Appropedia:Content Initiatives/Planned

Ongoing Initiatives[edit | edit source]

• Appropedia:Content Initiatives/Biofuel

Content Initiatives that are close to launch[edit | edit source]

Proposed for the second half of 2010:

• Appropedia:Content Initiatives/ICT4D
• See Category:Appropedia initiatives - the main need for most of these is in finding volunteers.

Ideas for Content Initiatives[edit | edit source]

Note: some projects list tasks to "summarize documents" from valuable but restricted sources (i.e. not under compatible licenses). This implies something more than an abstract (i.e. containing the key points & conclusions) but usually less than a paraphrase of the whole document. These kinds of tasks are serious work, but very valuable for student volunteers, especially those with upcoming courses or projects in the given subject area.

Sources:

• PDF conversion
  • Identify docs to port
  • Better image uploads
  • Ask Practical Action re image copyrights
  • Template tag for PA images (esp if there's ambiguity over license, until we can decide whether to keep)
• Public domain
  • Get Public domain search working first (an Initiative in its own right). Rough is ok, but usable. (Roughest of all, just use (site:.gov OR site:fed.us) then manually filter out state, local and other non-PD content.)
  • Identify quality content. If in PDF or DOC file, see if there's an HTML version online (search for phrases from content).
  • Port.

Subject areas:

• Psychology of environmental action.
  • Consider this comment, look for info & sources: "One of the most compelling drivers is conformity... Just seeing people doing something makes others more likely to do it too. This is particularly the case when the people are similar (i.e. peer pressure)... Start with those most engaged and interested in making changes. You will get results and then others will follow. Conversely, don't waste time trying to change people who just aren't interested or you'll end up with pretty measly changes (e.g. compact fluoros and green bags)." (FB comment by Todd H)
  • How people respond to instructions & requests - e.g. inclusive wording, "we recycle" vs "please recycle"
  • Video may give some leads: Natalie Jeremijenko: Let's teach fish to text! and other outlandish ideas (TED talk)
• Prosperity Without Growth, looking the whole area of degrowth, post-growth, zero-growth, quality of life vs environmental impact. Building a balanced and extensive coverage, with a critical eye, but also an eye for possibility.
  • Resources Prosperity Without Growth report/book,
  • Compare innovation (how much innovation is needed to sustain the current economic model)
  • Economic assumptions & possibilities (beware of overemphasizing fringe theories): e.g. can we decouple the economies of services with no impact from the destructive economy?
  • Tweeps: @donmacca, @postgrowth, @Jeremy_Williams
• Disaster management
• Principles of development
  • porting humorless and bloodandmilk blogs
• Sustainable food and agriculture - technologies & techniques, food security, sustainable ag, vegetable foods, farming models (e.g. CSA), marketing, food shipping, permaculture (could also have its own Initiative)
  • Work out policy on Locally Delicious content - do we leave original versions? Keep the book separate from general topic pages? If separate, use relevant content (with attribution) in existing or new wiki pages.
  • Sources: summarize key FAO documents
  • Farming methods: Gates Foundation, Official aid bodies, World Bank
  • diet trends also relevant... largely outside the scope of Appropedia, but some info on a healthy sustainable diet is key (maybe starting from widely agreed principles of a healthy diet - even if some of them conflict, can still cover how to follow each principle sustainably).
  • Networks: http://swcsnetwork.ning.com/ + permaculture lists & forums
  • Should be some good food security blogs, for example
• Key actions for sustainability (identifying the most important areas, and the most important steps or actions in every area of green living).
  • withouthotair, greenlivingpedia
• Green building
  • Martin Brown, Rob Hopkins
  • Clinton Foundation
  • Natural buildings: HSU, Permaculture ppl, @Janell Kapoor and @Mark Grossman and the Natural building group http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=6799550793
  • Prof David Hood may be interested. Lonny Grafman's & Joshua Pearce's contacts in academia.
  • E4C said (via Facebook?) they have people
  • http://bildr.org/ - explore, see what they're doing and how we can collaborate. note the wiki uses the same license.
  • Import relevant pages from Greenlivingpedia: (Some extremely good content, e.g. Greenlivingpedia:Sustainable house design features checklist). We could do whole pages or extracts. (Note that the license is compatible to importing with attribution, and Peter Campbell is supportive.)
  • Relevant sites & groups to ping. E.g. Green living and green building (check with Peter first)
• Appropriate technology; also cover humanitarian engineering (or a separate Initiative)
  • Nick Byrne has great Australian contacts; Dmitry Ozeryansky in Memphis.
  • EWB - all countries, esp Australia & UK. Andrew Lamb's network?
  • Paul Polak.
  • Ask to support, through blog, helping make a video... Jock Brandis, Paul Polak, AT orgs.
  • Practical Action - see PDF Conversion Initiative
  • IDDS
  • Ivana's contacts.
  • Some or most of these need a documenting intern
  • Sources: CATs, ap tech and alt tech orgs around the world. AIDG, Paul Polak?
• health -> Appropedia:Content Initiatives/Public health
• Interwiki linking, to broaden our topic coverage.
  • Agree to work with other wikis, so we link to them, and them to us. E.g. Greenlivingpedia, EnviroWiki, Akvopedia, Wikia Green.
  • This would apply both where our wikis have a different focus (e.g. Wikia Green has more pop culture, Appropedia has more case studies & LCA) and also where we are both making an effort to cover the same area exhaustively. (Idea based on this conversation.)
  • Systematically find relevant articles covered by another wiki but not by ours.
  • Create a stub, with either a brief extract (no more than 100 words?) and no attribution notice, but just a link; or a longer extract and a link, if it's considered that this can be built on effectively at Appropedia. In either case, add link to other wiki under "== Interwiki links =="
• Low cost school construction, Practical rope pumps, Percussion drilling (This can go on and on)
• Earthquake safety.
  • AIDG (note Peter Haas' TED Talk) may have content or contacts re good building design)

Proposing/Starting an initiative[edit | edit source]

• To start a new page, start a new page^[1] with title of the form Appropedia:Content Initiatives/SUBJECT AREA (Subject area will usually be a category that already exists on Appropedia.)
• Paste this code into the page and save (remember to enter the SUBJECT AREA): {{Subst:Appropedia:Content Initiatives/launch template|SUBJECT AREA}}
• Search for good openly licensed content: text, video, images, audio?

Notes[edit | edit source]