Tasks to be undertaken in Pl@ntUse

In this lockdown period, let us take advantage to realize things we had no time to do previously. Let us sort our photos, collaborate to Wikipedia and above all to Pl@ntUse. Pl@ntUse has great ambitions but limited manpower. Here are some useful tasks.

• See more on the French page

First priority for the English version

• Most species and genus pages are void. The task, if you have some knowledge of French, is to go to the French version, and copy and translate the existing information. Most links and filenames need no translation.

Uploading and formating books

• Sturtevant, 1919, Notes on edible plants : We have to add the notes, cut the pages according to botanical genera, find the accepted names and insert links or shorts notices in the species pages.

Mise en ligne de données en série

• Kubitzki, K. et al., The families and genera of vascular plants.
  • In the genus pages, add the author of the genus name and the date, the number of species and the exact reference to Kubitzki.

Illustrations

Old illustrations in Pl@ntUse come in fact from Wikimedia Commons. The work has to be done on this platform.

• See the page Iconography.
• Some image sets are already on line, but not categorized by botanical species, which makes them impossible to find. For example, Hortus Malabaricus or Descourtilz. The task is to identify them (which is quite easy) and categorize them. You can also create galleries with the images classified by their scientific name, and of course upload them to Pl@ntUse.

Autres idées

• If you have datasets about an author, a botanical genus or family, a use group, put them online.
• If you have a rare expertise in a language such as Chinese, Japanese, Persian, Sanscrit, Hindi, Tamil, a simple list of plant names will be wellcome.

If you feel reluctant with the Mediawiki software, no problem. I can help you step by step. By doing so, you will get out of the prevailing pessimism, and participate to the collaborative building of a tool useful to everybody. Don't hesitate, as you have time now!

Michel Chauvet
2 April 2020