Re: Iris encyclopedia - some questions
iris@hort.net
  • Subject: Re: Iris encyclopedia - some questions
  • From: R* P* <r*@embarqmail.com>
  • Date: Sun, 22 Jul 2012 15:37:11 -0400 (EDT)
Francelle; I have copied your post in red and will try to answer each question individually in **black**

Francelle wrote;
Hello, Robert,
I have been following this discussion from a position of vast ignorance. Computers and I are natural antagonists, but I find them essential anyway and use them as best I can. I did have an account on the Iris Register until I forgot to pay my dues on time. Now I can't find out how much they are or who to pay them to. 

**The Register is now a part of E-membership. The other part is a complete archive of the AIS Bulletins, and each new Bulletin as it comes out; You now access it by Joining AIS with an e-membership. This does not replace your print membership but provides you with these electronic services.**
 
Has this Encyclopedia taken the place of the Registrar?
**No. The Encyclopedia is a different type of database that includes images as well as additional information. The Register is uniquely designed to make certain types of searches easy and fast. The Encyclopedia will ultimately have much more but will always take longer to search and work in somewhat different ways.**

 I have some basic questions to ask.
How do I get back on the Iris Registrar? 
**You can join with as an e-member on the AIS website using Paypal or your credit card. The cost is $15 per year.**

How do I access the Iris Encyclopedia? **If you go to the main page of the AIS website (irises.org) you will see the bottom of the list on the left sidebar says Iris Encyclopedia just click on that.**

Should hybridizers send pictures of their new introductions to the Encyclopedia? 
**The Encyclopedia would hope this would happen but the AIS photo coordinator is also accepting images as part of the end of the registration process and they will make it to the Encyclopedia eventually.**

If so, who does one send them too? 
**You may e-mail them to me or any of the Encyclopedia volunteers who are willing to put them up. If possible we hope many people will be able to add their own images to make our work easier.**
 
What are the picture requirements, size, ect. ? 
**Images can be accepted in a larger size but they are reduced in file size (not actual paper size) before being put onto the Encyclopedia. The file size limit for uploading is 75KB.**

I am very interested in this project and would help out if I could, but as I indicated, I am both computer ignorant and phobic. I would appreciate answers to the above questions. 
Thank you in advance, 
**Presently about 380 people have been helping in some way. The tasks are enormous. One hope is that slides of old irises will get scanned before the slides degrade. The Foundation has provided a grant to have historic slides scanned so if you know of older members who have slides that are old as well it is urgent to get them digitally copied so that this information will not be lost.**


----- Original Message -----
Hello, Robert,
I have been following this discussion from a possition of vast ignorance.  Computers and I are natural antagonists, but I find them essential anyway and use them as best I can.  I did have an account on the Iris Register until I forgot to pay my dues on time.  Now I can't find out how much they are or who to pay them to.  Has this Encyclopedia taken the place of the Regestrar?  I have some basic questions to ask.
	How di I get back on the Iris Regestrar?
	How do I access the Iris Encyclopedia?
	Should hybridizers send pictures of their new introductions to the Encyclopedia?
	If so, who does one send them too?
	What are the picture requirements, size, ect. ?

I am very interested in this project and would help out if I could, but as I indicated, I am both computer ignorant and phobic.  I would appreciate answers to the above questions. 
Thank you in advance,
Francelle Edwards


-----Original Message--
From: owner-iris@hort.net [o*@hort.net] On Behalf Of Robert Pries
Sent: Friday, July 20, 2012 12:47 PM
To: iris@hort.net
Subject: Re: [iris] Iris encyclopedia - some suggested changes

Designing the structure of the Encyclopedia has been a challenge. It continues to evolve. The Historic Iris Preservation Society should be involved as a group deciding what would be the best way for its evolution to continue. So far HIPS has not to my knowledge produced a really workable classification system for Historic Irises. Maybe that is necessary, maybe not. But it would be crazy to duplicate every page that has an iris over 30 years old so that Historic Irises could be entered as new cultivar pages in the section that allows for new Cultivar pages. A more sensible approach is displaying lists in a way in which they may be used. This is a challenge to figure out the logic here.
Just as it would be crazy to create a category of Irises that says they are blue. Taking an attribute such as historic that would apply to 45,000 cultivars becomes non-sensible. But if one refines the topic such as all blue MDBs then a topic area and list makes more sense. Theoretically one could do a search at present for all irises of the years 1931, 1932, 1933, and 1934 and you might get a sensible list. But a search for all historic irises is just too large and rather useless. I have tried to create galleries for time periods under historic irises. As yet I have not developed the lists to go into these galleries let alone the images. There is just too little time and I am still working on getting the 1939 and 1949 Irises into the Encyclopedia. Presently the Iris Register has none of these. A few people in HIPS have been very helpful. But it is obvious that the organization has very little understanding of what is possible and how to go about it. And generally other than !
 those few who helped, others have been absent from laying the groundwork. The farther we progress the more work it would take to change basic structure. If you have concrete suggestions I am willing to listen. Presently the need you state is not clear enough for me to act upon. I am willing to brainstorm but I have not really heard something really good that I can understand and can justify the effort. I really would like to make you happy, but maybe it would help if you could explain in detail what you want and how people would use it. Then I can figure out how to make it workable.  Confused-Bob


----- Original Message -----
The point remains that entries for historic iris in the encyclopedia have to be manually edited to indicate their status as historic - this creates a tremendous amount of work that could easily have been avoided had the wiki been set up to allow more than one designation for a given entry (e.g. historic or rebloomer in addition to TB, IB, etc.). I also am not aware of any easy way to search for historics in the wiki.

Is it any wonder that HIPS has not been particularly enthusiastic about embracing the wiki, when their iris of interest are given second-class status?

Jean "not speaking for HIPS" Richter


On 7/20/2012 4:08 AM, Robert Pries wrote:
> Gesine you can already do this and I am working with Mike to get his pedigree charts there. You are just trying to do it in a way that does not work. I will explain later. Historic is a different type of classification than TB or IB. and is accomplished in other ways. The pedigree charts have been a particular interest and I have some ways to get them there but I am hoping to create some even better ways that would be more elegant in that they will display thumbnail images in the pedigree.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> Hi Robert Pries and all,
>
> OK, while you're thinking about changes to the Iris Encyclopedia, why 
> not figure out how to make it so you can have a cultivar in more than 
> one category?
>
> Four people have separately asked me about this -- that you can't put 
> an iris in as both e.g. "tall bearded" and as "historic", and pointed 
> out that this makes it a lot harder to look up historics on the encyclopedia.
>
> You could start with Mike Lowe's pedigree sheets, by just putting the 
> pages-as-is up, somewhere in the encyclopedia.
> http://www.worldiris.com/public_html/Dykes_peds/Coralie.html
>
> Gesine

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