Dear members, *This is one of the ways to move forward in future. * *May be some takes up such a task so that we are able to succeed in our dreams of documentation of all plant species of India.*
Reproducing from blog link <http://allthingsplants.com/blogs/view/greene/> by Carmelita (one of our members): *One good way to earn lots of acorns...and thumbs!**Posted on Dec 18, 2015 12:06 AM* For a while I have wondered how we can get more images into our database. Some plants have long lists of plant names with zero photos. Hmmm? Late at night if I can't sleep I wander through the database pages and pick random listings, then look on Google Images to see what the plant looks like. Once I decide which images are the best examples for our database, I copy the photographer's name and start researching the photographer. Chances are he or she will be a botanist, naturalist, plant collector, professional gardener or some such thing. One good place to view images for the more obscure plant images is on Wikimedia...that was not a typo. Nope, I did not mean to type Wikipedia; what you want to look at is Wikimedia Commons which is a free repository...well, here is a link and you can read about it. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page Okay, so let's walk through this: Look in the ATP database to find a plant that has no images. For example: I looked at Pergularia daemia. Then I looked at Google Images. (Please remember that Google Images shows lots of irrelevant images along with some correct ones.) Then I looked for Pergularia daemia at Wikimedia Commons found this page with an image by J M Garg of India. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pergularia_daemia_W_... <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pergularia_daemia_W_IMG_4208.jpg> Okay, who is J M Garg? Oh, he's a naturalist and an amateur photographer. And he's an important and active guy. He has a Wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jmgarg1 And a Flicker page: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jmgarg/ I researched more using "J M Garg" and "Pergularia daemia" as key words and found my way to a site called efloraofindia...(formerly indiantreepix). https://sites.google.com/site/efloraofindia/home They have a very active group on Google Groups and are documenting the flora of India. After reading about 1,000 posts I got bold and asked if I could join the group. Sure, the group is comprised of mostly highly educated botanists, students, naturalists, and the like but anyone can request to become a member of the group. Oh, what the heck. I applied for membership; what can they say but yes or no. Surprise, surprise. I was accepted!!! After being a member of the Google Group for a while (and helping to identify a few plants) I felt comfortable sending Mr J M Garg an email to explain about our ATP database and how nice it would be if our members could see his images in our database. Mr Garg gave me permission to use his personal images. In fact, he gives *everyone* permission: "The whole world uses my Image Resource of more than a thousand species & eight thousand images of Birds, Butterflies, Plants etc. (arranged alphabetically & place-wise). You can also use them for free as per Creative Commons license attached with each image." https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:J.M.Garg Thanks to J M Garg we now we have images of the Pergularia daemia in our ATP database! ................................................................. And that was just the beginning of my self-assigned task. Whenever I have free time, late at night or when it's raining, I keep busy adding images to the database. ******* Here is the good part. If you go into your garden and take a photo of, for example, a tulip, add it to the database along with all the other images of tulips you'll get one acorn. But if you can add a photo...the *first ever photo*...for a plant that has no images, you will earn *2 acorns*! Do this often enough and you will become rich with acorns. My original goal was to match photos to plant names in our database, but earning acorns is a big plus. Earning the acorns *two at a time* is twice as good. Receiving the thumbs up from other ATP members is just a bonus; like a pat on the back for a job well done... Even if I'm not the one who took the actual photos, I still managed to hunt down the plant and capture the images...sort of. Slowly, slowly I have been working my way through the images captured by J M Garg. I check each one first to be sure the image matches the plant in our database. Then I check to see if we need the image in our database. Oh sure, we can never have *too many images*, but my main goal was to add images for those lonely little, photo-less plants in our database, not to duplicate the efforts of other ATP members. ...................................................................................... -- With regards, J.M.Garg 'Creating awareness of Indian Flora & Fauna' <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jmgarg1> Winner of Wipro-NFS Sparrow Awards 2014 for efloraofindia <https://sites.google.com/site/efloraofindia/award-for-efloraofindia>. For identification, learning, discussion & documentation of Indian Flora, please visit/ join our Efloraofindia Google e-group <https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/indiantreepix> (largest in the world- more than 2500 members & 2,25,000 messages on 18.6.15) or Efloraofindia website <https://sites.google.com/site/efloraofindia/> (with a species database of more than 11,000 species & 2,00,000 images). The whole world uses my Image Resource <http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:J.M.Garg> of more than a thousand species & eight thousand images of Birds, Butterflies, Plants etc. (arranged alphabetically & place-wise). You can also use them for free as per Creative Commons license attached with each image. Also author of 'A Photoguide to the Birds of Kolkata & Common Birds of India'. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "efloraofindia" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/indiantreepix. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
