Welcome[edit source]
Hi Steve,
Welcome to Appropedia. Thank you for your great posts. Can we add your photo to the article Sari Filtration?
--Lonny 18:25, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the welcome Lonny. The picture came from another website so I didnt want to post it until I either got permission or figured out the etiquette of copyleft. I have been building an appropriate medical technology website (now a blog http://web.archive.org/web/20150705222436/http://thecylinder.net:80/). I'm learning may way around posting and porting. I would be interested in being a porting helper once I know my way around. Thanks for the feedback (and the editing) -Steve
- Hi Steve, Please let us know if you have any questions regarding Copyrights. --Lonny 02:27, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
Opportunities[edit source]
Hi Steve,
I am very interested in how we could better partner our sites. For one model, see Demotech and their ported pages. Another option is for you to become the portal steward for a Appropriate medical technology portal, see Portal:Health and safety for an example. I think that there are many opportunities to bring your interest, energy and area of expertise to the active Appropedia community, and for the rest of the Appropedia community to bring help, feedback, audience and knowledge. I look forward to discussing the opportunities, if you are interested.
Thank you for all the great work you do, --Lonny 02:41, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
Hi Lonny,
Partnering sites would be great. I'm getting a better idea of what Appropedia is and isn't and how thecylinder is different. The Cylinder was created as a tool for my own exploration of AMT and ICT. It has helped me learn what is out there and a bit about web design and the web in general. It is a database of existing technologies (but it has led to a couple of active projects.)
One of my posts was flagged as being too encyclopedic which has helped me realize that just porting over all the pages on the cylinder would not mesh well with appropedia's mission. Allow me to "write it out loud" so I can see if I understand it...Appropedia is not so much as a database but a resource of and for active projects. When things are already well understood and being used commonly, then they may end up on wikipedia instead. Question:if it has been researched and is already in use but is not common enough to have made it onto wikipedia yet, then is it appropriate for appropedia or should we start a wikipedia entry?
While I've been careful about citing references on thecylinder I've been less careful about citing images. I am going to review the images on thecylinder and request permission to use them.
I think the portal steward role may be a good one for me, let me keep exploring and I'll keep you posted.
Steve.mccrosky 21:35, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
Hi Steve,
It's totally a judgment call as to what truly qualifies as "encyclopedic", but if, in your judgment something is encyclopedic, then we would say that it belongs at Wikipedia. Personally, my bias is to capture content here if it's not already at Wikipedia. And as a practice, there is certainly nothing wrong (IMO) in bringing all content here first, and then allowing commentary (like Lonny's) to help develop a consensus on what may be considered encyclopedic, which we can then move to Wikipedia.
I would say that Appropedia IS a database, though perhaps not exhaustive. We are hesitant to keep substantial amounts (whole articles) of encyclopedic content, mostly because we want to have some well defined line to separate what belongs here versus Wikipedia in order to avoid competition. Certainly there are many areas of sustainability where there ideas are in use, but there is as yet no authoritative consensus as to which technology is preferred, etc. Also, detailed "how to" content (my favorite) does not seem to qualify as encyclopedic. Detailed how-to content is not the same as current or recent project info, though there is some overlap. And of course there are many other kinds of non-encyclopedic content that belong here. Appropedia also makes room for debate on topics, which would be somewhat out of place at Wikipedia. --CurtB 16:26, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the input Curt. I am going to start transferring over some of the cylinder's pages. I see three options for this: 1) Make new Appopedia pages for the ones that seem appropriate for Appropedia. 2) make interwiki links from the portal to the Wikipedia for the ones that are already on Wikipedia, and 3) make new Wikipedia pages for the ones that are not yet on Wikipedia and are more "encyclopedic". Just getting some of them over here will prime the pump for conversation and adjustments. I am going to connect with the developers and let them know about the posting while asking permission to use images, etc.
The health and safety categories don't feel complete so I may start a conversation about that in that topic area. There is always a lot of crossover, ie water and public health, and it seems ok to crosspost pages. BTW, is there much of a difference between a portal and a topic page? Portals are perhaps more inclusive, more spacial than the more linear listing of categories? Steve.mccrosky 16:22, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
Crossposting, Portal/Category pages and User Health[edit source]
Hi Steve,
Your contributions to Appropedia have been very exciting. Here are three quick comments/responses:
- Crossposting is definitely ok and often necessary. When adding categories the only suggested restriction is to avoid crossposting to a category and its subcategory. For instance Category:Water purification and Category:Maladies and treatments would work, but Category:Water and Category:Water purification would be less desirable because Water purification is a subcat of Water.
- One of the main differences between Portals and Topic Categories is that Portals are manually maintained, usually by a topic steward whereas categories are more automatic. See Appropedia:Portal for more about Portals.
- I think we finally have {{User Health}} fixed so that users show up in Category:Users interested in Health and safety, but not in Category:User templates (see the changes).
Thank you for your fantastic work so far. --Lonny 12:06, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
Delete Pages?[edit source]
Hi Steve,
Looks like some more great work. Thanks. Should I delete those pages that you removed the content from?
Thank you, --Lonny 16:14, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
Hi, I wondered how that worked. I thought they might just hang out in the ether, unconnected to anything...in the future do I request admin to remove them?
BTW, how do you make the comments that come up in italics after the posting on the watchlists, etc? Is it in the summary box? What's the syntax?
Good to be back on the project, just had second baby and bought a house, so I 've been busy. Steve.mccrosky 21:36, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
- Hi Steve,
- Welcome back and congratulations on the house and the baby. The best way to request a page to be deleted is to replace all the text with just the word DELETE. Then a admin or bot will come along and delete the page. The italicized comments in the watchlists are indeed the comments left in the summary box. The syntax is any style you want in an attempt to quickly convey the nature of the edits.
- Thank you, welcome back, and let us know what we can do to help, --Lonny 23:34, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
Lemons, limes & redirects[edit source]
Hi Steve,
Thanks for your great contributions!
Just wanted to let you know that as well as deleting, there's also the option of creating a redirect - e.g.:
- #redirect [[Lemon douches for HIV prevention]]
An advantage of this is that if someone searches for "lime" and "HIV" then they'll more easily find the page.
See also my questions at Talk:Lemon douches for HIV prevention. Thanks --Chriswaterguy · talk 00:18, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
Adminship[edit source]
Hi Steve,
Thank you for all of your amazing work in the world and at Appropedia. We would like to invite you to be an Appropedia Admin focusing on Health. This role would allow you to:
- revert/delete pages
- move pages
- edit pages in the MediaWiki category, such as MediaWiki:Newpageintro.
- mediate conflict
- respond to pertinent internal emails (usually not more than a couple per month that would be directly related to your expertise).
- have a Steve.mccrosky@appropedia.org gmail account. (It can be POPed, forwarded, accessed via the web or even IMAPed.)
Please let us know what you think. Either way we are very happy to have you at Appropedia and hope that we can help you to continue the great work you do.
The other Appropedia Admins are:
Thank you, --Lonny 02:11, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
Hi Lonny,
Thanks, it would be an honor to be an Appropedia Admin. Since starting theCylinder.net on my own, I have wanted to collaborate more with others doing the same type of work. Let's still plan on talking on the phone sometime so I can learn more. Steve.mccrosky 23:44, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
Public health images[edit source]
Hi Steve,
Still doing good work - great to have you here.
Thought you might find this useful, if you need images:
http://web.archive.org/web/20171018010238/https://phil.cdc.gov/phil/home.asp
It seems that the content is public domain unless stated otherwise - the wording leaves a little ambiguity[1][2] but I'm inclined to go with that interpretation. (It's a US govt site, and any content created by a US govt employee is automatically PD - if there's content which isn't PD, they really should have it clearly marked as such, as describe on a page about course materials - "Almost all the graphics and animations contained in this course are in the public domain unless otherwise specified."[3]). --Chriswaterguy · talk 03:35, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
- Thanks, Chris, very cool. A quick search found a pipe filter image that would be good for Guinea Worm pipe filter. It's not PD but has a link to the source so I can send a request for permission to use it. Steve.mccrosky 05:56, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
- Hey, nice to see the new article. I know someone who'll be interested.
- http://www.cdc.gov/ could be useful for PD written info as well, come to think of it. Anyway, will keep adding PD sources to port. --Chriswaterguy · talk 07:46, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
Emails & saris[edit source]
Hi Steve,
Are you aware your email is giving bounce messages? It seems like you're getting some of your emails, as you've replied in a recent discussion, but I thought I'd check.
Another thing - I just created Cloth filter as a stub, but then realized that you'd already created Sari Filtration. I was inclined to use the more general term, as more accurate, but perhaps there's value in using the catchier name sari filter - but that might mean two articles, and I don't know if that's justified. What do you think? --Chriswaterguy · talk 00:41, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
- Btw, I remember now that I put the "Encyclopedic material" notice on the Sari filtration page months ago - and I realize now it wasn't a very friendly or welcoming thing to do. Anyway, I've since softened the wording in the template, and I'm glad you've hung around! --Chriswaterguy · talk 00:45, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
Hi Chris, thanks letting me know. I just asked Lonny to set me up with an appropedia.org email address. As for the saris, let's choose one or the other and consolidate into one page, I agree with what you say about Sari's being catchier and cloth filter being more accurate as a general term, but either way, if we redirect from one to the other, folks who search either term will find it. Not to worry about your encyclopedic flag before, I'm embracing wiki culture and appreciate any feedback that comes my way. Sometime you an I should start a conversation about the crossover between health and water, make sure we are not duplicating efforts, cross-linking appropriately, etc. Steve.mccrosky 12:57, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
Coercion[edit source]
Hi Steve.
FYI: Coercion, new article, has some relevance to public health. --Chriswaterguy · talk 07:07, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
- It's timely... http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/18/us/18vaccine.html?_r=1&oref=slogin Steve.mccrosky 05:26, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
Thanks[edit source]
Hi Steve,
I hope all is well. It has been quite a year since you joined Appropedia. Thank you for all your awesome work, your contributions are very valuable here. Please let us know if you have feedback for what Appropedia could be doing better.
I thought you might be interested in the [blog of Jose Gomez, he is a supporter of Appropedia and always looking for ways to integrate with what we do. Also, I think this question from David is directed to you.
There is a good chance that I will be in Arizona the first week of August. Maybe we could meet up.
Thank you, --Lonny 09:24, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
El Salvador suggestion[edit source]
Hi Steve,
Thank you for suggesting the project in El Salvador as a potential for my travel internship. Unfortunately I don't think I will make it that far north on this trip, but I am glad to know about Comunidad Indigina de Cacaopera. From your brief description, it sounds like an amazing community and I am interested to know more about their work. Perhaps we could still make a page for them? I am also glad to know about your work both in and out of Appropedia. Good Stuff! Thank you!
-Isabell Kimbrough June 21 2010
Your 2021 impact stats are right here![edit source]
Hi Steve! We thought you may want know that your top performing pages so far are:
- Asthma inhaler spacers (12 589 page views) Update!
- Solar water disinfection (4 104 page views) Update!
- Peak flow meter (3 214 page views) Update!
- Lemon douches for HIV prevention (2 566 page views) Update!
- Handwashing (2 111 page views) Update!
Overall, your impact has been of 39,763 page views, woozaa!
Also, your user page has received 712 visits! People are interested in knowing more about you, edit your user page to tell the world what you've been up to.
Thanks for your contributions and for making Appropedia great, have a merry green Christmas!!