Policies
Effective date June 1, 2020

This policy discloses the privacy practices for orchidRoots. OrchidRoots strives to ensure the protection of your personal information through responsible practices. This privacy policy applies solely to information collected by this website, except where stated otherwise. It will notify you of the following:

  • What information we collect
  • With whom it is shared
  • How it can be corrected
  • How it is secured
  • How policy changes will be communicated
  • How to address concerns over misuse of personal data
Personal Information Collection

We are the sole owners of the information collected on this site. We only have access to/collect information that you voluntarily give us via account registration. When you register for an account in OrchidRoots, you voluntarily give us your name, country, email address, preferences, website, and any other information.

You may also choose to share with us and other users orchid photos, in which case, we may collect the url of photos you share. Additionally, We plan to collect location data from mobile devices when someone login and upload photos from the device. This information will allow us to track the distribution of orchidspecies grown in the wild. We will use this information within orchidroots and will not share them with any external parties.

Use of Your Personal Information

We use your personal information to appropriately process your requests and present you with the information from OrchidRoots you need. We also use information you provide voluntarily in order to make your visits on our site possible. This information might, at a later time, allow us to add customized elements to our site or to plan its content more appropriately, based on user interests.

Share Your Personal Information

We will not, in any circumstances, share your personal information with other individuals or organizations without your permission, including public organizations, corporations or individuals, except when applicable by law. We do not sell, communicate or divulge your information to any mailing lists. The only exception is if the law or a court order compels us to. We will share your information with government agencies if they need or request it.

Your Access to and Control Over Information

You may opt out of any future contacts from us at any time or express any concern you have about our use of your data by contacting us via the email address or phone number provided on our website: You may change/correct any data we have about you by logging in to Orchdroot website and select updateprofile.

Securities

We use a component of your browser called cookie to recognize your computer. Cookies are small data files that are saved on your hard drive when you visit websites. These files make browsing the sites easier. We do not and cannot use cookies to retrieve your personal information from your computer. The information collected is instead used for statistical purposes, among others to compute the number of visitors and find out which pages are the most visited. If you configure your browser to warn you before accepting cookies, a prompt will pop-up each time a site asks for permission to save a cookie on your computer. You can refuse cookies by configuring your browser to reject them.

Storage and Safety of Your Personal Information

We store your data in our own database and apply appropriate security measures at both database server and the database itself to preserve the confidentiality of your information. OrchidRoots uses software to monitor traffic to the website in order to detect unauthorized attempts to download or change information, or to otherwise damage the site. This software receives and records the IP address of the computer used by the person visiting our website, the date and time of the visit and the pages viewed. However, we do not attempt to make the connection between these addresses and the identities of the individuals who visit our site, unless an intrusion or disruption attempt is detected. In which case, intruding IP addresses will be blocked from entering our website.

Legal Protection

All personal information you supply is protected according to the federal government Privacy Act. This means that you are entitled to know when the information is collected and to be informed of the purpose of such collection, but also to access said information. We are legally bound to save all personal information you provide for at least two years after their use so that you may reasonably access them. After that time, your personal information will be destroyed.

Access to and Viewing of Your Personal Information

You can, at any time, access the personal information by logging on to OrchidRoots and click on "Update Profile". You may also ask us to delete your information. To do so, or if you have any questions or comments regarding this policy, please contact us.

To learn more about the protection of your personal information on the Web, please visit the Commission d’accès à l’information du Québec and Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada websites.

Terms and Conditions Agreement

Terms and Conditions Agreement

Welcome to our website! By accessing and using our website, you agree to comply with the following terms and conditions:
  • Content Usage: All content, including photographs, available on this website is protected by intellectual property laws. Any use of the content must be accompanied by a link to our website and include the name of the photograph owner. This requirement applies to both commercial and non-commercial use.
  • Copyright and Ownership: The content on this website, including photographs, is owned by their respective owners. Unauthorized use or reproduction of the content is strictly prohibited.
  • Limited License: We grant you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable license to access and use the content on this website for personal and non-commercial purposes only. This license does not permit you to modify, distribute, or exploit the content for any other purpose without prior written consent from us or the respective content owners.
  • User Obligations: When using our website, you agree not to engage in any activities that may infringe upon the rights of others or violate any applicable laws. You are solely responsible for your use of the content and shall indemnify us against any claims arising from your unauthorized use.
  • Links to Third-Party Websites: Our website may contain links to third-party websites. These links are provided for your convenience and do not signify our endorsement of the content on those websites. We are not responsible for the content or practices of any linked third-party websites.
  • Disclaimer of Warranties: While we strive to provide accurate and up-to-date information on our website, we make no representations or warranties of any kind, express or implied, regarding the accuracy, completeness, reliability, or suitability of the content. Your use of the content is at your own risk.
  • Limitation of Liability: In no event shall we be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, consequential, or punitive damages arising out of your use of the content or inability to access the website, even if we have been advised of the possibility of such damages.
  • Modifications to Terms of Use: We reserve the right to modify or update these Terms of Use at any time without prior notice. It is your responsibility to review the terms periodically for any changes.
  • By continuing to use our website, you acknowledge and agree to be bound by these Terms of Use. If you do not agree with any part of these terms, please refrain from using our website.

Account Termination

  • Termination by you: You can terminate your account at anytime by submitting termination request to OrchidRoots. Such termination will result in the deactivation of your account and access to it, and the deletion of content you collected through the use of hte website.
  • Termination by OrchidRoots: OrchidRoots may, without prior notice, terminate, limit your access or suspend your account. Causes of such termination, limitation of access or suspension shall include, but not limited to,
    • Breaches or violations of the Terms of Services or other incorporated agreement or guidelines.
    • Discontinuance or modification of OrchidRoots website
    • Extended period of inactivity
    • Engagement by you in fraudulent or illegal activities including posting copyrighted content that does not belong to you
    Further you agree that all terminations, limitations of access and suspensions for cause shall be made in OrchidRoots' sole discretion and that OrchidRoots shall not be liable to you or any third party for any termination of yiur account or access to OrchidRoots services. Termination of OrchidRoots account includes any or all of the following
    • Removal of access to all or part of OrchidRoots services
    • Deletion of your account and all photos submitted in your name.
    • Barring of future use of all or part of OrchidRoots services

Account Termination

  • Termination by you: You can terminate your account at anytime by submitting termination request to OrchidRoots. Such termination will result in the deactivation of your account and access to it, and the deletion of content you collected through the use of hte website.
  • Termination by OrchidRoots: OrchidRoots may, without prior notice, terminate, limit your access or suspend your account. Causes of such termination, limitation of access or suspension shall include, but not limited to,
    • Breaches or violations of the Terms of Services or other incorporated agreement or guidelines.
    • Discontinuance or modification of OrchidRoots website
    • Extended period of inactivity
    • Engagement by you in fraudulent or illegal activities including posting copyrighted content that does not belong to you
    Further you agree that all terminations, limitations of access and suspensions for cause shall be made in OrchidRoots' sole discretion and that OrchidRoots shall not be liable to you or any third party for any termination of yiur account or access to OrchidRoots services. Termination of OrchidRoots account includes any or all of the following
    • Removal of access to all or part of OrchidRoots services
    • Deletion of your account and all photos submitted in your name.
    • Barring of future use of all or part of OrchidRoots services

Instruction

Guidelines for Photo Upload
Upload from a Webpage
  • You must be the owner of the photo you wish to upload.
  • Make sure you have the correct identity of hte the orchid in the photo
  • Search for the orchid in OrchidRoots and navigate to its detail page
  • Click on the "Access Area" button in the upper left hand corner of the page and select "My Photo Page"
  • Click on "Upload local file" button to start an uppload form
  • Select the author name from the dropdown menu. If your name does not exist, cancel upload and notify admin to register asd a donor.
  • Click on "Choose File" button and select the image file you wish to upload
  • Fill in the rest of the form as appropriate
  • Add your comment. At the end of hte comment, enter the name of the author of the comment, or you own name if the comment is made by you.
  • Click "Save" button to upload, or the "Cancel" link to discard and go back to Identification page.
Upload a File
  • You must be the owner of the photo you wish to upload.
  • Make sure you have the correct identity of hte the orchid in the photo
  • Search for the orchid in OrchidRoots and navigate to its detail page
  • Click on the "Access Area" button in the upper left hand corner of the page and select "My Photo Page"
  • Click on "Upload from Web" button to start an uppload form
  • Select the author name from the dropdown menu. If your name does not exist, cancel upload and notify admin to register asd a donor.
  • Right click on the image of the web page you are uploading from and select "copy image address" (chrome) and paste the address to the "Image URL" box in the form
  • Copy the address of the webpage you are uploading from and paste it to the "Link to source" texzt area.
  • Fill in the rest of the form as appropriate
  • Add your comment. Enter the name of the author of the comment, or you name if the comment is made by you.
  • Click "Save" button to upload, or the "Cancel" link to discard and go back to Identification page.
  • Must be correctly identified
  • Public photos are chosen based on the quality of the photo. What considered good photography:
    • In focus, good Lighting and brightnerss and natural color
    • Easch photo should showcase the unique character of the orchid. E.g. flower, florescences, closeup of parts, leaf, plant or habitat.
    • The photo should be void of added text such as orchid name or date. If you must add copyright credit, it should be in small font placed in the lower right corner.
    • Plain Simple background, preferable solid dark color.
    Photos following these guidelines will be chosen for public display over those that are not.
Maintenance
  • Data Sources
    • Catalog of Life: get supra generic records. Process 100% manual.
    • BCR: Bromeliaceae hybrids. Process is 40% manual.
    • WCSP: Process 30% manual
    • RHS: 20% manual
    • IPNI: infra gneric data
    • IOSPE: Orchidaceae culture and infra generic
  • Cron Tasks
    • 5 minutes: Generate images for new upload from web
    • 5 minutes: Sync new accounts to photographer
    • 5 minutes: Update ancestor descendant relation
    • daily: refresh genus / species images stat
    • daily: refresh anc/desc count for genus
  • Daily Tasks
    • Approve uploade photos
    • Monitor Upload traffic and file growth in digital ocean
    • Monitor comments
    • Monitor new accounts and create profile, photographer
  • Weekly Tasks
    • Data integrity: Various SQL scripts
    • monitor total file and directory size
    • monitor historical update (approve, reject, reidentify, delete)
  • Monthly Tasks
    • Update WCSP: monthly
    • Update RHS: Monthly
    • Run python manage.py clearsessions once a month to truncate django sessions
  • Yearly task
    • RHS Changes: Yearly (100% manual)
    • IPNI: yearly
    • Update GenusRelation (yearly or each time a new genus is created)
    • Update Taxonomy (yearly or each time there is a change in Genus related to subfamily/tribe/subtribe)
    • WCSP: Update Distribution code (yearly)
    • Clean up django migrations
  • TODO
    • Scripts to compute stats and store in a new database (in core app)
merged into PWOW in 2022

WCSP Refresh

    Data Processing
  • Acquire data from WCSP
    • Run Kew/requestKewby year.pl
    • Process and upload Genus change
    • Process and upload Newspecies
    • Process and upload New Distribution
    • Process and upload Intraspe/infraspr changes
    • Process and upload Change_Status
  • Update Hybrid parents id (KEW post processing - update hybrid parent pid.sql)
    • If seed or pollen parents are now a synonym, update Hybrid set seed_id = new accepted id, pollen_id = new accepted id
  • Update AncestorDescendant.
    • Check if any aid in AncestorDescendant records aare now a synonym (KEW Remove duplicate.sql)
    • Remove thjese records and run updateancdesc.pl
  • Check for duplicate species with existing IPNI or other sources (KEW Remove duplicates.sql)
    Post Processing
  • Reports:
    • Report new genera
    • Report new species
    • Report update rank from synopnym to accepted
    • Report update rank from accepted to synonym
  • Check consistency (KEW post processing - check missing synonym.sql)
    • Check Species records where status = synonym but no record in Synonym
    • Check Species records where status != synonym but no record in Accepted
TBD
TBD
TBD

IOA Update

    Source
  • Code Page: 65001 (UTF-8)
  • Format: Delimited
  • Text Qualifier: "
  • Head Row Delim: {CR}{LF}
  • Row Delim: {LF}
  • Column Delim: ,
  • Column names are in the first data row
  • The structure of the International Odontoglossum Alliance registration files will be as follows.
    • RegistrationID int NULL,
    • SeedGenus nvarchar(50) NOT NULL,
    • SeedGenusName nvarchar(50) NOT NULL,
    • SeedGrexEpithet nvarchar(255) NOT NULL,
    • PollenGenus nvarchar(50) NOT NULL,
    • PollenGenusName nvarchar(50) NOT NULL,
    • PollenGrexEpithet nvarchar(255) NOT NULL,
    • GrexGenus nvarchar(50) NOT NULL,
    • GrexGenusName nvarchar(100) NOT NULL,
    • GrexEpithet nvarchar(255) NOT NULL,
    • ApplicantTitle nvarchar(10) NULL,
    • ApplicantFirstName nvarchar(50) NOT NULL,
    • ApplicantSecondName nvarchar(50) NOT NULL,
    • ApplicantCompanyName nvarchar(255) NULL,
    • OriginatorFirstName nvarchar(50) NOT NULL,
    • OriginatorLastName nvarchar(50) NOT NULL,
    • DateRegistered date NULL,
    • RegistrationSource varchar(3) NOT NULL
  • The IOA will only publish with a RegistrationSource of 'IOA', this seperates the IOA data from other registration sources (e.g. RHS).
  • The IOA will publish data with the file name convention of Wikiregistration_yyyyMMdd.csv to indicate the year month and day the file was published.
  • Contact is robert.a.culver@gmail.com
    Procedures
  • Place csv file delivered from IOA in /IOA/data/input directory
  • Run the perl script: "perl processIOA.py
  • Load the oputput (data/output/ioa_out.csv) to Species and Hybrid
Release Notes
OrchidRoots Corp was dissolved as a Maryland nonprofit organization in April 2022. All activities were transfered to a new nonprofit organization incorporated in North Carolina. The new organization has expanded its missition to cover selected plant and animal species and hybrid. Detailed release note for Bluenanta v.1 TBD.
User Accounts
  • Authentication: User must sign in with unique user id and email. A confirmation email will be sent after a successful registration or after an email change request.
  • Password reset: User can reset password
  • Change email: User can change and revalidate email
  • Socialmedia login: User can login with active Facebook account.

Search and Lists
The dropdown list of genera, species and hybrids were removed from navbar at the top of eveery page. These lists are moved to a new page "Advanced Search". The move is necessary to improve page load speed. The new Advanced Search view provides several options to make it navigate the site. you can select a specific species or hybrid and go directly to its detail page,

Three Access levels
  • Basic view: Anonymous Users can access public pages, search, browse images and detail pages.
  • Private view: Registered Users can access all features in the basic level including ability to upload and manage their own photos in their private album. Registered users can also view filtered lists of species and hybrids.
  • Curate view: Registered Curators can access all features in the private level including the ability to approve or reject private photos. Curators can also reidentify a miss-identified photo and update information related to a species of hybrid.

Detail Page
  • Summary tab: This page shows a short selection of public photos that best represents the defining characteristics of the orchid. The page includes a summary of taxonomy, and other information related to the orchid. Photos of parents and species ancestors are also shown for hybrid.
  • Photo tab: This view combines public and private photos, where private photos are visible to their owner only. This simplifies navigation and allows users to view all public and private photos in the same page. A number of control buttons in this view allow registered users to select species or hybrid containing their photos. Registered curators will see a different sets of control buttons that allow them to manage photos such as approving, setting status, or reidentifing.
  • Compare tab: Allow users to compare two species side by side and create a new hybrid if the cross between the two orchids does not exist in OrchidRoots.

Donate function
We have registered for a donate function on Paypal to make it convenient for users to help with our cause. Please consider making a donation today... thank you!
Public vs Private Photos
Uploaded photos are either public or private
  • Public photos are visible to all users. No login required. Private photos are visible to their owner.
  • Uploaded photos will remain private until they are approved by a curator. Once approved, they will be displayed in public view.
  • Photo owners have an option to keep their photos private
Three Access levels
  • Basic view: Anonymous Users can access public pages, search, browse images and detail pages.
  • Private view: Registered Users can access all features in the basic level including ability to upload and manage their own photos in their private album. Registered users can also view filtered lists of species and hybrids.
  • Curate view: Registered Curators can access all features in the private level including the ability to approve or reject private photos. Curators can also reidentify a miss-identified photo and update information related to a species of hybrid.
Improved Navigation
  • Home page: A number of random images that will jump directly to the detail page of the species or hybrids in the photo. Useful for new users who just want to browse around.
  • Dropdown lists of genus, species and hybrids are now available in the navigation bar. From anywhere in the website, it is easy to find a species or hybrid and go directly to ites detail page using these dropdown lists.
User Private Album
User's private album shows all photos belonging users. To access private album, select "Private" button on the top of the page. There are 5 different tabs in private album.
  • My collection tab: This tab contains random samples of each and every species/hybrid that has at least one photo submitted by the user
  • Detail tab: Shows all photos of a species/hybrid submitted by the user. Approved photos for public display are on the first half of the page. Photos not approved are at the bottom half. We try to keep list short but large enough to cover all aspects of the orchid. Guidelines for photos acceptance will be available soon (?probably?)
  • Private Photos: These photos were not approved for public access due to a number of factors, such as the quality of photo, incorrect or doubful identity, or there are already many photos submitted for the species. Photos can be approved pending for approval and photos uploaded by users.
    This tab shows
    • The list of all species and hybrids on the right hand side of hte page. The user has one or more photos in each orchid in hte list. Through thi slist, user can access all of his/her photos in OrchidRoots
    • Upload local file button: Let user upload photos from phone or desktop.
    • Upload from web button: Let user upload photos from internet, including BlueNanta Group in Facebook
Development stage
Public inspection requirements
"Tax-exempt organizations must make annual returns and exemption applications filed with the IRS available for public inspection and copying upon request..." [The IRS].
To conform with this reqirement, all relevant forms and publications are posted below.