This goes for
new members that are posting topics, threads, or questions unrelated to the primary goal of this subforum:
Entropymancer wrote:I. What is the Collaborative Research Project?
The Goal
To collect information about obscure or less known plants and chemicals.
How It Works
There are a lot of obscure plants that we would like to have more information on (little-known ayahuasca additives, for example). That information can be found in a variety of sources (journal articles, botanical literature, herbarium collections, etc.), but has never been collected in one place before. The problem is that collecting all of this information is a big project for one person to undertake.
That's where you come in: Since we have so many active users on the forum, there's no need for just one person to take on the entire task. If a few dozen members can each spend a few minutes once or twice a week contributing to the project, we can generate a comprehensive collection of information on an obscure plant or chemiWcal very quickly.
Who Can Participate
Everyone! You don't need to be an expert or have access to special resources to help out. All you need is a little spare time, an internet connection, and the ability to copy-and-paste. We encourage all members, new and old, to consider spending a few minutes to help make the Nexus an even more valuable source of quality information.
How do I help?
Check the list of priorities (below) to see what plants and chemicals we're currently working on. Then just pick a topic and start searching for articles or other sources of information about the topic. Google Scholar or PubMed are good places to start; if you don't have access to the full text of the article, this service has been recommended as a way to gain access. For a more comprehensive list of resources, check out the Guide to Researching Psychoactive Plants: Resource List.
Once you've found an article (or other source) that mentions the topic you're researching, copy the important sections and paste them into a post in the appropriate thread (if a thread for your topic hasn't been created yet, feel free to start one). Be sure that you include a citation for the source of the information. To make this easier, there is a data entry template below that you can copy-paste into your post.
That's all there is to it! If you're interested in helping out, let us know what areas you would like to help out with. Don't worry, we won't harass you about contributing, we just want to have a general idea of how many members might participate in the project.
For new members, before you decide to post openly in this subforum, take some time to read through Entropymancers sticky and make sure in that what you're posting is primarily in the lines of what was quoted above. This helps keep things neater and cleaner within the forum (and makes less work in having to move around topics/threads where they should be). If what you're posting doesn't fall within these lines, then please keep this within the Welcome Area section of the forum.
Thank you, it's appreciated
- Moderator Team