User:Chriswaterguy/Content ideas

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Feedback on, addition to and even editing of material on the content ideas page is welcome. I am concentrating on helping to get the Appropedia working nicely and the existing content integrated, so I don't have time to add all of the enormous amount of new content that I would like to.

More extensive drafts, and draft postings for other sites, will be posted at my Sandbox.

Contents

[edit] Quotes

It would be so much easier if climate change hid in caves in Afghanistan and had a beard. It’s a shame that the thought of the impending chaos and destruction wrought by our own making doesn’t quite have the same affect as an 80 year old man with a walking stick. - Tom Taylor

[edit] Content

Dehumidifiers? The Sietch are at least aware of them. Try dehumidifierWP

The late Meredith Thring,[1][2] an advocate of technology for developing countries:

"He set up the charity 'Power Aid' to develop engineering equipment needed in rural areas and, at the time of his death, he was seeking to secure the charity's future, specifically for a project to develop a village-size Leaf Fractionation Apparatus which could be built and used in Nigeria. It would produce Leaf Concentrate, a protein- rich diet supplement, from plants."
"He worked out ways to harvest the weed water hyacinth from Lake Victoria and turn it into food, acting as a personal consultant to President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda on this subject."

[edit] Templates

WikiIndex:template:tag?

conditional arguments in templates. See http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Fact&action=edit

[edit] Pages to go over

Merge these links at Category:Appropedia maintenance:

Cats to move:

+Move Category:Demotech/Learning from Poverty (have agreement with Demotech person...)

Cats to create:


Topic pages which are now articles, content to be moved to categories:

[edit] Sustainability

Op-shops

[edit] Urban planning

zoning issues, commercial activity: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/06/20/1055828489719.html

[edit] Low cost computer

Low cost computer guide.

Have posted to http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?t=462379

Will ask Indo group at http://www.lug.or.id/ & http://www.gerbanglinux.com/ + See http://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux

[edit] Userboxes

...with cats, for expertise/interest, e.g. water engineering. (expertise can be noted in text on userpage (e.g. I studied Public Health Engineering at UNSW, which is water & sanitation).

+for admins.

+for active wikipedia users

[edit] Indonesia

Have started a stub on AT at the Indonesian Wikipedia: Wikipedia:id:Teknologi tepat guna Indonesia. Division of the government science foundation, LIPI. Based in Subang, West Java. Holds Appropriate technology expos & competitions, e.g. an upcoming expo in Pontianak, West Kalimantan. Info:

(Indonesian description of appropriate technology: Teknologi Tepat Guna atau dengan kata lain teknologi yang sesuai kebutuhan sehingga bisa dimanfaatkan masyarakat. - Technology to suit the use, or in other words technology which conforms to the needs so that it can be used by society.)

[edit] Paste from personal notes

avoiding/mitigating heat islands 

   green rooves; vegetation - trees/vines
   green walls?
   paint rooves white?
   higher, multi-level with grassy areas, rather than single and full of buildings


The coal companies get a subsidy of $400 million a year for diesel for their trucks … the thing about coal is we know where it is, we know how to dig it up, and we know that other countries will buy it. Why should it be subsidised when there is no risk in that industry? The promotion of clean coal is still consistent with the logic of Goebbels who said “if you are going to tell a lie, tell a big one”. - Dr Karl Kruszelnicki - http://www.greenleft.org.au/2007/732/37956


[edit] Arsenic

Among available treatment technologies, coagulation with filtration is the most common, including oxidation if arsenite is present, suggests WHO. Commercially produced synthetic resins and activated alumina granules can also remove arsenic through ion exchange. And membrane methods are also available, including reverse osmosis and nanofiltration. But, as in Bangladesh, treatment can be viewed with official suspicion. One concern centres on having to deal with resulting creation of sludge which is rich in arsenic, explains GHD's Baker. And treatment technologies need looking after. ‘There are a lot of O&M issues that are difficult to overcome,’ she adds. --http://www.iwapublishing.com/pdf/Bangladesh.pdf


[edit] Academic

Public health: http://ocw.jhsph.edu/ Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health's OCW project - note the http://ocw.jhsph.edu/Topics.cfm?topic_id=25 Global Health courses such as http://ocw.jhsph.edu/courses/watersanitation/ Water and Sanitation Needs in Complex Humanitarian Emergencies 


   Some useful resources you might want to check out and put in your backpack of goodies:
      1. Check out the NEW People In Aid Website http://www.peopleinaid.org/
                                                                                          5
                                            Watch This Space
   2. Financial Management for Emergencies - A survival guide for humanitarian programme managers
      http://www.fme-online.org/
   3. Managing People in Emergencies - A survival guide for humanitarian programme managers
      http://www.managing.peopleinaid.org/



   Priorities: Kar, contact Shan & WaterAid guy.

   jhbsph lecture1 - Lecture 2: Randomized Interventions - Three tales from Three Continents (15.1 MB)
       starting 19 minutes - improved bucket? - lid, spout, loop handle, handle at bottom for ease of use. to avoid hand contact. - 
       (35:00) lack of fecal coliforms confirms safe water. doesn't apply to parasites like giardia, cryptosporidium, liver flukes...?
   women rub hands around inside of bucket; rinse water reused for next bucket.
   bacteria settling after (4-6 hrs?). V-shaped ration buckets & square buckets flow differently when poured, so samples come out very differently. 
   chlorine, in open bucket, keeps safe for 4 hours. Closed container, even weeks. 
   bucket ->31% improvement in diarrea for under 5's.
   appeared to be protective: change of clothes, having a latrine, and having more buckets (14% per bucket) . 
   Increased diarrea: Visible feces on floor of latrine -> 3 times more likely; having animals -> more likely. 16% increase per duck. 
   (1:06:00) less than 10 L water per day -> less diarrea. covariate with number of buckets. Reasons not conclusive, but lecturer suspects: that these people have been through a tougher time, and are immunologically tougher; that among people with fewer buckets, kids are more likely to have died, so the ones left are stronger (i.e. Darwinian). Fewer little kids among the highest consumption category (harder to carry if you have kids). 
   (1:08:00) v-shaped ration buckets stack, better for transport; UNHCR made buckets with snap-on lid, that could be stacked. Then plastic bags which became rigid when filled; hourglass to prevent hand reaching in. CDC (?) & Oxfam made vessel with tap. 
   Policy effect: Most refugees today are given narrow-necked bucket because of a $12,000 study, and now many millions of people are benefiting. 
   $30,000 study in a town by the Aral Sea in 1996 stopped a $20 million reverse osmosis plant - instead a few hundred thousand dollars were spent fixing the distribution system to stop contamination, for a better outcome. 
   Relative benefits of cheap randomized studies compared to expensive technological solutions. Criticized Gates Foundation effort for a better measles vaccine (which can be given at 6 months instead of 9 months), when so many children are not vaccinated anyway, and when there are other needs like literacy where a profound impact could be achieved with modest funding.


Interesting idea: 

   Leeper Memorial Lecture

   25 November 2005

   5pm University of Melbourne

   The World’s Biggest Water Filter: Our Soil



[[3]]Income to dwarf energy price rises] Sydney Morning Herald, November 21 2007 Respected economics columnist Ross Gittins talks about the costs of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, which he says are surprisingly small.

"There are cities in Argentina and South America that have really emphasized local food production, emphasized sustainability. There are pockets of real success." carbon footprint podcast - left question. http://agroinnovations.com/component/option,com_jd-wp/Itemid,173/p,28/


http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=oddlyEnoughNews&storyid=2007-12-20T114948Z_01_N19576243_RTRUKOC_0_US-TOILETS.xml 100 arrested for not having toilets, Reuters, Wed Dec 19, 2007 - coercion rather than education (warranted by cholera outbreak?)



dancing, schmoozing... completely green ways of adding to gross national happiness


Flooding:


p 194 WWW.WORLDCHANGING.COM/SHELTER - & check online. Another TreePeople project, T.R.E.E.S., will mimic the “sponge and filter” mechanism of trees and apply it on a large scale by installing a system of cisterns and infiltrators within a small urban watershed. The system is designed to help capture water—which is at times a virtual godsend in Southern California— and recharge the aquifer, instead of letting the water run off and dissipate.


Permeable Pavement (Peter Campbell: was this the wonderful soft pavement in St Kilda, Melbourne?)

Permeable surfaces reduce stormwater runoff and recharge groundwater. By encouraging greenery they may also improve air quality, add shade and enhance the appearance of the local environment.

Vancouver has tried a form of permeable pavement:

To test the effectiveness of new pavement technologies, the city incorporated the material into its Country Lanes project, a demonstration area in which the city redesigned a series of streets to be only partially asphalt—and partially covered by permeable surfaces, which provide a solid, durable surface, but allow grass and plants to grow through. - 194 WWW.WORLDCHANGING.COM/SHELTER


WC p195 Back in the 1960s, biologist John Todd began designing systems that used healthy, thriving ecosystems to clean sewage—gracefully coordinated tools he called Living Machines. (However) Some of the flora and fauna in the Living Machines could not handle the toxic witches’ brew that runs through sewers.

PARTIES IGNORE AFFORDABLE HOUSING STRATEGY The Greens have for years been calling for changes to planning laws to require a proportion of new multi-unit housing developments to be set aside for not-for-profit housing schemes so that key low to moderate income workers can afford to live in the areas where they work.

Unfortunately both the Liberal and Labor parties have failed to adopt a genuine strategy for providing affordable housing. The Greens proposal is based on similar successful strategies in many overseas cities but the objections of the developer lobby have scared the old parties away from adopting the Greens approach.



  • Choose different forms of travel once you are at your destination.
    • If you would normally hire a vehicle, consider using public transport when possible (and taxis when necessary).
    • Cycle. In some locations (e.g. Bangkok and Yogyakarta? Malang?) there are many narrow lanes which suit cyclists, as they are usually too narrow for cars and trucks. (Be careful of course - you share such lanes with people who live there, including small children and the elderly.) This can be a great way to see first-hand what real life is like for the majority of the people, and also to meet people outside of the tourist industry - often much friendlier and less money-oriented than those you meet on the tourist trail.

Safety: In many countries safety measures are not followed carefully. For cultural reasons (including a lack of the awareness campaigns and enforcement that have led to changed behavior in many Western countries {fact}) safety is not emphasized on a day-to-day basis. Locals may insist that something is safe (e.g. riding a motorcycle) in spite of a shockingly high accident rate.

Be careful to:

  • Always wear a helmet when on a bicycle or motorcycle.
  • Always use the strap on your helmet. Locals may wear a motorcycle helmet to avoid getting in trouble from police, but without the strap -
  • Check the safety record of the transport you're taking. If traveling by plane you can look up the airline on Wikipedia, and look for a section on "incidents" or "safety". If traveling by bus, the safety may depend on the roads being traveled, as well as the condition of the bus. Locals may give advice on which bus lines are more likely to drive carefully (the cheapest buses may be more poorly maintained and or driven recklessly to save time).



Think critically "disclaimer". Derrida manuals new scientist?



    • Wiki ecosystem**
Information on Chriswaterguy/Content ideas can be found at Wikipedia. What's this? 
&
Information on [[Wikipedia:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]] can be found at Wikipedia. 
- we would like to replace these two with a single template, using an optional argument. (Do you know how to do this?)

{{{1}}}[[Wikipedia:{{{1}}}|WP]] & {{{2}}}[[Wikipedia:{{{1}}}|WP]] - incline version, with a superscript "WP" linking to the Wikipedia article. These are used when the link might be useful to the reader, and there is no Appropedia article, and not likely to be one in the near future.


[edit] Stoves

http://journeytoforever.org/at_woodfire.html http://www.efn.org/~apro/AT/stove96.html


Think critically "disclaimer".



[edit] AT

http://wickone.myweb.uga.edu/Appropriate.html The U.S. Office of Technology Assessment has further refined these tenets by describing AT as (a) small scale, (b) energy efficient, (c) environmentally sound, (d) labor intensive, (e) controlled by the local community, and (f) sustained at the local level (Office of Technology Assessment, 1981).


Richard Critchfield (1977) stated, “Small is beautiful, but it’s still small.” (p. 5). -- Critchfield, R. (1977, September). Small is beautiful, but it’s small in RF Illustrated. New York: The Rockefeller Foundation.


make biogas digester article? see wp Talk:Anaerobic_digestion#Biogas_digesters - + see http://www.thepigsite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=33 for contacts 

   The bag digester http://www.google.com/search?num=50&hs=uux&hl=en&lr=&safe=off&client=opera&rls=en&q=%22bag+digester%22&btnG=Search

International public health User:Chriswaterguy/Content ideas/ International Health,


[edit] Climate solutions

A$15/tonne to offset emissions - Go Carbon Neutral Now Easy Being Green 

-> ecotourism

[edit] Old Wikipedia sandboxes

See also Wikipedia:User:Chriswaterguy/to do.

Part 1: Moved from Wikipedia:User:Chriswaterguy/Appropriate technology

[edit] Intro

My notes for future edits in this topic area are after the intro.

About me: My focus is on water and Wikipedia:sanitation management, focusing on poorer or less-developed settings. (I have a Masters degree in Water Engineering from the University of New South Wales). When this category is looking a lot better, I plan to help translate some of these pages for the Wikipedia:http://id.wikipedia.org/ Indonesian Wikipedia. I have recently discovered the new organisation, Wikipedia:Engineers Without Borders (Australia) and will possibly work with them in future. (I've also spoken with them about promoting Wikipedia as the ideal place to develop an information source on this subject).

Where to start: There is also a need for a lot more articles on specific technologies. The articles created so far can be seen here: Wikipedia::Category:Appropriate technology. There are probably other suitable articles not yet linked to this category.

What you can do: Share your knowledge; Research using the links at the end of the Wikipedia:Appropriate technology page, or by Googling, or whatever, find some info on a relevant technology, and start (or edit) the article on it.

[edit] Housing

Two ideas worth some research: Wikipedia:Superadobe and Wikipedia:Grameen housing. More later... --Singkong2005 20:17, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Organizations

useful links: some interesting stuff here?

One Sky - The Canadian Institute of Sustainable Living - One Sky furthers appropriate technology systems, such as strawbale constructions and pedal- powered technologies, and is focusing on renewable energy at the local, national and international levels.

The Salvadoran Centre for Appropriate Technology (CESTA) - is located in San Salvador, El Salvador under the leadership of Dr. Ricardo Navarro, the chair of Friends of the Earth International. Along with CESTA and the Sierra Club of B.C., we are promoting appropriate technology for landmines victims. (check spanish wikipedia).

Canada’s recent International Policy Statement includes an opening comment on development:

“Canadians cannot be safe in an unstable world, or healthy in a sick world; nor can we expect to remain prosperous in a poor world.”

[edit] Technologies

http://www.videa.ca/index.php?pageid=5&articleid=1&slide=5


Wikipedia Sandbox Part 2: Moved from Wikipedia:User:Chriswaterguy/Sandbox

[edit] Intro

My notes for future edits in this topic area are after the intro.

About me: My focus is on water and sanitation management, focusing on poorer or less-developed settings. (I have a Masters degree in Water Engineering from the University of New South Wales). When this category is looking a lot better, I plan to help translate some of these pages for the [Indonesian Wikipedia]. I have recently discovered the new organisation, Engineers Without Borders (Australia) and will possibly work with them in future. (I've also spoken with them about promoting Wikipedia as the ideal place to develop an information source on this subject).

Where to start: There is also a need for a lot more articles on specific technologies. The articles created so far can be seen here: Category:Appropriate technology. There are probably other suitable articles not yet linked to this category.

What you can do: Share your knowledge; Research using the links at the end of the Appropriate technology page, or by Googling, or whatever, find some info on a relevant technology, and start (or edit) the article on it.

[edit] Housing

Two ideas worth some research: Superadobe and Grameen housing. More later... --Singkong2005 20:17, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Organizations

useful links: some interesting stuff here?

One Sky - The Canadian Institute of Sustainable Living - One Sky furthers appropriate technology systems, such as strawbale constructions and pedal- powered technologies, and is focusing on renewable energy at the local, national and international levels.

The Salvadoran Centre for Appropriate Technology (CESTA) - is located in San Salvador, El Salvador under the leadership of Dr. Ricardo Navarro, the chair of Friends of the Earth International. Along with CESTA and the Sierra Club of B.C., we are promoting appropriate technology for landmines victims. (check spanish wikipedia).

Canada’s recent International Policy Statement includes an opening comment on development:

“Canadians cannot be safe in an unstable world, or healthy in a sick world; nor can we expect to remain prosperous in a poor world.”

[edit] Technologies

http://www.videa.ca/index.php?pageid=5&articleid=1&slide=5


[edit] Wikipedia:Filters

Simple filtration can improve the water quality, even if the pore size is much larger than the pathogens or toxins to be removed, as the pathogens and toxins mostly adhere to particles rather than floating freely or being in solution; also, filters remove particles smaller than their pore size, through electrostatic attraction and adsorption.

roughing filter - both sanitation & water?

[edit] Arsenic

create Wikipedia:Arsenic contamination of groundwater

Wikipedia:International development Wikipedia:Arsenic link-to

search/ask Source.

Start:

Kinniburgh

http://www.unesco.org/courier/2001_01/uk/planet.htm

According to David Kinniburgh of the British Geological Survey, who has recently completed a detailed study of the arsenic’s route into millions of tubewells, the arsenic concentration in the mud is not extraordinary. Time is the culprit. The mud in Bangladesh lies thicker, wider and flatter than almost anywhere on Earth. It can take hundreds or thousands of years for underground water to percolate through the mud before reaching the sea. All the while it is absorbing arsenic. This, says Kinniburgh, helps explain the diverse pattern of arsenic concentrations in tubewell waters. The contaminated wells almost all take water from a depth of 20 to 100 metres. Shallower wells are clean because they contain mostly recent rainwater or water flowing swiftly through the sediments. Deeper wells tap water in older sediments which have by now been flushed clean of arsenic. It will take thousands of years, says Kinniburgh, before the rest of the arsenic will wash away into the Indian Ocean.

Many underground water sources around the world contain arsenic. Parts of Taiwan, Argentina, Chile and China have all suffered epidemics of skin diseases, gangrene and cancer as a result. Smith’s analysis of the Taiwan epidemic in particular helped set the WHO arsenic standards for water and is the basis for his current predictions. Bangladesh, he says, is quite unprecedented.


[edit] create Wikipedia:shallow well article:

qwika.com - search Wikipedia:shallow wells, follow link-to. incl Wikipedia:Water purification.

[edit] Dipankar Chakraborti

Bangla... Dipankar Chakraborti http://www.physics.harvard.edu/~wilson/arsenic/references/Comment_2004_Chakriborti.doc


Drinking at the west's toxic well (Indian and Bangladeshi arsenic poisoning, aid program stuff-ups)

[edit] AT in other articles

[edit] in Wikipedia:water purification

Other water purification techniques & Portable water purification


  1. Appropriate technologies: Affordable and effective technologie

Wikipedia:Slow sand filters are suitable for community or municipal level water treatment, and provide a very high quality output of water with relatively simple operation, and are used in wealthy nations as well as poor communities. Its downsides are the large area used and occasional downtime after maintenance; however both of these can be reduced by changing the system of maintenance, and ploughing rather than scraping the surface. See article for details.

The crushed seeds of Wikipedia:Moringa oleifera or Wikipedia:Strychnos potatorum can be used as flocculants, allowing the impurities to be more easily removed by sedimentation or filtration.

A type of Wikipedia:ceramic water filter was recently developed which can be made with clay, mixed with organic matter such as coffee grounds without a Wikipedia:kiln, and fired using an open Wikipedia:dung fire.

The Wikipedia:LifeStraw is a small manufactured device which allows the user to drink straight from unclean water.

Wikipedia:Cloth filters and Wikipedia:solar water disinfection are suitable for use on a small scale, using jars or bottles, requiring only very few resources.

In some cases multiple methods may be used to produce safe drinking water. For example solar water disinfection requires fairly clear water, so a simple method of filtering, such as a cloth filter, may be used first.

Spring water typically doesn't need treatment, unless it is polluted at the outlet. The quality of water at the outlet may be protected with a Wikipedia:spring box.

[edit] AT

[edit] Characteristics of these technologies

Low cost and low maintenance requirements are of prime importance. More frequent maintenance can be considered appropriate, if the maintenance can be done with locally available skills, tools, and materials. It is usually only "appropriate" to use technologies that can at least be locally repaired.

    • in some cases made entirely with local resources, even using local finances - Kar.

[edit] Not necessarily "low" technology

Appropriate technology can benefit from the latest research, as with the Wikipedia:cloth filter which was inspired by research into the way cholera is carried in water. It may use very recent technology - for example a type of white LED lights is sometimes used in remote areas of Nepal due to their low power requirements and reliability.[4]

[edit] Sustainability

Features such as minimal use of resources, use of locally available resources and low usage of fossil fuels can give some advantages in terms of Wikipedia:sustainability. For that reason these technologies are sometimes used and promoted by advocates of sustainability and Wikipedia:alternative technology.

[edit] Small to intermediate scale

Which allows use and independent control by the poor.


[edit] Philosophies

Wikipedia:International development

AT: development theories/philosophies and appropriate technology. KK & DK (New Sci). community led, participation.

intermediate technology (merge) - Intermediate Technology - Excerpts from Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered, E.F. Schumacher, 1973]. discussed in the context of the need to "bring into existence millions of new workplaces in the rural areas and small towns." intermediate technology would be immensely more productive than the indigenous technology (which is often in a condition of decay), but it would also be immensely cheaper that the sophisticated, highly capital-intensive technology of modern industry.

Village Level Operation and Maintenance. participation; internal and ext input; kk; DC

[edit] Pumps

see VLOM and "Handpump failures" re EthiopiaHandpumps: a losing battle?

see also low-lift irrigation pumps], for Small-scale irrigation. Wikipedia:Chain pumps - examples are known in the nineteenth century for low-lift irrigation purposes.

see http://www.google.com.au/search?num=30&hl=en&q=%22Village+Level+Operation+and+Maintenance%22&meta= for more (esp check one with Kar in the url. Check cache.)


[edit] Testing Google calendar for web pages

<iframe src="http://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=e25lhlt0cejefrvfbaq7ssjgi4%40group.calendar.google.com&title=Chris%20Watkins'%20-%20events%20I%20might%20go%20to&height=614" style=" border-width:0 " width="640" frameborder="0" height="614"></iframe>

[edit] Dean Kamen, effectiveness of aid...

http://business2.blogs.com/business2blog/2006/02/dean_kamens_lat.html#more

Before Kamen met Quadir, he took his inventions to places like the United Nations and the World Bank, part of whose stated goals are to improve access to power and water in the world’s poorest nations. He says he met nothing but skepticism among the experts who told him there were much cheaper and better ways to make power and clean water. He describes these encounters as “the most chilling meetings I ever had in Washington.”

During one such encounter, Kamen lost his cool and blurted out: “Okay, you’ve had 60 years and spent $1 trillion on these two issues. Can you point to the places where you are proud of the success you’ve had?” The meeting didn’t get much farther than that.

Says Kamen, “If you are going to wait for governments or NGOs [non-governmental organizations] to change the world, it is going to take another 60 years.”

Jamal Saghir, the World Bank’s director of energy and water, says he is unaware of any meetings that might have taken place with Kamen. “We get a lot of requests from inventors to endorse their products,” says Saghir. “The World Bank does not support proprietary technology. We support developing country governments and empower them to make choices.”

[edit] Yet more to do... Yikes!

[edit] A few thoughts on the Sustainapedia-Appropedia Launch Document

These are some bits I'm planning on putting in or changing, but waiting till morning, lest my edits conflict with the incorporating of Prof. Rod Ruoff's edits. --Chriswaterguy · talk 08:40, 27 March 2007 (PDT)

Note that the Appropedia site is already underway, with a year of work on content, presentation, technical issues, policy and partnerships - so we're launching a well-developed, ready-to-go resource and community.

Q's:

  • Bring in Cameron & Kate?
  • What about name? Ignore in launch doc?
  • Founders:
    • How many founders will there be?
    • When is it too late to be a "founder"? (I would have thought before now, but I can be flexible). Should we tone this down?


What our partners contribute

  • we often ask for good-quality content, which is then searchable on the site, and is able to be incorporated into the main topic pages of the wiki. The material is also then more visible, being on a prominent site. In any case, we do give credit.
  • ask for links.

Appropedia:Partners #A history of collaboration. (It's very much from my point of view, reflecting my experience, at this stage.)

part of my concern is about the "list of founding individuals" and the way that's ordered. It's a little tricky picking an order, but when all else is roughly equal we could go for alphabetical. We certainly should give acknowledgment to people who sign up early, but I would play it more softly. The main recognition that people get should be earned respect within the community, I feel. I also like describing things in a narrative as it makes it possible to acknowledge people's unique contributions without ranking them.


The innovative approach to wikis is interesting and that functionality could be valuable, if only for providing a space where certain people are more comfortable with contributing. However the place of fully open wiki content (as with the Appropedia's current open editing policy) is still extremely important, I believe - central, in fact. How all this will work together is something that will evolve. Do we agree on the centrality of the open wiki? If so, we highlight this. If not, that's fine, but I'd like to know your thoughts.

I agree with your statement about the peer-reviewed content and open content, and yes, the open wiki editing policy is, and always will be, central to Sustainapedia. The peer-reviewed approach is purely for those who currently feel they need it to feel comfortable contributing, I also think it is an interesting avenue to publish one's work. Indeed it will evolve over time. It is my hope that in time (long term) we can effectively phase out the closed peer-review model and have a completely open space where all community members will be comfortable sharing content. At this point though, I feel like we need to create a space specifically for the academic community to feel comfortable sharing their original work, and this is one avenue to do so. Chris, if you think that the open model needs additional highlights in the document, please add or edit a section in. - Ryan

Focusing the Sustainapedia community on high priority content is something that the management team will pursue – in order to build the community as fast as possible. And add maximum value in the space.

I take it this is talking about creating high quality content?

Yes, we will try to focus the community on specific high-priority, high-quality content as fast as possible so as to add the most value to the community as quickly as possible.

two annual prizes – one for the greatest number of posts in a year, and one for the highest quality of posts

This will be won by a bot, unless bots are excluded; or someone using a semi-automated program like AWB (autowikibrowser) (less obvious); or a WikiGnome (someone who does routine tasks). Major content creators won't be in the running, and in any case their best way to improve their odds would be by the undesirable habit of saving very frequently while editing.

I've replaced this section with Curt's suggestion: "We will promote content development in several ways. We will recognize contributors (individuals and organizations) in an appropriate and inspirational way. Several ideas are currently under discussion."
I think this leaves the door open for some much needed discussion, and we can find a unique way to reward individuals and organizations for their contributions.


There is a method of measuring the amount of text contributed. I still don't think it's a great metric, but it's an improvement over number of edits. I recall a study done on the persistence of edits in Wikipedia, looking at anonymous editors vs registered editors.

(Interesting but tangential note: It turned out the anonymous editors contributed more actual content per edit than registered users; they measured "persistent content" or words to that effect, i.e. additions that weren't reverted by others. I think registered users are more likely to do minor edits, polishing, gnome work, compared to anons who are less likely to be wiki savvy and just contribute content.)

I like where you're going with this, if you find any of the reports detailing these studies, let me know, it's always good to have them on reference.

Goals: to be in the top 5 for Google ranking on search terms including (short term goals)

  • sustainability wiki
  • green living wiki
  • sustainable housing wiki
  • international development wiki
  • poverty wiki
  • appropriate technology wiki (we're there, woo--hoo! it's worth mentioning that, as a goal already achieved)
  • alternative technology wiki (VE wiki is there, so hopefully we will be soon, esp after requesting link updates from referring sites. Is it worth putting Google Analytics on the VE wiki - is it easy, or hard work? But I digress...)
  • water wiki
  • sanitation wiki
  • permaculture wiki

Long term - top 10, preferably top 5, without the wiki term:

  • sustainability
  • green living
  • sustainable housing
  • international development
  • poverty
  • appropriate technology (currently 18th - we're improving!)
  • alternative technology
  • water
  • sanitation
  • permaculture

[edit] Thesis

Testing word to wiki conversion at: User:Chriswaterguy/Thesis/


[edit] Happiness

Relevant to well-being, principles of development (the ultimate purpose of development), simple living...

  • Gittins wrote: Professor Martin Seligman [Authentic Happiness & The Optimistic Child], of the University of Pennsylvania at Philadelphia, is one of the top psychologists in the US, and before he turned to studying positive psychology and happiness, he devoted a lot of his research to depression. [5] (esp p2)
  • suburbia, poor at predicting... (who did this? happiness researchers who said "Why would I study anything else?")
  • Wikipedia:Daniel Kahneman; Wikipedia:Dalai lama

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make a {{pd old}}?

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