>> I so admire your patience with us all...

oops! I guess I am guilty of using the " mark instead of spelling it out. Sorry!!

In my own lists of seeds, I started out using double-quotes around cultivar names, not knowing any better.

When I wanted to go back later and change all double-quotes to single quotes, of course plant heights in "inches" changed to 'feet'. But there are no 36-foot zinnias!

Well, maybe on the Space Station or Moon they would grow to 36 feet if given a long enough summer season. But we'll have to add a "low gravity tolerant" field to the data base to handle that.

Weedwhacker said:I so admire your patience with us all...

So we should be diligent eradicating/rectifying entries that use abbr. for measurement and instead use descriptive words (inches/feet) if so correcting?
In the daffodil/narcissus DB " (the abbr. for inches) is part of the accepted nomenclature used by (maybe dictated by) ADS and RHS. This is inevitably encountered when visiting their db's.
Flower size is sometimes noted as " (instead of inches). Official flower size description is termed dwarf (... to 12.8 in.) standard (12.8 in. to 26.6"), etc..(more abbr. use).
Recent example using other than 'inches/feet) - daffodil Karma, under ADS comments (where they enter their descriptions of the plant entity) - 'Fl. 107 mm wide'.
Heretofore, I think one habit I used when making specific cultivar entries was to convert some of the metric measurements, like mm, into our designations (but wrote out w/ our equivalent abbr. instead of longhand, possibly compounding the problem)

Any advice on where my focus should be for any future entries or should I continue practices noted concerning entry designation above.

I chose 10 Narcissus entries at random to review. Only one had any information on the "Plant height" line of the "General Plant Information" section, and it was correctly entered as "5 to 6 inches," so I didn't see any big problem there.

In the "Data Specific to Daffodils" section, you're using double quotes to signify inches, but as long as you're consistent in the use of these only in the daffodil-specific portion of the data form, I don't foresee any problems.

Thank you.

Thank you for this, Zuzu, as well as your patience. I've been here less than a week, and I've already made a lot of mistakes, but with your help, I'm learning.

Welcome to ATP!

Thanks for contributing to the plant database, especially the photos!



Making mistakes and learning from them - you sound like an experienced, successful gardener.

Thank you, Rick! I have been at it a very long time, but there is always much more to learn. I'm having fun contributing to the database and getting my acorns.

>> always much more to learn.

Amen!

I'm so sorry I didn't find this thread, sooner. @Zuzu , thank you, again, for your patience with me when I was making some of these mistakes while updating entries a month ago. I wonder if, in the future, we will come up with a means of eradicating these inconsistencies and mistakes from the get-go.

I know some of us in the beta seed swap noticed a distinct need for uniform naming conventions...it makes me wonder if there could eventually be a drop-down option box (with suggested text as you type) that chooses family/genus/species...whichever...and creates the name using a designated format. (Example. ...if you start to type tomato, it suggests 'lycopersicon' ...you select it and put the cultivar name in the next box and the system arranges the name for display appropriately.)

As for the inches thing, maybe someday we will have automatic measurement converters built in. That way, users can select "inches", put "12" in the first text box and "24" in the next textbox, and the system would know that it's "12 to 24 inches" and could even convert it to metrics for our metric-using friends who would select "show measurements in metrics" in a settings panel. (I hope someday the US switches to metrics...it'll be a challenging time for me, but it's time we joined the rest of the world. ...except with temperatures. ...Celsius isn't accurate enough, IMHO).

I wish there was a way to 'favorite' this thread so that I remember it's here more than just when it receives a new response.

@zuzu - have you written an article with these suggestions/reminders? ...or considered wiring one so that it is consolidated in one place, visible to more people, and people can easily star it?

DogsNDaylilies said:I wish there was a way to 'favorite' this thread so that I remember it's here more than just when it receives a new response.

That's what the star is for.

At the beginning of ATP when first entering data into the Plant Database, I listed the height and spread information as 12", 24", 36" etc. and feet as 2', 4', 6' etc. but I thing I remember a moderator telling me that it should actually be typed out as 12 inches, 24 inches, 36 inches; 2feet, 4 feet, 6 feet, etc. I have come across a few database entries at times where members have used the metric system. It would be nice if all entries were consistent.

Horntoad said:

That's what the star is for.

Oh my goodness, when was that added? I have been so out of the loop!
for setting me straight there.

DnD - you may already know this, but to find the items you've "starred," look on your profile page; in the "some info about..." there's an entry for starred pages, just click on the number.
(I think it's always been there -- or at least for a long time)

Weedwhacker said:DnD - you may already know this, but to find the items you've "starred," look on your profile page; in the "some info about..." there's an entry for starred pages, just click on the number.
(I think it's always been there -- or at least for a long time)

True, but I think stars were previously only available for articles, if I recall correctly. I think they are a relatively new thing to individual posts.

Maybe so -- I confess I don't use that feature all that often