Talk:Permaculture

Links

It seems that the permacultureglobal.com is out of date or even defunct. There are hardly any updates and there is also often a "Website is under maintenance". — Preceding unsigned comment added by ~2026-35690-86 (talk) 20:48, 19 June 2026 (UTC)

Major edits and tag July 2026

A large amount of content was removed July 29 and today, July 30 by User:PJ Geest; please, if you are going to remove 10s of thousands of bytes of content and tag the page, it would be helpful to make a post explaining why on the talk page.

As for the claim that the page "relies excessively on references to primary sources.", a quick review of the references shows about 50% primary / 50% secondary sources (I counted 35 and 35 of each, minus some duplicates). This isn't ideal - pages should rely mostly on secondary sources - but I don't know if that qualifies as "excessive".

ʊnƌer◙swamȹᵗᵅᵜᵏ 15:10, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

As explained in the diffs, I removed unreliable (mostly self-published) sources and sources which are not about permaculture (which is original research).

50% primary sources is excessive. The primary sources include books and articles written by the founders of permaculture, publications by prominent permaculture practitioners, materials produced by organisations affiliated with the permaculture movement, practitioner manuals and course materials, and first-hand descriptions of particular permaculture projects or practices. "Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources, and to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources and primary sources." (see WP:PSTS). 50% is not to a lesser extent. PJ Geest (talk) 15:29, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

Concerning following sentence: "Starting from a focus on land usage in Southern Australia, permaculture has since spread in scope to include other regions and other topics, such as appropriate technology and intentional community design."

This does not meet the criteria mentioned in WP:ABOUTSELF.

The statement does not satisfy the condition that self-published material must be neither unduly self-serving nor an exceptional claim. Holmgren is a co-founder and advocate of permaculture, so he has an interest in presenting permaculture as a broad and expanding field. The phrase “has since spread in scope” is also an interpretive conclusion about the historical development and significance of the movement, rather than a simple statement about Holmgren’s own views or activities.

It also does not satisfy the condition that the source must not be used for claims about events not directly related to the source. Holmgren can reliably describe his own ideas, intentions, and work, but the expansion of permaculture across different regions and into fields such as appropriate technology and intentional-community design is a broader historical development involving many other people and organisations. That claim should therefore be supported by an independent secondary source. PJ Geest (talk) 15:37, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

Also the source from robscott.net (A Critical Review of Permaculture in the United States) in the leads is a self-published paper hosted on the author’s own website, not a peer-reviewed publication. The paper states that it was rejected by four refereed journals. The source is not sufficiently strong for defining or broadly characterizing permaculture in the lead. The source is also only about the US, not about global permaculture. PJ Geest (talk) 15:59, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

All good points, but it would be very strange not to use Holmgren and Mollison reasonably extensively, as they largely founded and defined the concept: I almost called it a discipline as they are so central. The US, too, is undeniably important. We should definitely seek out more scholarly analysis, but starting out by excising the primary defining material is simply a mistake. The right approach is to add, extend, and balance, which is a complex task best attempted slowly. Chiswick Chap (talk) 17:26, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

Holmgren is not even a scientist and also Mollison has no peer reviewed articles about permaculture on his name. The work of Holmgren and Mollison can also be desribed via secondary sources. For example here a scientific source about the 12 principles of Holmgren: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13165-020-00281-8 PJ Geest (talk) 17:57, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

Holmgren did publish peer-reviewed articles, see for example . Jens Lallensack (talk) 18:13, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

The paper is conceptual rather than an empirical study of permaculture’s performance. It presents no experiment, field study, or quantitative evaluation of a permaculture system. Holmgren’s principal writings remain dominated by books, practitioner literature, essays, and conceptual contributions rather than empirical peer-reviewed research on permaculture systems. PJ Geest (talk) 18:25, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

I don't think that disqualifies him as a scientist. Anyways, WP policy merely demands a "subject matter expert" (not necessarily a scientist), and he clearly is. Regarding the other concerns, I agree in principle, but we used to have a section on "Marine permaculture" (e.g., the paper I linked above), and after your deletions the term is not even mentioned in the article anymore. Just because something is not optimal does not mean we should outright delete entire sections that are arguably important for the article. Instead we should try to improve them, or, if we can't or don't have the time, place respective maintenance templates. Jens Lallensack (talk) 18:59, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

The former marine permaculture section contained substantial problems with WP:SYNTH/WP:OR. Editors are not required to retain material that does not comply with Wikipedia’s content policies merely because the subject may be relevant or important.

I have no objection to a concise replacement based on reliable secondary sources that explicitly discuss marine permaculture. However, that does not mean the previous section, with its underlying sourcing and original research problems, should have remained in the article. PJ Geest (talk) 19:15, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

A person does not have to be a scientist or scholar to found a field; in this case, there is some claim to knowledge, and undoubted influence and source of ideas. Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:25, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

By the way, compliance with the core content policies is part of the Good Article criteria. Given the substantial problems that remained in the article, the adequacy of the original GA review can reasonably be questioned.

Influence and originality do not make that person’s own writings independent secondary sources, nor do they establish that the field’s broader claims are reliable.

The same would be true of the founders and leading proponents of scientific racism or social Darwinism: their writings are primary sources for describing their ideas and historical influence, but we would not rely on them to establish the validity, wider development, or effects of those ideas. Those claims require independent secondary scholarship.

Holmgren and Mollison can therefore be cited for what they proposed and how they defined permaculture, although reliable secondary sources are still preferable. However, their own writings should not be used to support broader claims about the movement’s spread, importance, applications, or demonstrated effectiveness. PJ Geest (talk) 19:38, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

I was referring to WP:PRESERVE, which I think was not always followed here. Whether or not the article should be delisted is a separate question. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 20:13, 30 July 2026 (UTC)