(several discussions archived by --CurtB 14:12, 2 November 2006 (PST))

lecture notes[edit source]

Hi, I recently did a course in 'Water and sanitation for developing countries' at the university of southampton and wondered whether my lecture notes may be of any use to you Defined 13:01, 16 May 2006 (PDT)

Hi Defined,
I would appreciate your lecture notes. We are doing some work this summer in Parras de la Fuente and Oaxaca, Mexico on wastewater treatment using constructed wetlands, and I am sure that your lecture notes would be useful. In addition, please consider posting a wiki version of them to Water and sanitation for developing countries. Although we are still discussing it, I believe that appropedia will be utilizing lecture notes and other pedagogical tools much more so than encylopedic entries (in an effort to not duplicate wikipedia's function). Thank you for the kind offer, --Lonny 00:00, 17 May 2006 (PDT)

No entiendo..[edit source]

Hey,

  I got that feedback from a friend, wasn't sure if you'd appreciate or not, so that's funny/cool.

I tried to sign off in the exact same manner as was there in the comment you left there, so sorry if I missed wiki etiquette.. might be a good link from the main page to wikiquette. I also don't understand the talk pages, how to leave comments next to my edits, and probably a few other things. I always meant to read the howto/intro pages on wikipedia, but never have, so I think I'm going to try to be a normal non-techie person who wouldn't bother to read those pages, and hope it'll just start to make sense. I think I was going to say something else on that, but nothing makes sense to say right now. And I thought it was interesting that you require logins to edit, very non-wikipedia. Not that I wholly object, and maybe you've already thought about some of the ramifications of this, but I just wanted to put out that it's a minor barrier to entry. and..

WHAT time is it!?! (esp where you are!) Go to bed!!  :)

 ~~--Ajay

(Who's trying to imagine how you read so quick.. must have something enabled to email you or something, mebets.. no wonder you have no time to chat with me, hmph!  :)

Greetings, comments[edit source]

So we meet on Appropedia. Would appreciate your feedback on my comments at Talk:About appropedia (wasn't sure where I should put those questions).

btw, the link to "About Appropedia" actually leads to "About appropedia", with a small a - I just noticed when I tried to link to the talk page. Any objection to my moving it? (A redirect will be created automatically). --[[User:Singkong2005|Singkong2005 (t - c]] 20:18, 26 June 2006 (PDT)

naming conventions.[edit source]

At Talk:About appropedia#Low cost computers, you wrote:

As for the naming, let´s switch to the wikipedia approach especially for non-project pages.

Cool. However, it seems that the MediaWiki software doesn't allow someone like me to move a category page. (I just tried to move Category:Appropriate Technology to Category:Appropriate technology - I was planning to just move a few at a time.)

Another problem is that the category tag in every page in a category will have to be edited as well. If we do it soon it won't be so much of a problem.

btw, see Wikipedia:Category:Sewage treatment for a tag (Wikipedia:Template:Categoryredirect) to put on the page with the old spelling. I guess someone should also keep an occasional eye on such pages as well, in case pages are added to the wrong category. (The alternative is just to delete the old category page - then the category link will show up as a redlink in the project article that uses the wrong spelling.)

Anyhow, the sooner we fix this (while there are few pages) the easier. If there's a lot of tedious work to do, AutoWikiBrowser is an option, but that shouldn't be necessary, I would imagine. --Singkong2005 t - c 20:21, 30 June 2006 (PDT)

Luckily there are not that many illnamed categories. I will work on this now. I am leaving some other comments on your talk page. --Lonny 21:16, 30 June 2006 (PDT)
I saw some of your work - very good. To move a category page, I guess the only option is to cut from one and paste in the other?
Thanks for the note re adminship. I can see a few extra links on my pages now (rollback, delete). Let me know if there's any specific help you need. --Singkong2005 t - c 08:06, 1 July 2006 (PDT)

Re: Rainwater Harvesting and Blogging[edit source]

Wow, thanks for all that.

Blogging[edit source]

You said:

Please feel free to move your personal blog here. I think that appropedia should serve as a blog space and social networking site (more on that later) for those working towards change.

One of my concerns about the blog was having my comments secure from vandalism, but still welcoming comments from visitors. That doesn't rule out this site (I could link to an external page for comments) but I have to give it some thoughts. Another possible issue is that I would be expressing views on politics and occasionally on religion. (Related to development, gender issues and other issues). Balanced and informed as far as I'm able, but I don't know if that's an issue here.

I think that we can deal with the issue of expressing views using a blog template that explains the much looser NPOV rules in the blog space.
I am interested in the comments vs vandalism issue... is there a policy on Wikipedia about editing signed content? --Lonny 02:16, 1 July 2006 (PDT)

In any case, if I don't put it here, I'll certainly link from here.

Rainwater harvesting[edit source]

I hope you don't mind but I googled you.

Not at all - that's why I use a single username that no one else is likely to have. And thanks so much for those links. They look great. I'll have a bit more of a look at the links, and then copy them to the NABUUR discussion.

Cheers --Singkong2005 t - c 00:14, 1 July 2006 (PDT)

Videos[edit source]

In addition, the great and short documentary A Quiet Revolution has a piece about a village in India digging rainwater harvesting swails for ground water recharging. I believe there is a viewable movie at that site, but if not I can put it on a server for you. I am emailing the producers to ask for what they think about hosting the video on google video or the such.

The video is on there, and is quite good. An introduction, rather than technical, but certainly good for people to learn about rainwater recharge and grassroots, bottom-up sustainable development. I was a bit concerned by the organisation which sponsored the video - - my friend here reminded me that they're quite controversial, accused of being a powerful cult... that might be a bit strong, but having seen a documentary about them I certainly would be careful not to endorse them. Yet there was nothing I could find fault with in the video. Anyhow, just for your information.

Re your own videos, perhaps you'd like to put them on Google video, where I can access them, and perhaps other people will come across them there as well. --Singkong2005 t - c 01:35, 1 July 2006 (PDT)

One of my many (read too many) side-projects is getting some video up. I have one colleague working on a very complete and powerful AT video site and I am also interested in utilizing social networking, virals and the such to create a community of AT video people and their videos (especially language-neutral videos). This video side-project is pretty much on standby until I return from my summer in Mexico for a few reasons:
  1. Very poor internet connection here.
  2. Blocked from many video sites.
  3. Admins have blocked the installation of macromedia flash (and a newer version of Java) on these computers.
  4. The videos I have are of poor content quality and need to be edited.
  5. I am lacking release forms for some of the video participants... I am working on this and getting quite a few taken care of.
All that said - I will try to get a ferrocement video online for you soon. --Lonny 01:57, 1 July 2006 (PDT)

Adminship[edit source]

Are you interested in being an administrator on appropedia?

Sure. I hadn't felt a particular need for it, but being a smaller community here than at Wikipedia, it could come in handy to have another person with adminship.

It wouldn't make a lot of difference to what I do day-to-day, but we'll see how it goes.

I guess we follow the same procedures here as in Wikipedia? Not that I expect opposition, but it's best to have an open, transparent process.

Thanks. --Singkong2005 t - c 01:12, 1 July 2006 (PDT)

Great I am glad that you are interested. You now have adiminship. I do think that we need to keep an open, transparent process and I think that following Wikipedia guidelines are a good way to effect that, but I am not opposed to creating our own processes as well. We should follow Wikipedia guidelines in our creation of any new guidelines (not that I think we will have a need for new guidelines, except maybe those that promote quicker and more effective change in the light of our small size and focused topic). --Lonny 02:08, 1 July 2006 (PDT)

Housekeeping questions[edit source]

Hi - I was doing some housekeeping, and moved Temporary wikitests to Appropedia:Temporary wikitests. I presume it's okay, but if I do something that conflicts with the ideas that you or other people have, please let me know.

Also, I'm curious who ATSysop is - is that a separate account that you use for admin duties? No big deal - it's just good to know who's around. Cheers, Singkong2005 t - c 07:59, 6 July 2006 (PDT)

Please keep making changes and we will let you know if they conflict. Yes, ATSysop is the account that I use for admin duties (I should put a note up on the User:ATsysop page to that effect). I use a seperate user account so that in my day-to-day workings, I see exactly what most users will see. --Lonny 17:34, 6 July 2006 (PDT)

Image size on pequals.com[edit source]

Hi Lonny,

I was just looking at http://www.pequals.com/at/cre8rainwater/Building.htm and noticed the size of the download - the page was over 20 MB. That kind of thing will put a lot of load on your servers, and on people browsing.

(And I just realised you mentioned the oversized photos when you gave me the link, but I'll leave the comment anyway - the program might be useful). I checked one of the photos and it was 1.7 MB, when about 50 KB would be adequate for a small photo, and 100 KB would be high quality. If you need a program to resize photos, I highly recommend Easy Thumbnails, if you (or whoever posts to the site) use Windows. It does an excellent job of getting the best quality out of a given size (or vice versa). It also gives previews, with size shown in the bar at the top, and is very easy to use. Hope that helps! --Singkong2005 t - c 04:19, 12 July 2006 (PDT)

Thank you for the suggestion, I often suggest Easy Thumbnails as well. My hope is that the author of that Rain Water page will convert the file sizes, make a few corrections and maybe even port the page to Appropedia. If she doe not, I guess I will need to go in and compress the files soon. I definitely do not want to be turning around people browsing due to the loading time, especially those with slow connections. Thank you for the reminder. --Lonny 15:26, 13 July 2006 (PDT)

Lonny, hello!
This is Reinder from Demotech. Glad to see someone or you copied "Welding Wood" to Appropedia. I try to motivate some of the student girls of the Student Workforce (support group of Demotech) to help copy content to Wikipedia.
They started with moving some photo's to the Weld Wood page. Maybe they will do some things wrong in the beginning, but I expect then to learn quickly. The Workforce uses a Wiki as well: http://web.archive.org/web/20141218091947/http://studentworkforce.org/ pass word is fun


Hello Lonny, Thanks for your offer to help... I read through the handbook of wikipedia today and now I feel a litlle less like an idiot behind the computer :-) I added another "howto" from demotech to appropedia and in the next days I plan to write an article about a clownarmy in the section of active citenzry... greetings from anna (demotech/student workforce).


un[edit source]

Photo[edit source]

Thanks for changing the photo on {{User watsan}} and its category, and other fixes you've been making.

Re this image, it would be interesting to have something mentioning the location (at least the country, if there's a reason not to single out the town or company). --Singkong2005 t - c 19:45, 18 July 2006 (PDT)

I do feel uncomfortable mentioning the exact area due to the current situation, but I added the general location and date. --Lonny 00:06, 19 July 2006 (PDT)
Thanks. I wikilinked some words there. Even if there isn't an article about a topic that's linked (e.g. a country name) someone can go to the empty page and click "What links here" and find what references there are on Wikipedia. Although come to think of it, a simple search should also work... --Singkong2005 t - c 00:19, 19 July 2006 (PDT)

Namespaces[edit source]

I moved About appropedia to Appropedia:About Appropedia - it seemed more suitable in the project namespace. It would be best to update the link from the quickbar - I assume that's something I can't do.

It's best also to avoid cross-namespace links (e.g. About appropedia linking to Appropedia:About Appropedia). For one thing, it makes the "All pages" list more confusing and less easy to manage. But after a move it's best to leave it a while, I think, in case people have bookmarked a page and get confused. And before deleting, we can check the "What links here" and make sure it's empty.

A while ago I moved Appropedia logos to Appropedia:Logos and have now deleted the redirect.

I assume that's all fine. --Singkong2005 t - c 19:45, 18 July 2006 (PDT)

I will change the quickbar link now (I think admin access allows you to do that... but it is something that will change rarely, so I got it).
Where would I go to do that? Not planning any changes, but it's good to know these things. --Singkong2005 t - c 01:09, 19 July 2006 (PDT)
I will also keep in mind the namespace issues in the future. Unfortunately, I think that there are quite a few external links to the About appropedia page (For instance, I think there is one on your wikipedia:userpage). Thank you for making the changes and suggestions. --Lonny 00:28, 19 July 2006 (PDT)
Fair enough - having one cross-namespace redirect long term isn't a big problem. --Singkong2005 t - c 01:09, 19 July 2006 (PDT)

Geekcorps[edit source]

FYI - I found an interesting site, and article.

I followed a link from Wikipedia:Action Without Borders/Idealist.org to the actual site, http://www.idealist.org/, which is a kind of portal site. That led to an article about Geekcorps. --Singkong2005 t - c 07:37, 20 July 2006 (PDT)

This site/organization is great! I think I may post and let them know about appropedia, their interns could use this site to write up their projects and to leave behind internet based resources and manuals. We should definitely put this in our upcoming list of orgranizations or programs. --Lonny 15:23, 25 July 2006 (PDT)

Parras category[edit source]

Hi Lonny,

I've done more of the categorising. Category:Parras needs a sentence or two of explanation, and it should be put into a category. Cheers, (or, nos vemos might work better if you're currently in Mexico...) --Singkong2005 t - c 23:36, 20 July 2006 (PDT)

Awesome work on the categorization. I will definitely include more of an explanation on the Parras page... I am currently thinking about some type of banner/box differentiation for Programs. Something that quickly differentiates the pages from the other types of pages, maybe something like a userbox that also categorizes the page as a program. All this brings up the question about whether using seperate namespaces may be more appropriate. Nos vemos --Lonny 15:23, 25 July 2006 (PDT)
I like the sound of the banner/box - seems simple and elegant. Perhaps an Infobox template might be a good idea? That will help people to put relevant basic info in one place. I'm not keen on namespaces for this kind of use, but I could change my mind if there is an overall advantage. --Singkong2005 t - c 02:20, 27 July 2006 (PDT)

Scratchpad[edit source]

FYI - I'm experimenting with the idea of putting my Scratchpad on my user page and inviting people to comment, edit or use. --Singkong2005 t - c 02:24, 27 July 2006 (PDT)

categories list not complete?[edit source]

Curious thing: Category:Appropriate technology doesn't show up on Special:Categories - any idea why?

I figured it out - Category:Appropriate technology is in Unused categories, whereas Special:Categories only shows categories which are used. So total categories = Unused category + Special:Categories.--Singkong2005 talk 07:31, 8 August 2006 (PDT)
Excellent. Thanks. --Lonny 10:26, 8 August 2006 (PDT)

btw, should Category:AT photos be renamed to something like Category:Photo pages? I think it's broader than AT now, and if not, then it could easily become so. 11

btw2, don't apologise if you can't answer straight away. The wiki format is great - I can get the question out of my head and onto the talk page, and I don't have to think about it again till I get an email alert saying that your talk page (which is on my watchlist) has been modified. --Singkong2005 t - c 07:41, 27 July 2006 (PDT)

Hosting[edit source]

(archived by --CurtB 11:01, 26 October 2006 (PDT))

If you have any other suggestions, or a preferred hosting company that is inline with the values of Appropedia, please let me know. --Lonny 10:19, 5 August 2006 (PDT)
No idea, but I think prices have come down a long way in the couple of years since I looked. If you're having trouble getting a good price, let me know and I'll do some searching and see what else I can turn up. --Singkong2005 talk 11:23, 5 August 2006 (PDT)
If I were responsible for it, I'd definitely go with Wikia.com I think - the easiest, cheapest solution, with someone else looking after the really technical stuff - which I'm averse to doing myself if there's an easier way.
From the perspective of what makes an ideal wiki... wikia means being part of a much larger community sharing one login; however it does mean losing the unique domain name.
If we went for that, I'm sure they'd be happy to accept Appropedia, as appropedia.wikia.com - and I'm guessing that there'd be some way to move the whole wiki there in one go. The current domain would be a redirect page.
Anyway, that's what I'd do - but it's not a passionately held conviction. Re the single login, perhaps eventually other wikis, such as this one, will be able to opt in to the single login system - don't know if and when that will be, though - probably far in the future - so I'll do some asking, starting at meta:Talk:Single login specifications... --Singkong2005 talk 22:38, 6 August 2006 (PDT)
I just discovered a very cool feature on Wikia. If you search in one Wikia (e.g. this search) it will give hits for that wiki first, and then for other wikis on wikia.com. This would definitely help us in connecting with other wikis and improving synergy. I'm now much more strongly inclined towards moving to Wikia. --Singkong2005 talk 00:22, 7 August 2006 (PDT)
It is late, and I should definitely spend more time discussing and considering this possibility. At the core of my resistance, I am sure lays the seeds of control. I feel that the scope of Appropedia is too large for the limited framework of Wikia, and I also feel that interwiki collaboration will only get easier (for instance automatic searching of all other wikis in a SearchWiki, or interwiki, database). Here are some quick thoughts on this search:
Wika search results for Appropriate Technology
  • Ugly google adsense
  • The wiki message is distracting and out of place
  • The content of the search is very weak (it is true that we could augment it with the addition of appropedia.wikia.com, but I think the other result content detracts from the desired effects on visitors)
  • Wikia is in control of what file types are uploadable and although some wikias have received permission for some extra file types, I want to be able to allow all sorts of file types.
  • I believe that we would be limited technically, e.g. not being able to add a google search below the wiki search.
Again many of these points are just control issues, but looking at many of the wikia sites I feel that Appropedia is indeed too big for wikia. Maybe Appropedia should be broken up into a few different wikias: One for AT projects, one for AT curricula, etc... so many good options. (I will probably edit this response later). Thank you --Lonny 01:07, 7 August 2006 (PDT)
Initial response to your initial response... :)
  • Ads are a drawback, true, though I tend not to notice them. Actually, I just realised that ads don't show up in the skin I use (Cologne Blue) so it's not surprising I don't notice them!
  • File types - if this is restricted and they won't budge on that, then it's a big drawback.
  • Re control... I haven't found Wikia admins to be very responsive on certain issues I've raised, so I do share some concern there.
  • The technical issues you raise are very good ones. Cross-wiki searching is an exciting prospect if it's integrated into normal wiki searches, or if existing engines gain popularity... in the meantime we should talk to the people at qwika.com and get listed there. (If the url format affects the search, then we should wait till the move to the new server).
  • On the pro Wikia side, re searching, I was partly thinking also of people from other sites finding Appropedia when they search for something. However, that's not a deal-maker. And we should be active in promoting Appropedia, and cross-linking the wikis where appropriate (WikiNode being one of the early steps).
That all swings me back away from the idea... but it's been a constructive conversation. --Singkong2005 talk 02:28, 7 August 2006 (PDT)
I went one level shallower instead deeper just for space reasons... I'm sorry I didn't see this section before. Kind of hard to know whether this would be a Village Pump topic or what... Anyway, I'm very excited to see this. Is this the same thread as related to server performance / speed? Doesn't really matter. The core of my comment is that I don't think the only option has to be "free" (which means "advertising" to me). SiteGround seems a pretty durn good MediaWiki hosting site, and at $5/month I will step up for the first 3 years on my credit card. If it's kicking butt by then I'm sure we can find another supporter :-) And if it's not, hmm, maybe time for a new hobby. So basically 3 years is almost forever at the mo' What do you think? Curtbeckmann 20:47, 12 September 2006 (PDT)
Yet another level shallower. Curt, thank you so much for your generous offer... one that we would love to take you up on. I have been talking with SiteGround about their services, it seems that they may serve our purposes. Here are two wiki sites that they host:
Neither of these sites has implemented short names (i.e. they both have the extraneous index.php?title=), but SiteGround assures me that they can do this. Two problems, so far, with the SiteGround option:
  • Some recent reviews are not so good.
  • To switch to them means that we will need to have a 2-day (maximum) editing moratorium. The site will still be up for reading, but not for editing until the DNS pointers have propogated.
If anybody wants, feel free to check out those sites and let me know what you think. --Lonny 17:57, 13 September 2006 (PDT)
And yet another level shallower. SiteGround seems quite quick, when I tried those links just now, but the reviews are very concerning, so it will be worth looking around further. (Some MediaWiki hosts are listed at Wikipedia:Comparison of wiki farms#MediaWiki farms.)
Curt's generous offer is excellent, and I think we could get another few dollars per month without too much trouble but "passing the hat around". (I could send a small donation via PayPal if it helps; we could also ask on Omidyar, where Curt and I have been a bit active lately.) So if an ISP is $10/month, say, it's still a feasible option, IMO, if it has a very good reputation for service & support. And hosting seems to be getting cheaper each year.
Another question - if it's a host that specializes in MediaWiki, does that mean that we (more specifically the bureaucrat, i.e. Lonny) have no control over its implementation? Lonny, is this a concern? --Singkong2005 talk 20:36, 13 September 2006 (PDT)
A host specializing in MediaWiki has no extra control over the implementation. It is not a concern, as it would be with hosting it on an existing MediaWiki site. In fact, most hosts that say they specialize in MediaWiki, differ very very little from any other host. --Lonny 23:26, 16 September 2006 (PDT)
Deeper this time. I finally got caught up on this topic. Regarding expenses of hosting sites, if there is a moderately more expensive but much better hosting site, I'll step up for a single year right now, and we can make some good progress, then pass the hat for next year and subsequent years. We might even be a 501c3 by that time (seems like distant future from here). --Curtbeckmann 07:25, 17 September 2006 (PDT)
Thank you again for the generous offer, one that we will take you up on. I have been online with 5 different hosts all day, to very little avail. I feel like I am making headway, but slowly. Once I find the right host, Appropedia will be locked for a day or two, i.e. no editing just reading. So keep up the great additions until that time. Just to note, here is some of what we are looking for in a server:
  • No problem rewriting short names, i.e. no "index.php?title="
  • Regular backups (raid would be better, but daily backups would be good enough).
  • Free backup exports, so that we can have our own physical backups (probably monthly).
  • > 1 gig storage
  • lots of bandwidth
  • some shell access, or already tweaked for mediawiki
  • Has sometype MemCaching
  • Allows <math>, thumbnails, some other basic features in mediawiki
  • PHP's memory_limit < 16M
  • > PHP5 (important for security)
  • we need to see an example that runs fast
Curt, is it okay if I credit you, on the front page during our downtime, and on Appropedia:About after that?
Thanks, --Lonny 20:35, 17 September 2006 (PDT)

Hosting continued[edit source]

I inserted the additional heading because I prefer to edit/preview smaller chunks :-). Lonny, I would be fine with getting credited. It will be great to do something worth crediting :-) You and Chris have been doing the heavy lifting for some time, along with numerous other contributors. And, of course, by crediting, I get even more committed (which is partly why I offered). I want to be clear: I'll support whatever hosting model you recommend. I am offering to be the short-term funder because I believe it makes it easier to pull the trigger. I'm also motivated to make this switch a little earlier than later because of the editing downtime. We will have dozens of contributors very shortly, so better to take the downtime hit now :-). Related to that, I'm pinging EWB-SFP about their wiki. They have a "members only" wiki, which may make sense for some things (fundraising? scheduling?) but I hope to get some buy-in to post project results on Appropedia. --Curtbeckmann 18:49, 18 September 2006 (PDT)

Interwiki map[edit source]

I've requested Appropedia to be added to the interwiki map:

--Singkong2005 talk 22:37, 3 August 2006 (PDT)

Great work. I made a change at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Interwiki_map#Appropedia . --Lonny 10:47, 5 August 2006 (PDT)
btw, how do we change the interwiki map on Appropedia? I've noticed that wikia links don't work properly, e.g. wikia:ecovillage. --Singkong2005 talk 11:36, 5 August 2006 (PDT)
Wikia should be fixed now. See Appropedia:To_do#Interwiki_Linking for more (techy unnecessary) information. --Lonny 12:52, 5 August 2006 (PDT)
Thanks!--Singkong2005 talk 23:35, 5 August 2006 (PDT)
Is there some reason your Interwiki map is a subset of wikimedia's map? There are a number of wikis that have been there forever that are don't seem to be in your map. Can you please add:
Thanks! --Jan Steinman 14:10, 6 March 2007 (PST)

Homepages & URLs[edit source]

Another question for when you're back and indulging your wiki addiction in a more satisfying way... (though I can imagine being on a boat in Mexico would be a great break from it, to an extent).

I'm planning to make a kind of homepage, or portal for all my various pages, collaborations and interests. My preferred option is to do it here, at User:Singkong2005/Chris Watkins, as it's on one of the two sites where I'm most active; it's MediaWiki so formatting & linking is familiar and easy; you've made it clear, I think, that personal stuff of this kind is welcome here; and I'm notified if anyone edits pages on my watchlist (unlike some of the Wikimedia projects) so I'll know when people have left messages or changed the page.

I figure people will normally find it from a link, or by googling. However, it would be nice to have a url I could put on a business card or jot down from memory when someone asks (not a deciding factor, but it would be nice). This url, https://www.appropedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Singkong2005/Chris_Watkins, isn't really good for that - hard to remember, easy to mistype. Any ideas?

I'm not sure why some wikis use /wiki/ in their urls, others use index.php?title= or something like that, while others use nothing - but simplifying that part is one thing that would make it easier to jot down any specific address on the website, just like I can type en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appropriate_technology from memory. Is it something that's easy to change - and worth changing, in your view? Keep in mind I'm not a technical person in that way - I just ask questions :). --Singkong2005 talk 01:05, 5 August 2006 (PDT)

I think Appropedia is a great site for this type of thing. One of the missions of Appropedia is to provide a place for networking between active members of the AT and SD community.
I like that... --Singkong2005 talk 11:27, 5 August 2006 (PDT)
It is definitely worth changing to shorter names, but we can not change it until we change servers. We need to change servers soon anyways due to the slow loading of pages. I have a server in mind, sustainable hosting. I will work on it more the beginning of next month. Once we have a new server we can make short titles, see Appropedia:To_do#For_Staff. Here are two less than desirable bandaids:
  1. We could make an html redirect from the short name to your wikipage, and when the server changes, your new short name could go in its place.
Sounds great. Next month is fine, but thanks for the tinyurl.
Perhaps we could allow people to make redirects from a U: prefix - I don't imagine that's a problem. I could use U:CJW. It might be a good idea to lay out two or three guidelines to avoid problems later: 1. People get to keep the redirect once they've claimed it. 2. If there's a possibility of ambiguity, another person can request a dab on your page - e.g. I might need one day to have a note saying something like U:CJW redirects here. For Clyde Wilkins use U:CAW
btw I did a bit of editing on the page today... it looked okay in Opera (as a first draft), but now I see the "middle" bit gets pushed to the bottom in Firefox. I still have a few things to learn about formatting... --Singkong2005 talk 11:27, 5 August 2006 (PDT)

Chris, did you know that you already can make a short URL on this site? "http://Appropedia.org/User:Chris_Watkins" should work. --Jan Steinman 14:20, 6 March 2007 (PST)

Nice template[edit source]

I like the flurry of work you've done in the last 24 hrs. At first I thought the template {{tlc}} was duplicating another one from Wikipedia, but actually yours is better than anything I could find there, and I suggested it as an alternative if Wikipedians want it ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template_talk:Cl#Cat_.E2.86.92_Category here). Good work. --Singkong2005 talk 23:35, 5 August 2006 (PDT)

rollback feature[edit source]

Hi Lonny,

I've noticed that the rollback link isn't available when I view pages such as "recent changes" . Not that I need it - just curious.

btw, I've been doing some categorization, but there's still some categories which need attending to, but I'm not sure where to put them in the category structure - See Special:Wantedcategories; perhaps also check the links at Category:Appropedia maintenance#Help maintain the category structure and see what you think about them.

Hope Mexico has been good for you. --Singkong2005 talk 07:55, 10 September 2006 (PDT)

Hi Singkong,
This feature should be available to you as a Sysop now. I believe that rollback is only available on pages with multiple editors, as the feature rolls back all the changes made by an editor/vandaliser. Can you point me to a page on which it is not working for you? Thank you --Lonny 19:40, 1 October 2006 (PDT)

Please add WikiIndex to interwiki map[edit source]

I had a look at Appropedia:To_do#Interwiki_Linking and wasn't sure what was meant by "Login to phpMyAdmin" - what and where is this? I gather you are the only user here who is an experienced user of phpMyAdmin?

In the meantime, could you please add:

WikiIndex http://wikiindex.com/$1

Thanks --Singkong2005 talk 20:45, 20 September 2006 (PDT)

I will add it to the WikiIndex soon. Currently I am 60+ hours into trying to switch servers, which is proving to be very difficult (read I am going crazy). Hopefully I will be done soon... then on more rewarding wikiwork. --Lonny 21:18, 20 September 2006 (PDT)
Thanks - stay sane! --Singkong2005 talk 22:20, 20 September 2006 (PDT)
I had a feeling that was the reason that Lonny had gone slightly quiet, and I stepped back to make some room. Partly this came from a side project where I'm supporting my wife's company's search for an Exchange hosting service. Man, I had no idea how hard that effort would be. Exchange hosting is, I believe, similar to wiki hosting; a little off the beaten path from basic web hosting. Lots of red herrings, etc. I truly appreciate your effort, Lonny! If there is any research or other useful effort I can apply in support of your work, let me know. --Curtbeckmann 20:16, 21 September 2006 (PDT)
Thank you for your offer of help Curt. I am working with a new server now, DreamHost. They give lots of control and do most of what we need. I quickly was able to get a new version of MediaWiki running on DreamHost, but unfortunately found myself in the Catch22 of needing to upgrade to the new version of MediaWiki before transfering the files... but the new version of MediaWiki requires PHP5, and my old host is still on PHP4... and there are many other complication slowing down the work-around to the Catch22, such as the database expanding incorrectly. I will figure it out soon, and I am very glad and hopeful about the new host. They have a money back gaurantee, in case it does not work out well. I will tell you more as it develops over the next few days. Sorry for the venting. Thank you for the support. --Lonny 20:35, 21 September 2006 (PDT)
Sounds very, very frustrating. I know nothing about this stuff, so I'm not sure there's any point in offering help, but let me know if there's something I can do. Hope it goes well. --Singkong2005 talk 21:40, 21 September 2006 (PDT)
It is DONE! Of course there is some more little things to do over the next few days... but the difficult part seems to be done. The speed is incredibly improved. The security is higher. My brain is soup and I need to get a tech person. Thank you all for your kind support and enjoy the upgrade. --Lonny 02:37, 22 September 2006 (PDT)
Amazing! You rock! You're right, this new server is quite snappy! Some questions: 1) How do you want me to pay? 2) Is it "safe" to make edits now, or would it be better (kinder) to wait a day or so? 3) I take it the URL is not yet fully stable (with respect to updating links at my blog)? Thanks for all you brain-liquifying diligence! I can't believe you pulled it off so smoothly! --Curtbeckmann 07:03, 22 September 2006 (PDT)
Thanks, I am glad that you find it snappy as well.
  1. A check would work, or if you have a BankofAmerica account, a transfer would work. I am also open to online solutions. What works best for you? I appreciate the flexibility, I probably should have had you pay directly for the new host, but it was late and I was jaded thinking that I would probably cancel that host as well.
  2. It is safe to make edits now (although you may get an annoying popup about google maps api for a few days, until all the DNS pointers propogate fully).
  3. The URL is close to stable, but it is somewhat regional right now. Two more days, should do it.
Thank you all for your support. I couldn't (and wouldn't have tried) without it. Singkong2005 and Curtbeckmann thank you for your online support, knowing you were there definitely helped. And thank you to all the readers that complained about the speed... It was quite enheartening to know that people use Appropedia enough to complain about it :) Now on to short URLs, interwiki tables [1], google maps api, cite functions and TeX and other fun. --Lonny 10:54, 22 September 2006 (PDT)
Well done Lonny - I didn't expect it to happen so soon. And Curt - thanks for stepping up and giving financial support.
btw, when we move to short URLs, my experience suggests that the old form of URLs will still work, (so old links from other sites will still find the correct page). The link you gave - short URLs - suggests it's a lot more complex than I thought, with perhaps some potential downsides. So if it's decided to not go down this route, that's understandable. (Though if the Wikimedia projects do it, I'd think it can't be that problematic.) --Singkong2005 talk 20:02, 22 September 2006 (PDT)
The interwiki table is finally fully up-to-date, thanks to Goodsignal and a late night. For example WikiIndex:Appropedia should now work. Thank you for your patience. We should now be able to keep it up-to-date. --Lonny 04:16, 15 October 2006 (PDT)

Canonization?[edit source]

As I prepare to aggressively promote Appropedia, I've been thinking about the various compelling advantages that this site has to offer. One of them is "the absolutely necessary presence of a committed, wise, experienced, patient and supportive SysOp (or better yet, collection of SysOps), knowledgeable in things wiki and field tested sustainable technology, without which no wiki has a chance". I nearly used the word "saintly", but not sure it will resonate with the audience as much as I would like.

There is some chance that I'll tone down the accolades, but I do regard you (and Chris, whether he is a SysOp or not) as gifts of the highest order to the community.

Thanks for all you do.

--Curtbeckmann 14:30, 1 October 2006 (PDT)

Singularizing categories[edit source]

Hi Lonny,

It's great to see such a lot happening on Appropedia - more of a critical mass, a few issues resolved, and a lot of progress being made.

I posted a question about singularizing categories at the policy discussion page. Cheers --Singkong2005 · talk 16:06, 15 October 2006 (PDT)

FYI: osafa.org[edit source]

Hi Lonny, I stumbled accross Appropedia only recently, it's great! I had a similar idea in regards to sustainable architecture and started to work on it: Open Source Architecture for Africa. It's somehow in between Appropedia and, say, a SourceForge for buildings, with a close focus on Africa. I will try to study Appropedia and learn from it, as soon as time permits. Cheers, --Helge.at 06:29, 31 October 2006 (PST)

fyi: FAB@home[edit source]

fyi: http://web.archive.org/web/20090525073026/http://128.253.249.235:80/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page (via) --Helge 02:43, 2 November 2006 (PST)

Very cool. --Lonny 03:06, 2 November 2006 (PST)

Logo progress[edit source]

I think we're very close on logo. One more round? It would sure be cool to close on it! --CurtB 06:41, 3 November 2006 (PST)

Revisit licensing[edit source]

I took the liberty of moving this conversation to Appropedia talk:Copyrights#Revisit licensing. --Singkong2005 · talk 20:07, 20 November 2006 (PST)

message from anna[edit source]

I would appreciate tags that point other users to my pages for language editting... how can I add this? I will try to organise the schematic of the Night Reader... thanks for your motivation :-) --Demotech (anna) 13:22, 4 November 2006 (PST)

Hi Lonny and Anna. I took the liberty of creating a new category, Category:Articles asking spelling and grammar review, which can be added to articles to mark them as in need of assistance. (I also marked Night Reader as being in the category.) I created some instructions for that category and listed it under Appropedia:Community portal for helpful sorts.
I expect that some kind and anonymous soul will help out, otherwise Anna will have to wait for one of us surly administrators :-) --CurtB 19:34, 4 November 2006 (PST)
Just for the record - note that Category:Articles asking spelling and grammar review has been moved to Category:Articles in need of copyediting. --Chriswaterguy 03:49, 12 June 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hi Lonny, With the Robe/Rope pump that was a typo... I mixed it up... The location of Learning from Poverty is fine. Thanks for looking after my pages... :-) --Demotech (anna) 05:43, 17 November 2006 (PST)

Hello Lonny, aahrg. I uploaded a photo for the article in Category: Active citizenry which is way to huge... How can I delete it? Or better, how can I make it smaller? I cannot use the programm "Easy Thumbnails" since I dont have windows... --Demotech (anna) 08:13, 27 November 2006 (PST)

Hi Anna,
Thank you for noticing the offending file size and letting me know. I deleted the image.
As for image resizing: Which Operating System do you use? If it is linux, do you have ImageMagick or Gimp? If it is Machintosh, which version? --Lonny 09:45, 27 November 2006 (PST)

I'm using mac OS X 10... --Demotech (anna) 11:06, 27 November 2006 (PST)

Hi Anna,
Sorry for the slow response. Check out the following link about how to use the Automator in OS X - http://www.playingwithwire.com/2006/11/resizing-images-from-comfort-of-your.html , let me know if that does not work for you, and I will create my own tutorial. Did you see the proposed edit that someone made to Learning from poverty? Good luck, --Lonny 12:11, 28 November 2006 (PST)

It worked out! It's embarassing how little I know about my computer... muchas gracias! I wonder who edited Learning from poverty ... maybe someone from the studentworkforce joined? I gave an introduction to appropedia last week... --Demotech (anna) 13:58, 28 November 2006 (PST)

Por nada. There is so much to know about computers... sometimes it is good to be a little ingnorant (until you need something). Cool, I am sure your introduction to Appropedia was great. The username of the person that edited the article was Vacuum1313 (feel free to leave them a thank you note), to see the history of the article click the history tab, which should bring you to history. --Lonny 15:17, 28 November 2006 (PST)


Hello Lonny, I am really inactive at the moment, but I am still here... :-) I wonder if you know howtopedia. It's another wiki dealing with "simple technologies, simply shared". see: http://howtopedia.org They have articles in english, french and spanish... all together about 200... Only a few contributors there have userpages and nobody has a talk page, so it is rather difficult to contact them... It is pretty kool that there are other encyclopedias on appropriate technology...but it would also be kool to have everything collected at one place... So, what to do with howtopedia? port content from "them" to "us" and vice versa? On appropedia is one article about compost toilets, which is also at howtopedia. So, is there already cooperation? Or is "Practical Action" (creater of the article) just contributing to both projects..? How did you do the merger with wikigreen? Wasn't wikigreen bigger then appropedia? Why did not appropedia migrate to them..? uuh, tons of questions... greetings --Demotech (anna) 05:54, 22 January 2007 (PST)

Hi Anna,
Great to hear from you, I am very glad that you are still here. One of my students will be recreating and adapting the Night Reader this semester. They will be uploading a page about their work, and editing the existing page. Can they ask you some questions?
We are familiar with howtopedia, and have briefly discussed collaboration with them. I, too, am excited that there is so much activity around appropriate technology, but hope that we do not split efforts too much. We have not done any porting between the sites, but we have both partnered with Practical Action (therefore ending up with some duplicate pages).
So far three wikis have merged into appropedia. The founders of WikiGreen chose to merge into appropedia because although they had a higher page count, they had much less activity. In fact, as a testament to the amount of work they did, most of their pages seem to have been ported/created by a small number of individuals. Given that appropedia has a thriving, albeit small, membership, the founders of WikiGreen decided to merge with us. Between all of these mergers and the original activity at appropedia, we know have over 1000 content pages.
Does that answer your questions? --Lonny 14:44, 22 January 2007 (PST)

Lonny, hello from Demotech! Reinder here! Tell me more about your and your student plans for the NightReader. The NightReader as published is fully outdated. Just missing time and support to do something about it right now. Two interns (university students) want to work on it for many months. Difficult though to give them support as Demotech plans to travel to Guatemala first then to other project locations this year. Can we think of any cooperation from all these students? The biggest problem is that the problem is not technical anymore. I know hope to guide this project into social science research. Would there be an interest in this respect somewhere?.
Regarding HowtoPedia, I am not so happy about their approach. I wish they would copy the openness of Appropedia, better merge with it. Greetings, Reinder, Demotech

Nudge, nudge[edit source]

Hi, Lonny. I know you're perpetually swamped, but I'll nag anyway. Please prioritize some attention on the vision / mission effort :-) Thanks, --CurtB 12:39, 9 November 2006 (PST)

Porting, historical link templates, “Beyond Dams” stuff[edit source]

See the conversation that has developed at Curt's page, on porting and templates (following from recent emails). --Singkong2005 · talk 08:08, 13 November 2006 (PST)

Recent changes patrol... change your profile?[edit source]

If we're going to do the recent changes patrol (I just signed up myself), I would suggest that we all set our profiles to "mark my edits as patrolled", an option available to sysops. (Chris and I have already done this.) Alternatively, perhaps we should all CLEAR this option? But since we do the most edits (seems like) we can make the patrolling job a lot more realistic if we mark our edits as patrolled and focus on others... What say you? --CurtB 15:36, 13 November 2006 (PST)

Biodigesters / Anaerobic digesters[edit source]

Hey, Lonny, I've been following this biodigester thread that I encountered recently on looking at the http://aidg.org/ (actually, http://web.archive.org/web/20120831015932/http://www.aidg.net:80/). It looks like great technology, popular in many places (UK and Europe mostly, but also Cuba and East Asia), that is fairly feasible to implement in rural areas, but I haven't found a good how-to, and haven't found the right site to submit a "can we port your stuff" request. I mention it here because it seems like the kind of thing that might be part of CCAT or whatever. See also wikipedia:biodigester, and here is a link to something that might be relevant:

www.ce.ufl.edu/activities/waste/wddndx.html

I still plan to keep poking around on this technology, as well as other technologies that are references at the AIDG.net site, but wanted to mention this for your "lesson planning" benefit :-) --CurtB 15:24, 14 November 2006 (PST)

Okay, so just found a great source of content, I think: http://www.habmigern2003.info/biogas/Baron-digester/Baron-digester.htm
It's a little old (2003?), but if I can get hold of Gerry Baron, I'll ask permission. --CurtB 15:38, 14 November 2006 (PST)
Just though I'd mention, I'm very interested in this topic but haven't had the time to really research it. Did some Googling once, and found some info on plastic bag digesters (in Vietnam I think) which sounds like an elegant solution. I also didn't see anything very authoritative. It would be worth asking permaculture people - PermaWiki is pretty inactive, but there might be lurkers around if we ask a question. Or doing a search in Google Books. --Singkong2005 · talk 05:25, 15 November 2006 (PST)

Reminder about updating "Highlighted project"[edit source]

For contrast, I like the Ersson's rainwater capture project, but really any will do. My motivation is to keep the main page fresh. I'm thinking of other ideas in that vein, like revising some of the text, tweaking the colors etc. --CurtB 10:40, 30 November 2006 (PST)

Any word from OneWorld?[edit source]

And did you get my check? :-) --CurtB 22:30, 3 December 2006 (PST)

No word from OneWorld, but we are listed as an organization. I need to contact them again, about becoming something more like a partner. I was not charged, so I am sure that something went wrong. I have not received your check yet. Thank you for sending it. I will let you know more about OneWorld soon, please let me know if you find out something as well. --Lonny 22:44, 3 December 2006 (PST)
Random venting: I've spent most the day trying to fix our low Google PageRank (only a 2). One thing I have discovered is that the Google Sitemap scheme I was employing does not work with the short URL scheme we are using, plus there are now better Sitemap generators. Frustrated. But the activity at Appropedia is fantastic and is keeping me charged! Thanks for listening, that's all for the whining (for now). --Lonny 22:44, 3 December 2006 (PST)
Not sure if you check in on the Appropedia talk:Statistics tracking page now and then... Great stuff, especially the incremental (not long term average) "page views per edit", which is now in the mid to high twenties (depends a lot on how aggressively people are editing). I like that metric because it eliminates the "yes, but aren't most of those page views driven by the large growth in edits?" distraction. That is, page views per day are WAY up (1300/day or more), and it's not just do to edits, because of the "views per edit" metric.
Is there really nothing from the Google analytics? *sigh* Well, take a break, and swap it later, or perhaps Google will fix it if you are willing to wait. They have before.
By the way, do you think there is value in list page views on the main page? That is pretty exciting (more exciting than page count, for me), and is similar to the Wikipedia article count. --CurtB 15:19, 10 December 2006 (PST)
I received your check yesterday. Thank you. I left a message for OneWorld about Appropedia's partner status, which seems to be in error as they have not charged us and have us listed as being a member since 1970. I will let you know more as I find out, and I will not cash your check until they charge us.
I do check the statistics page, and Google analytics is working well (I check it frenetically and use the information to direct advertising, blog comments and sitemaps based on keywords and visitors). I could send monthly updates to the admins if you think it would be worth it.
I see some value in listing page views on the main page (in what way is this similar to the Wikipedia article count?). I think that it would only be worth putting on the main page if we made it automatic.
Our PageRank is unreasonable low, and I still do not know why. In fact Appropedia's PageRank is currently lower than Pequals, which seems impossible as Pequals has less links to it and much less activity. Three (of many) possibilities:
  1. There is a problem with the way Google is PageRanking.
  2. We have some outgoing links to banned or reprimanded sites from our pages.
  3. We were PageRanked during our switch to shortnames, and something went wrong. In which case we will need to wait a couple of months before it is corrected.
Fortunately PageRank is but one of very many aspects that direct links to Appropedia. I think that we are somewhat on track for relevant links, and I would like our numbers to increase 10 fold by the end of summer.
Thank you --Lonny 22:14, 10 December 2006 (PST)
I don't know how the other admins feel, but I would be very interested in the analytics to help understand which comments, etc, have the most impact. You mention advertising. Are you spending money on that? (I ask for both budgeting and impact reasons.)
I think posting "page views" is similar to Wikipedia's page count in that both seem to be a form of "rah rah, look how we're doing". Our page count is fairly modest, but our total hits (128,000) is getting interesting, and the pace of hits (1,400/day) is very promising! I'll look into automating it. If that's not an option, I think our next re-work of the main page could direct some traffic toward the Check progress page. --CurtB 06:32, 11 December 2006 (PST)
I forgot to mention...I'm not too worried about the PageRank problem...but maybe I should be. My daughter works at Google, and I can ask her (she used to work with the Ad group, and I think has some awareness or connections into how PageRank works). --CurtB 06:34, 11 December 2006 (PST)

Missing Buttons in the edit bar?[edit source]

Do you see text, e.g. "Bold textItalic textInternal link", in the edit bar above a edit window instead of buttons? --Lonny 22:47, 3 December 2006 (PST)

I didn't see that, but User:Vacuum1313 commented that the "bold button" didn't work, though it worked fine when I next tried it. The toolbar looks fine as I type this... Perhaps it's browser specific?
I think it has something to do with capitalization and rewrites of the 2nd level folder (in this case Skins vs skins). I will keep working on it, please let me know if you encounter it. --Lonny 09:36, 4 December 2006 (PST)
As for whining (section above) I must say you're not really trying. But yes, the page views here have really rocketed. Even though page edits are up a lot, views per edit have doubled recently (around 30 by my guesstimate) which has me giddy. --CurtB 07:44, 4 December 2006 (PST)
Sitemap is working again, as of 2AM! --Lonny 09:36, 4 December 2006 (PST)

Finalize: Singular or plural categories?[edit source]

Just had a chat with Curt... quite productive. One question to finalize: Singular or plural categories? Curt says "I have a tiny-tiny bias toward plural cat pages, am fine with whatever you both agree on, and will do legwork in whatever direction." My own preference is still for plural. I know you're a flexible guy, but I wanted to get consensus.

If we leave it, we have more work to do later, and moving a cat page erases the edit history. --Singkong2005 · talk 17:53, 13 December 2006 (PST)

What is the plan for categories such as Category:Sanitation? --Lonny 10:22, 14 December 2006 (PST)
Was that question incomplete? Aha! As I make my edit, I notice the missing ":" that caused the category to disappear! I have repaired it! I would say that Categories like "water" and "sanitation", that are not generally "countable" would be left as singular. I describe it that way because "Water" can be pluralized, but "sanitation" probably does not get pluralized ever. Gee, seems like the list gets long quickly:
  • Sanitation
  • Water
  • Electricity
  • Solar (not a noun?)
  • Adobe
  • Health
  • Culture
  • Power
  • Transportation
  • Education
  • Food
  • Cooking
Hmm. Makes me reassess my tiny-tiny bias toward plural. I knew this would happen. I have some small list of issues with singular, but without much experience I'm unaware of the large list of issues I might have with plural categories. Sigh.
Chris, you mentioned that "we will have more work to do later", but of course, that's only if we decide to change later... Or am I missing something? That is, if we decide to stick with plural categories now, and DON'T change our minds later, is there some load of work to do?
I mean that we currently have some plural cat names, & some singular... we'll have to change some, for consistency, and the sooner the better. --Singkong2005 · talk 06:18, 15 December 2006 (PST)
Okay, so I've gone back to the Appropedia:Policy discussion page and notice that you've kind of been here. The long list that I made above seems to suggest a tendency to select nouns that don't pluralize well, i.e. are not countable, for topic nouns. But in the cases where they are countable (like Materials, or Category:Composting toilet), I prefer the plural. Perhaps putting the policy in those terms would make it fairly simple.
Yep, it's countable nouns that are the issue. Category:Sanitation would stay the same, same as "public health" and "sewerage" in Wikipedia. Or another perspective... in plural usage, we talk about sanitation in many places, or toilets in many places, or several countries... not sanitations, and not toilet in many places, or several country.
I don't know if this is confusing to some people - it seems natural to me, though I am very sensitive to the oddities and inconsistencies of English (which became very clear to me when I first tried to explain English to Indonesians). --Singkong2005 · talk 06:18, 15 December 2006 (PST)
The good news about some "mixed" approach like this is that many category names would not need to change.
Chris, would it be fair to ask you to take a first swing at articulating the policy in a short paragraph? You can say "no" and I'll take a swing at it if that's your answer.
My left hand is killing me - too much typing? ergonomics? - so if you could do it, much appreciated... --Singkong2005 · talk 06:18, 15 December 2006 (PST)
Hah! I thought I had clicked save on this, and so went randomly off to work on other stuff. First thing I did was to create a new category Category:User resources, and it wasn't for 3 minutes that I realized that I had made it plural without even thinking about it. I must say, I would not like the singular version. *sigh* Okay, this time I'm gonna click save. --CurtB 14:02, 14 December 2006 (PST)

Chat[edit source]

It would be great to chat soon by phone (or Skype/Google voice if i can find a mike...) Interesting connections with people in the last couple of days have prompted many thoughts about promo, who is most receptive, some great producers of potential content, and about making clear to people what exactly we offer. but i'd rather talk than type. --Singkong2005 · talk 06:22, 15 December 2006 (PST)

I can call you on a land line so that we don't have any lag. Or we could try skype as well. I am excited to talk. When is good for you? --Lonny 14:41, 15 December 2006 (PST)
Oops, I'd meant to mention Curt as well - a three way convo would be ideal. My free hours are irregular - you could try SMSing me... I'll email you with details. --Singkong2005 · talk 03:26, 16 December 2006 (PST)

Moderator for Transportation?[edit source]

Hi Lonny. Aaron just expressed a strong interest in moderating the Transportation topic. In my mind, you moderate the moderators. Is that true? If so, contact him, please. If not, correct my misunderstanding :-). Thanks, --CurtB 14:25, 17 December 2006 (PST)

Hi Curt. Yes, for now I would like to moderate the metatopic moderators. I will contact Aaron, whom I feel would be an excellent transportation moderator. See some of his work at http://web.archive.org/web/20090225113703/http://aaron.arcatacommunity.org:80/ and Aaron's contributions, especially Category:Transportation. See Apply to be a topic moderator for a start to a formalized process. --Lonny 02:02, 18 December 2006 (PST)

Both belong in Category:Power and energy[edit source]

Hi Lonny. I was tempted to move both of your re-categorized "power and energy" articles up to the higher category a few days ago. Not sure why I didn't. I'm also not sure what the experiment is... (i.e. what kinds of observable results are there?) but I don't have much issue with the categorization :-) Perhaps with the analytics that are set up, you can see the paths that users take as they wander through Appropedia? If that's true, then I guess I can understand the experiment concept... That would presumably be a navigation experiment? --CurtB 15:04, 18 December 2006 (PST)

A note left for you?[edit source]

Hi Lonny. User:Stef Breukel left a note at User_talk:137.150.15.157. With a bit of poking, it would seem that this IP address is usually you, perhaps not realizing you weren't logged in... Almost certainly someone at Humboldt based on various edits made by this IP address going back to August :-)

Anyway, wanted to let you know. The talk page is not very useful, and should presumably be removed at some point, but wanted to give you a chance to reply to Stef. He may also be interested in categorizing his pages under Category:Articles asking spelling and grammar review. Of course, I can tell him that, but wanted to give his message a chance to reach its intended recipient first... If that's you? --CurtB 16:43, 21 December 2006 (PST)

Thank you Curt. Here is the content of that note:

Thank you for editing I am from the Netherlands and my English is not very good. I am shore there are a lot of other grammar folds in myn spelling. P lease visit the "3rd world arm lamp" page.

I am stil working on it, but now it begins to get clear hou this lamps looks like and works..

This page needs review for grammar, spelling and/or layout. You can help by editing this page ????


I like to hear other and better experiances of people that make and use this kind of lamps and lamp stands


Stef Breukel

I will reply at his talk page. --Lonny 17:13, 21 December 2006 (PST)

INFORM, Inc[edit source]

Hi Lonny, I wasn't sure where to put this. Could go on the talk page for INFORM, but in a way it didn't seem right. The person who wrote that is almost certainly Liz McClellan. She goes by "Cityzen Jane" on a blog that I subscribe to. I dropped her a note, she replied that "I will check you out". I didn't know if she meant Appropedia, or my blog. Then I noticed her profile mentioned a presence at Omidyar. At Omidyar, I learned her name and that she was at INFORM. A short bit later, INFORM popped up. Coincidence? Anyway, I mention all this just to share (for all readers) the curious pathways of networking.

Interwiki map[edit source]

Hi Lonny, I've posted a question at Appropedia talk:Interwiki map - no rush, just letting you know. --Singkong2005 · talk 05:38, 29 December 2006 (PST)

Hi Chris,
I have handed this over to Gabe. Thank you, --Lonny 10:58, 29 December 2006 (PST)

Another WC comment[edit source]

I left another comment at WC, this time related to Vermiculture. First comment, and the article was very fresh, so I think we'll see a ton (okay, maybe 40?) of hits. I'm curious how the number may be different from the previous (delayed) WC comment, so I'd appreciate any info you get on it when you get a chance. Already I see some evidence, because there was an anonymous edit of the CCAT vermiculture page, correcting a couple of typos. Yay! I got a similar thrill earlier today when someone anonymously corrected a link in the derived version of the Sawdust toilet article, which I had recently created. That's the first edit I've seen to any of the articles that I ported. Yippee! --CurtB 17:58, 3 January 2007 (PST)

Good work! I'm very aware that you're doing a heap of valuable work, and I feel quite slack in comparison (but the nature of wikis means we contribute when and as we're able, so I know I can put in more work at another time). Your work is appreciated! And Lonny's & Gabe's too of course, probably much under-appreciated, being largely behind the scenes. --Singkong2005 · talk 18:05, 3 January 2007 (PST)
Appreciation all around. I am very happy with what everone here is doing. Thank you all. --67.127.55.64 19:42, 4 January 2007 (PST)
I changed the full word to WC. We know what it means, and we won't get the undesired search hits this way. --CurtB 21:03, 4 January 2007 (PST)

Discussion tracker[edit source]

As you mentioned recently, it can be hard to keep track of what's happening on the community discussion pages, with there being such a number of pages, so I had a first go at a {{Discussion tracker}}. {{Discussion tracker|Lonny}} gives:


Hope you find it helpful. --Singkong2005 · talk 19:27, 11 January 2007 (PST)

This is great! Thank you Chris. --Lonny 01:24, 13 January 2007 (PST)

Photos on profiles[edit source]

Hi Lonny, I was just browsing some old stuff on my talk page, considering what to archive. Came across a comment of yours endorsing the photos-on-profiles idea. I had the sense you intended to add your photo. Did it fall off your todo list? Or perhaps I misread your intent. I notice (thanks to the joy of Google Images) that your picture is already here on the Parras Invitation page, so I can insert it for you :-) But seems a tad "forward" of me. --CurtB 16:52, 18 January 2007 (PST)

Done. I do endorse photos on profiles. Thanks for the reminder. --Lonny 22:19, 28 January 2007 (PST)

Update the quarter on your calendar?[edit source]

Currently says Fall 2006... --CurtB 17:06, 19 January 2007 (PST)

Done. Thanks. --Lonny 22:20, 28 January 2007 (PST)

I plan to move area categories this weekend[edit source]

Using pywikipedia, I can pretty quickly move all the Area Categories from singular names to plural names. Chris is obviously a big fan of this, nudges now and then. The tools seems pretty smart, but still might not handle everything, like edit history of a category. I'm not too worried about that. But I want to hear from you before I charge ahead. (I plan to make a list of the categories first, which you could pre-approve if you prefer.) What say you? --CurtB 07:13, 16 February 2007 (PST)

Standardising namespace is a really good idea. I'm hoping you mean that you will be changing plural names to singular names, rather than what you said above. Most wikis (crucially wikipedia) use singular names, and if all wikis use the same namespace, it becomes easier to move information between them. So, please change them to singular, not plural! I note that under the Nudge Nudge heading above, someone else is agreeing with this. - Anon
Hi Anon. Too bad you're anon, cuz it makes it harder to connect with you. The "nudge, nudge" above was also me (CurtB). And unfortunately, I was talking about going singular-to-plural because my resident Wikipedia expert (User:Chriswaterguy) was telling me that WP is more biased toward using plurals! I don't actually have a strong bias, but would tend to follow the WP approach. So I guess I'll to investigate for myself.
One possible explanation is that I (and Chris) are discussing Category names, not namespace names. We don't plan to go with plural namespace names. As I say, I'll need to satisfy myself which way WP prefers to go with Category names. Actually, I've heard that WP will sometimes have both singular and plural names, like "Opera" (which is a category of articles that refer to the topic of opera in the abstract) and "Operas" (which is a category full of articles about individual instances of the art form). The categories we are referring to tend to fall into the "Operas" case. That is, we have categories with articles about projects, not about the general concept of project. --CurtB 11:47, 16 February 2007 (PST)
I think Anon might have been referring to the Namespace as opposed to the Area Category. I think that we have reached consensus about the area names, i.e. we are changing Project to Projects, and How to to How tos (the How tos area sounds so bad to me, okay that was the last jibe I swear. Nope, one more - now the category bar will never read like Australia | Greywater | Project. Okay the demons have been expunged, moving forward...). Curt maybe you could post the list (linked from here) and leave it open for a little bit (36 hours?). Anon please come back and let us know what you think, especially when looking at the list that Curt posts. Thank you all for your hard work, patience and dedication, --Lonny 12:24, 16 February 2007 (PST)

Category name change planning[edit source]

Okay, here is my plan. Pluralize these kids:

  1. Greenhouse (5 members)
  2. How to (44 members)
  3. Organization (36 members)
  4. Photovoltaic (9 members)
  5. Porting helper (2 members)
  6. Program (5 members)
  7. Project (43 members)
  8. Project by timeframe (3 members)
  9. Thesis (3 members)
  10. Tool (1 member)
  11. Topic (17 members)

These get special attention:

  • Policy (1 member) (wanted category, should be "Appropedia official policy" to follow Wikipedia convention)
What about Category:Appropedia policies? That's in existence with 6 members; perhaps leave "official policy" until we have enough policies to want to separate drafts, suggested policies and official policies (official = agreed by consensus I presume). --Chriswaterguy · talk 08:33, 18 February 2007 (PST)
  • Projects (1 member) (will remove this category prior to moving “Project” to “Projects”)


Not sure about these guys. Will leave them alone for now.

  1. DIY (32 members) (should these be "how tos"?) They look like "how tos" to me. But we should check, moving again when needed. Hmm... --Chriswaterguy · talk 08:33, 18 February 2007 (PST)
  2. Household Cyclopedia (30 members)
  3. Living roof (1 member)

Warning: this will happen sometime tomorrow (Sunday, PST). --CurtB 23:50, 17 February 2007 (PST)

Extensions for RSS, etc?[edit source]

User:Trav left a note on my talk page asking about which extensions we used. I'm clueless! So referred him to you via a note on his talk page. --CurtB 15:46, 19 February 2007 (PST)

Reverting back-to-back spam[edit source]

I saw that you had some trouble rolling back consecutive spams. I've had that also. I happened to be attempting that one day while Chris was online, and IM'ed him about it. He suggested that you view the most recent valid historical version, then do edit / save. It worked like a charm. Perhaps this belongs in an admin help page? --CurtB 12:18, 21 February 2007 (PST)

I thought you might want to be the first to see this article[edit source]

Public Interest Environmental Law Conference Baron 15:22, 24 February 2007 (PST)

Hi Baron, Thank you for posting about the very important elaw conference. --Lonny 18:48, 26 February 2007 (PST)

Category:Heat - gentle nudge[edit source]

A gentle reminded that Category:Heat is "very under construction... please check back 20/7/06 - I guess you could try to get one or more of your students to take it on, as a project... just a thought. --Chriswaterguy · talk 05:06, 5 March 2007 (PST)

Hi Chris, Thank you for the gentle nudge. I deleted the Category:Heat page as I do not think it should be a Category, it should be a Heat_basics page that is listed under Category:Energy (and maybe others). I will restart it as a page probably next month. Thank you, --Lonny18:22, 5 March 2007 (PST)
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