Landrace.Wiki:Contributing

This page describes the main ways to contribute to Landrace.Wiki and the norms that guide all contributions.

If you are completely new to the wiki, read Landrace.Wiki:About first for an overview of the project, then come back here.

Overview

Landrace.Wiki depends on contributions from people with direct knowledge of landrace cannabis: field researchers, growers, preservationists, historians, and members of traditional farming communities. No single team can document global cannabis diversity alone.

There are several ways to contribute, ranging from quick edits to substantial field documentation. Pick whichever fits your knowledge and experience.

1. Document accessions and fields

This is the most valuable type of contribution. If you have real field data, seeds, or long-term observations of a landrace population, you can add it to the database.

What you need:

A location (at minimum the country, region, and growing area; GPS coordinates if possible)
A collection date or observation period
Basic context: who grows it, what it is used for, what it looks like
Photographs if you have them

How to do it:

Use the accession form linked from relevant field or region pages when available.
Fill out all Tier 1 fields if you can. See Help:Accessions for details on what each field means and what counts as Tier 1 versus Tier 2 documentation.
Link each accession to its field, appellation, and growing region. If those pages do not exist yet, you can create them or leave the links red and someone else will fill them in.
See Help:Regions and fields for guidance on creating and maintaining region, area, appellation, and field pages.

Coordinate safety: If exact GPS coordinates could put growers at risk, round to ±500m or provide only the village/area name. See the safety section below.

2. Submit grow and smoke reports

If you have grown a landrace variety or can describe its characteristics from direct experience:

Grow reports document cultivation experience: growing conditions, flowering time, plant structure, yield, any notable traits or difficulties.
Smoke reports document the characteristics and effects of landrace varieties you have encountered.

These reports are community contributions, not formal documentation. They appear on accession pages alongside the verified field data, clearly labelled as community content. Use the submission forms linked from the respective pages.

3. Improve existing pages

You do not need field data to contribute. Many pages need:

Copyediting – Fixing typos, improving clarity, cleaning up formatting
References – Adding citations for claims that currently lack sources, or replacing weak sources with stronger ones
Context – Expanding thin sections with historical, cultural, or botanical information you can source
Links – Connecting related pages that should cross-reference each other (accessions to fields, fields to growing areas, country pages to relevant accessions)

To edit a page, click the Edit tab at the top or the edit link next to a section heading. Write a short edit summary explaining what you changed, then click Save. If you are unfamiliar with wiki markup, see Help:Editing basics.

You can practice safely in Help:Sandbox or in your own personal sandbox at Special:MyPage/sandbox.

4. Add translations and local names

Traditional cannabis varieties have names in dozens of languages, many of them undocumented in English-language sources. If you know local names, traditional nomenclature, or regional terminology:

Add them to the relevant accession, appellation, or region pages
Include the original script where possible, with romanisation
Note the source (published reference, oral tradition, personal knowledge)

5. Report threats

If you are aware of eradication campaigns, habitat destruction, genetic contamination, or other threats to landrace populations:

Submit a news item through the news form for the Current Events feed
Include a source link (news article, government announcement, social media post) if one exists
Provide as much geographic detail as is safe to share

6. Technical contributions

If you are comfortable with MediaWiki, Semantic MediaWiki, Lua, CSS, or data modelling:

Template development and maintenance
Semantic property and query work
Module development (Scribunto/Lua)
CSS and design improvements
Bot scripting for data import or maintenance

See Landrace.Wiki:MediaWiki for an overview of the technical stack. Get in touch through the Zomia Collective if you want to help with infrastructure.

Norms and expectations

Scope

Landrace.Wiki documents traditional cannabis landrace varieties, their geographic origins, cultivation practices, cultural context, and conservation status. Content should be relevant to this scope.

We do not cover:

Modern commercial hybrids or breeding projects (unless they directly threaten or relate to landrace conservation)
Consumption guides, dosage recommendations, or medical advice
Legal advice

Tone and evidence

Write clearly and factually. Describe what you observed, what farmers reported, and what sources say. Avoid promotional language, superlatives, and unsupported claims.

Distinguish between:

Your own direct observations
Farmer or community oral history
Published sources (books, papers, government reports)

Add references where you make concrete claims about history, law, science, or conservation status. See Help:Sourcing for citation formatting.

Safety

Some content on this wiki could, if mishandled, put people at risk. This applies especially to:

Farmer identities – Use aliases or omit names unless the person has given explicit consent. Never publish a farmer's real name alongside illegal activity.
Exact locations – Round GPS coordinates by ±500m for active cultivation sites in prohibition countries. Provide village or area names rather than precise coordinates when in doubt.
Photographs – Do not publish photographs that show identifiable faces of people engaged in illegal cultivation without their consent. Crop or blur faces.

If you encounter content that you believe puts someone at risk, remove it and note the reason in the edit summary. If you are unsure, flag it on the talk page.

Respect

Respect the knowledge of farming communities. Traditional practices are not inferior to modern methods; they are the subject of this project.
Do not alter or delete content from other contributors without explanation. Use the talk page to discuss significant changes.
Disagreements about content should be resolved through evidence and discussion, not edit wars.

Editorial review

All contributions are subject to review. The editorial team may:

Correct formatting to match site standards
Request sources for unsupported claims
Adjust documentation tier classifications
Redact content that poses safety risks
Revert low-quality or off-topic additions

This is not censorship; it is quality control for a scientific documentation project. If your contribution is modified or reverted, check the edit summary and the talk page for an explanation.

Help & FAQ	Help contents · Directory · FAQ index
About Landrace.Wiki	About · Mission statement · How Landrace.Wiki works · Glossary
Readers' help	Help contents · Navigation and search · Readers' FAQ
Introductions to contributing	Contributing overview · Editing basics · Accessions help · Regions & fields · Sandbox
Norms and guidelines	Norms & expectations · Mission · Sourcing and citations · Media & safety
Getting help	FAQ index · Questions & help hub · Recent changes · Special pages