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Worldwide Permaculture Network Database Update – Beta Testing!

I just want to express immense gratitude for the donations towards our upcoming Worldwide Permaculture Network database-slash-social-networking-site. At time of writing, the ChipIn widget on our sidebar is showing 36 contributors giving a combined total of $2,125. There have been a couple of others who’ve donated by other means as well. Our development costs are obviously significantly higher than this, but every bit helps….

The exciting thing is that if 36 or so people are willing to put their money where their mouth is (often the minority!) then there’s obviously a whole lot of other people out there looking forward to getting involved and helping make this a success, at the very least by making good use of the system to share what they’re doing so that people worldwide can get inspired by the potential, learn, and then start their own projects large or small — the main point of the system.

As per requests, we’ve already added the ability to show details for more than one PDC you’ve taken (some people are serial PDC-takers!), and we’re also about to implement an option to show your gender, and a "I’m single, looking for a permaculture partner" indicator for those who want to ensure their life partner is on the same wavelength. (As Geoff says, there is such a thing as a permaculture divorce…. and it seems to me that if we’re going to breed a new generation of people we’d do well to ensure they’re permies!) We’ve also added the ability for projects, if they’re of the ‘educational’ type, to list their courses. This is something I’d planned at the outset, but have now completed. We need permaculture educational centres popping up all over if we’re to extract ourselves from our present global trajectory.

We want to see people driving permaculture into the mainstream everywhere, and this system will be an important collection of tools to help bring this to pass — what some have termed a "game changer".

As an update — I’m now letting a few beta testers in to help us find any bugs and to make any other suggestions. We’ve stretched ourselves financially on developing this, so we want to launch it very soon and hope for your continued support for further developments you may wish to see included in revisions of the system.

Onwards!

9 Comments

  1. I am beta-testing as well. Craig has done an amazing job getting this up and running. Not only will it be a great example to outsiders looking for legitimacy, but also it will be a huge support network for those of us who feel like we are all alone when navigating through the general populace.

  2. We are beta testing the new Permaculture Social Network and it is fantastic! This is exactly what our movement needs to communicate how big and regenerative it has become. This has the potential to create a global tipping point for permaculture! I can’t wait to it to go real time!

  3. Great work Craig! Thanks for all the hard work mate. The site is great, nice and simple, easy to use. I see this, like rob above, as a big boost for the network, to give exposure to the collective that we are becoming. An international learning community, and a network of centres that I see operating as a living university. Keep it coming PRI!

  4. Lets get our full support behind WPN. Im testing the BETA version and I’m loving it. I travel a lot in my Permaculture work. I can’t wait until I can as a mainframe designer travel to a town or bio region and log in, findout who my local permaculture region specifc people are and get them on board my projects as local consultants.
    Full credit to Craig and the PRI Staff.

  5. Hi Peter – thanks!

    I think I have enough testers for the moment, although you could email me on editor (at) permaculturenews.org if you have developer and/or testing experience.

    After launch everyone will see a ‘feedback’ tab in the system, where ongoing feedback can take place. As we have finances, we’ll certainly seek to add to and improve the system based on permie-community feedback.

    Oh, I should mention here for the benefit of subscribers, that the recent $2000 leap in donations on our ChipIn widget for this new system was actually from someone using a rather unusual method for their partial payment for an upcoming internship at PRI’s Zaytuna Farm. To date we’ve received $2,371 for the Worldwide Permaculture Network database – not $4,371.

  6. I just “chipped in” on behalf of the Panya Project in Northern Thailand, and want to encourage others to do so. Even a small donation of $5, $10, $20, or $175,000 makes a big difference, especially if many of us do it.

    Thanks Craig and your whole team for what you do.

    Christian Shearer

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