited to a few streets or a neighbourhood. In fact territories as large as Utrecht (a medium sized city) already seem much too big to faithfully map. Foraging takes time, knowledge and heightened awareness, it can't be done haphazardly. It makes sense to harvest local data to connect it with other data. A little active consideration on how to make this data shareable would do us all good. Perhaps, instead of kickstarting the same thing thousand times for a thousand little projects the edible city community could organize itself modularly.
+At the moment I see many edible city/urban forage projects forming as the latest fad for artists, environmentalists and culinary types, but I notice a certain perpetual reinvention of the wheel. Each projects starts from scratch finding its own solutions. There is no technical reason why local data collected in Utrecht ([[http://plukdestad.nl/]] in preperation) or Amsterdam ([[http://urbanedibles.blogspot.com/]]) can't be dropped on worldwide maps ([[http://www.foodspotting.com/]] and [[http://forage.rs/]]) or why old/dead projects can be imported as an initial dataset for a new project ([[http://libarynth.org/augmented_foraging]]). It would be entirely in the spirit of such projects to share data, however all data is locked-up in different formats usable only by the project that generated it. A little active consideration on how to make this data shareable would do us all good. Perhaps, instead of kickstarting the same thing thousand times for a thousand little projects the edible city community could organize itself modularly.
-What we need is a uniform way of storing data that could be easily translated to other formats (KML/google map applications especially). I hear people talk about recording where what species can be found, adding to this layers  of information like the most likely time to harvest, what parts can be used and what parts not, recipes, medical uses, but also known problems with pollution and/or ownership in a given erea. Some of these things should be included, some of these things belong elsewhere.
+Foraging takes time, knowledge and a detailed understanding of an environment, it can't be done haphazardly. It makes sense for local communities to maintain their own applications limited to a few streets, a neighbourhood or a cryptoforest. In fact territories as large as Utrecht (a medium sized city) are already much too big to exhaustively document all its edible plants. But this is why the search and documentation is open to all you will say but if open source teaches anything it is the fact that a 'community of users' will not form around an empty product. The data must be rich to be meaningful and it must be meaningful for others to contribute, critical mass needs a lot of pre-input.
+What is needed is a uniform way to share data. Different projects have different needs and objectives but we can all agree that plant name (latin and vernacular), location (gps coordinates) and time of observation are key, the name of the observer and a description field are useful. Other interesting factoids like taxonomic data, the most likely time to harvest, what parts can be used and what parts not, recipes, medical uses, but also known problems with pollution and/or ownership in a given area could all be generated from this data from other databases.
 what follows probably already exists elsewhere but, just thinking aloud for my own fun, here are some notes on a quasi-RSS for foraging: FML: Forage Mark-Up Language:
-The first part (the channel tag in RSS) tells who is providing the data:
+The first part (the channel tag in RSS) tells who is providing the data and also a bounding box, this can tell parsers to ignore or include a file because its locations are outside of what it is looking for:
   <name>libarynth cookery department</name>
   <link>http://libarynth.org/</link>
   <description>the plants in this list have been checked several times</description>
+  <location>
+      <longitude:top>39.55375305703105</longitude>
+      <latitude:top>-118.9813220168456</latitude>
+      <longitude:bottom>35.55375305703105</longitude>
+      <latitude:bottom>-115.9813220168456</latitude>
   <language>NL</language>
   <pubDate>Wed, 25 Aug 2010 07:33:42 GMT</pubDate>
@@ Line 26: / Line 33: @@
     <location>
       <longitude>39.55375305703105</longitude>
       <latitude>-118.9813220168456</latitude>
-      <altitude>1223</altitude>
   </location>
-  <type>tree</type>
-  <use>
-      <edible>yes</edible>
-      <medicinal>not known<medicinal>
-      <fruit>nut</fruit>
-      <poisonous>no</poisonous>
-      <other></other>
-  </use>
   <picture></picture>
   <observation_date>Tue, 22 Jun 2010</observation_date>
@@ Line 43: / Line 41: @@
   </item>
+The plant tag collects names for the plant, the botanical name and the vernacular. The location tag is lifted straight from KML.
+Surely there are better ways to do it. IF AT ALL: should newcomers/outsiders be allowed to plunder the limited resources of a local community? Or publicize the existence of such resources?
-The plant tag collects names for the plant, the latin is the botanical name, the others are 'normal' names. The location tag is lifted straight from KML. The use-tag collects properties about the plant/tree being tagged that might be useful for parsing. Some other relevant information like date of last observation ends it.
-Just raving; there surely must be better ways to do it. IF AT ALL.