Appropedia:Village pump/2007

I would like to move Category:Washing to Category:Washing and drying clothes, putting the material from Washing and drying clothes on that page. Any objections? --Singkong2005 · talk 02:23, 5 January 2007 (PST)

Two thoughts... 1) Be bold. 2) Isn't "laundry" the common English word for "washing and drying clothes"? The tentative category naming policy would argue for the simpler and more inclusive term. --CurtB 12:12, 23 January 2007 (PST)

I've had a first go at a {{Discussion tracker}} - see my talk page to see how it looks on a user or talk page.

I hope people find it helpful. --Singkong2005 · talk 19:43, 11 January 2007 (PST)

Hi, I have very recently made something that I call the mechanical mathematician which is a fairly simple tool for making a parabolic dish. I am convinced that it will greatly help people making solar cookers because it is so simple, can be quickly adjusted and it takes the math (and mystery) away from making the parabola. It can be used to make a parabolic dish from cob, concrete, or cardboard panels. It could be adjusted too to make a parabolic dome either (as a mold for many dishes!) how about looking it up on google and putting an entry on here. I currently do not have the time or expertize on wiki to do it but I have put the info online and it is easily searchable. Brian White Canada

Thank you for the offer. I posted the porting request at Pages to Port. --Lonny 19:20, 24 September 2007 (PDT)

Hello! Help solve the problem. Very often try to enter the forum, but says that the password is not correct. Regrettably use of remembering. Give like to be? Thank you! --—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 89.149.202.65

If you registered and gave your email address, you can ask for a new password; otherwise you'll have to create a new account (and I'd recommend giving your email address, so that you don't have this problem again). Good luck, and hope to see you here, logged in.

Please be careful not to delete other people's comments when you add your questions - thanks. --Chriswaterguy · talk 09:24, 23 August 2007 (PDT)

Nor can Mehtap! I want to say that your site better throughout the World Wide Web :) Thank you. Keep it. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 89.149.202.65, 13:57, 8 May 2007 (PST)

Thank you, glad you think so. --Lonny 23:50, 8 May 2007 (PDT)

I've never paid much attention to the sidebar, but I've just realized that neither the the Community portal & Village pump are linked from there. On the text of the main page, the community portal is linked once, through a piped link. Is this deliberate, or an oversight? --Singkong2005 · talk 19:43, 11 January 2007 (PST)

Actually, both of those are in the side bar, they're just disguised. Maybe that was a bad idea? Anyway, "Help Out" is a link to the Community portal, and "Ask Questions" is a link to Village pump. --CurtB 12:08, 23 January 2007 (PST)

Ah, okay. I don't like disguising links too much, as it's less obvious for someone who has an idea of what they're looking for, and it's harder to remember a pagename if it's called something different where it's linked from. I've changed them to display as "Community portal" and "Village pump" - what do you think? It would be good to have a more specific "help out" page to link to as well (I suspect we have one, but don't have time to look right now...) --Singkong2005 · talk 22:20, 29 January 2007 (PST)

What to think? Why no integrated action with the people from the ITDG? Do they plan to do things different? Should stuff from Appropedia also immediately be ported to Howtopedia? Is it going to help to have two platforms for the same purpose?

Reinder Demotech Januari 23

Hello Reinder, I already asked the same question at lonny's talkpage and got an answer... see https://www.appropedia.org/User_talk:Lonny#message_from_anna See you on friday. greetings, --Demotech (anna) 05:59, 23 January 2007 (PST)

I didn't see a response from Lonny, but Appropedia is definitely working with ITDG (except that they now use "Practical Action" for their name). They have given permission to us for porting all their technical briefs. They told me about Howtopedia as well, so I asked Howtopedia if they would like to work together, but they were not interested at the time (perhaps 8 weeks ago?). Unfortunately. --CurtB 23:51, 25 January 2007 (PST)

In preparation for some advertising, I've created a new, cleaner version of the main page at Main Page tests. Not quite ready for prime time, since I have links to our Appropedia:Mission page which could use a refresh, and to Help:Contributing content which doesn't exist as I type this but which I expect to hold some of the "contributor" stuff on the current main page.

I've also created a page on "Appropedia growth", which is currently in my namespace at User talk:Curtbeckmann/Appropedia growth coordination. I created a new mission and vision statement, plus listed several other things around growth. I'd like to get aggressive on certain initiatives to prepare for the Google Ad Blitz (okay, the cautious, $5 ad campaign). Next step after that will be defining the NGO partnership program. After speaking with the AIDG chairman, the question is not "if", but "what does it look like"!

Oh... And I sent the non-profit bylaws to Lonny for his entertainment. --CurtB 23:51, 25 January 2007 (PST)

I created Category:Latin America as a subcat of Category:Countries, to start grouping countries. Now I see that this suggests we have regional groupings for all countries. And regions are fuzzy sometimes, for border countries, so that will create more work...

Another idea that occurs to me know is to continue to put every country into the "Countries" cat, but also have a "Countries by region" category, for those that have been grouped. These regions could also be linked under "See also" on the Category:Countries page. That's my favored approach, but just thought I'd flag it before I do it. --Singkong2005 · talk 22:27, 29 January 2007 (PST)

I think the agriculture section needs a bit of a rejig. There is too much content at the top level and also some overlap between articles in the category and subcategory level. I've put my suggestion here Category talk:Agriculture for improving. Cgfoz 15:35, 31 January 2007 (PST)

Thank you so much for your comments. I am glad to see that they are being addressed at Category talk:Agriculture. --Lonny 09:23, 6 February 2007 (PST)

Public health is a widely used term (e.g. international public health; public health engineering; Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health) and makes a natural category - I believe Category:Public health should be restored/reverted, either replacing Category:Health and safety (sort of, with a couple of articles falling out) or made a subcategory of it. Any objections? --Singkong2005 · talk 21:44, 10 February 2007 (PST)

I'm a fan of making Public Health a subcategory. I considered that, but wasn't sure if it might be better to elevate every member of "Public health" to the higher category. Anyway, I certainly have no objections to creating a public health subcategory. I prefer the largest category at the top, and I think "Health and safety" is a fair bit larger than "Public health". Public health is, after all, a slightly narrrower topic than "Health" generally, and does not clearly include Public safety concepts. --CurtB 07:59, 11 February 2007 (PST)

Query from nokturnalplay at the int_development community on LJ - can someone give advice?

Do anyone know of organizations that work with developing Afro-Latino communities? I'm interested in going into international development and my region of choice is the Afro-Latino community, especially Colombia.

--Chriswaterguy · talk 18:25, 13 February 2007 (PST)

I always feel uncomfortable using phrases like "developing world" or "less developed countries" (LDC), or "third world." The first is a euphemism (they are not necessarily developing); they second is more accurate but more awkward, and feels quite dry or clinical; and using third world^W is likely to get one in trouble with those who point out that the historical meaning of the term, during the cold war, referred to the first world (the West) or the second world (communist countries). Should we encourage the use of a particular term? If so, which one?

How about "majority world"? I came across it in the New Internationalist magazine - while I find NI is not to my taste (advocating lefty positions rather than starting with intelligent questioning and analysis) I do like the way majority world reminds us of how the world is constituted.

Wikipedia:Third World states Terms such as Global South, developing countries, less economically developed countries (LEDC), least developed countries and the Majority World have become more popular in circles where the term "third world" is regarded to have derogatory or out-of-date connotations.

Of these, the only other term which rolls off the tongue easily is "Global South^W" (which redirects to Third World). However, I find the North-South thing also euphemistic and not very accurate - especially speaking as an Australian.

Notes on common usage:

• In Wikipedia, Majority world^W redirects to Third World.
• the google count is tiny compared to other terms, especially "third world." Try google:Third World, google:Global South, google:developing countries, google:less economically developed countries, [[google:least developed countries and google:Majority World.
• People are more likely to search in Google through with a common term like "Third World" - so we may show up better with that term. Is there anything we can do to minimize this effect?

• Lots of redirects wherever a title includes one of the above phrases?
• An explanatory template placed on the bottom of relevant pages (which is to say, on a very large number of pages), saying that we use "Majority World" in preference to "Third World" and "Global South" (while also trying not to make a big deal of it)?

Whatever we choose to do, an article on the issue is certainly warranted, perhaps at Majority World. --Chriswaterguy · talk 18:11, 25 February 2007 (PST)

This is insane.

• http://techdirt.com/articles/20070307/133704.shtml
• http://web.archive.org/web/20070715041716/http://www.herald-review.com:80/articles/2007/03/01/news/local_news/1021491.txt

Could someone please make an article about the situation in the story? I'm too pissed off by the story to do it myself.

Baron 12:33, 8 March 2007 (PST)

I've heard of such things happening in the UK (probably the case mentioned in the first link) and maybe Spain, when quite a few people started using new veg oil from a supermarket - it was said you could only spot the "offending" cars because they smelt pleasantly like a fish and chip shop. People had to fill out heaps of paperwork and pay tax for

An article is a great idea - where to publish? Submit it everywhere perhaps? WikiNews is another option, but I think that's news rather than commentary, so that would have to be fairly straight reporting.

I've got a lot on my plate but would gladly lend a hand. What about you make a start on an article on Appropedia, e.g. at Biofuel Wetzels deserve medals, not threats and red tape. (We can always change the name later).

Also ask at wikia:sca21. --Chriswaterguy · talk 20:21, 8 March 2007 (PST)

Our topic pages are now mostly categories, but there are a few pages that for whatever reason seem best in main space. I don't know if I'm thinking wrongly here. For example Developing country which seems problematic as a category, as it would lead to trying to decide which country is in which category... which would distract from important matters.

If we do have topic-related pages in main space, I'm now thinking that plural feels more natural, as it's consistent with most of the topics; also the nature of the articles are different from Wikipedia (with its singular title policy) and my gut feeling is that plural works better. Sorry if that's vague and contradicts my original position... --Chriswaterguy · talk 03:11, 18 March 2007 (PDT)

Hi all. I just learned that one of the pywikipedia python scripts, category.py, is able to generate a nice category tree, using the "tree" option. (You can add, remove, move also.) This may be useful for various maintenance tasks. Example wikitext output was inserted below:

(begin insert)

Food and drink (69) (also in Fundamental)

1. Agriculture (119) (also in Stubs)
   1. Agricultural subsidies (0) (also in Subsidies and grants)
   2. Animal husbandry (5)
      1. Fish farming (2)
      2. Livestock (25)
   3. Composting (8) (also in Construction and materials, Waste management)
      1. Composting toilets (6) (also in Sanitation, Water conservation)
   4. Food crops (58)
   5. Greenhouses (5) (also in Alternative building, Stubs)
   6. Nonfood crops (1)
   7. Organic farming (4)
   8. Uncommon Tropical Crops (3)
   9. Urban agriculture (0) (also in Cities, Stubs)
   10. Vermiculture (4) (also in Pages needing a topic expert, Stubs, Waste management)
2. Food preparation (2) (also in Stubs)
   1. Cookers (1) (also in Pages needing attention, Stubs, Suggested projects)
      1. Improved cook stoves (3) (also in Pages needing attention, Public health, Suggested projects)
      2. Solar cooking (1) (also in Pages needing a topic expert, Solar, Stubs)
3. Food preserving (4) (also in Stubs)
   1. Refrigeration (2) (also in Health infrastructure, Heat)
      1. Sun Frost (1) (also in Energy efficiency, Organizations)
   2. Solar dehydrating (2) (also in Pages needing a topic expert, Solar, Stubs)
4. Vegetarianism and veganism (0)

(end of inserted text)

The above output was generated by/on: --CurtB 21:03, 19 March 2007 (PDT)

Hello!

Please help me out! The original, self-made/designed/originated material I contribute to society through the website of my foundation Demotech (www.demotech.org) is also ported by Appropedia. This I highly value for two reasons:

• Outgoing:
  

To be among the mind stuff of people with a similar mindset, to have an opportunity to be inspired, to learn in general

• Incoming:
  

To create the opportunity for feed back from users. This world needs rapid development of any item of Appropriate Technology. Without a mechanism of DIRECT and EFFECTIVE feedback from users on content such as what Demotech offers, further development of this content may stagnate. However, when feedback opportunities are provided this development may soar!

For this reason the sole condition for use of Demotech designs is to provide a link back to its origin attached to the information from Demotech. And please, let this link not only contain name and (web)-address of the author, but also a few lines that the author expects explicit and detailed feedback as a rightful reward for its otherwise freely to be used contribution.
As I looked at Creative Commons Licenses, I found the license 'Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0' that seemed somehow to answer what I look for. However not with the specific request condition as named.
I fully realize this condition can not be enforced in practice. Similar as the condition to pay for 'share ware'. But non the less it should be a condition that remains attached to the content as it spreads.

Three questions:

• Is the 'Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0' -license endorsed by Appropedia?
• Where can I find earlier discussions on the topic of feed back on behalf of continuous development?
• Where is info to be found on how design-communities may best originate and function on Internet?

Thanks for a rapid response!
Reinder/Demotech

Hi Reinder,

Thank you for your comments. I have addressed some of your feedback request comments. I have updated the {{Attrib Demotech}} template and the Demotech page to more directly attribute content and request explicit feedback. I have also tried to make sure that this template shows up on all Demotech pages, and have posted instructions on the Demotech page itself. Please let me know what you think.

As I noted on my talk page, here is some information regarding licensing on Appropedia-

Appropedia uses the GNU-FDL license. Here are our conversations on the topic of license - Appropedia talk:Copyrights. Please feel free to add your comments there, where a more focused group can respond.

We have been working on ways to increase the quantity and critical thought behind feedback at Appropedia. to address the quantity of feedback, we have been actively promoting Appropedia to good success. We have been growing quite quickly and can feel critical mass building, especially with the fairly recent additions of wikigreen and VillageEarth. On the quality of feedback issues, we have been having some energized discussions with a larger team. This discussion will be made public as soon as we decide upon a forum software (Drupal vs phpBB). I really look forward to your input on this matter, as you clearly have experience with the need for feedback on your projects.

Hopefully I have addressed some of your questions. Anyone else have thoughts on this? --Lonny

The GNU-FDL license is also used by Wikipedia and they are at present in negotiations with Gnu and with Creative Commons to jointly develop a new version of the GFDL license which is compatible with the CC-BY-SA license (the Creative Commons-Attribution-Sharealike license which is used by many other wikis) so that content can be freely shared between projects using these two licenses. I expect this will then become the most popular free culture/copyleft license. Information published under the CC-BY (Creative Commons Attribution license) can also be republished under the CC-BY-SA license but not the other way round - you can't take CC-BY-SA info and put it into a CC-BY document. 81.187.181.168 17:25, 9 April 2008 (PDT)

We're eagerly awaiting the outcome - CC-by-sa would suit us much better. --Chriswaterguy (talk) 21:22, 9 April 2008 (PDT)

Sarah Brunner has been created. Should we suggest moving it to user space? (It appears to have been created by a business partner, so maybe that doesn't work). Or, how should we categorize it...? --Chriswaterguy · talk 00:56, 17 April 2007 (PDT)

I think that the Sarah Brunner page would better fit as a heading on the Wild Chick Farm page. I have left comments at Talk:Wild Chick Farm to that effect. I will monitor the progress as this was a Engr305 project. Thank you, --Lonny 10:11, 17 April 2007 (PDT)

17 April 2007 (PDT)

I did this, sort of fumbling along trying to move a page. Any suggestions? Thanks--careysmith

I dont even know if im asking in the right area. Please excuse my ignorance. -Carey

See Talk:Wild Chick Farm#Some Changes for some help. --Lonny 14:00, 17 April 2007 (PDT)

What should the category name be for articles about oil dependency and reducing oil dependency, e.g. Transition towns?

Peak oil is a bit controversial so I'd rather avoid it. Also, we can believe in reducing oil dependency even if we don't accept that peak oil is imminent. (This is George Monbiot's position, and I'm inclined to agree.)

Category:Reducing oil dependency is more accurate but awkward. --Chriswaterguy · talk 17:41, 20 April 2007 (PDT)

Hey, all: Peak Oil has only been made controversial by the actions of naysayers in the popular press, and in turn sensationalized by that press. To illustrate, 3 well-known scientific phenomena deeply grounded, vetted, researched, and finally accepted by the very sober somber conservative scientific community are: evolution by natural selection ("Darwinism"), anthropogenic global warming (AGW), and Peak Oil. All 3 have been subjected to the same hysterical fallacious opposition by the same type of talking points specialists regardless of the moment in time. I wrote in the discussion on Peak Oil some facts to correct its perception and I will (judiciously) edit the page soon. I do not recommend avoiding it. There is just not sufficient reason to avoid it, just as we should not avoid any facts. The only relief globally there might be would be major discoveries of petroleum reserves, but this is highly unlikely. The search is essentially over. Sliding the date of Peak Oil will only be a minor adjustment. And finally whether it is imminent is academic for several reasons: one--we will only know 1-2 years after it actually happens--like so many statistical phenomena, the data is just not real-time, and it has to be processed; two--the consequences/impacts will not be drastic in the short-term (like a door slamming shut); three--the global society and the environment cannot and should not wait until that time to act.

"Reducing oil dependency" has great value regardless of Peak Oil, namely AGW. If petroleum was a brand new energy source with no perceptible "peak", it would be quickly dismissed for its horrendous environmental impact.

I have not seen any resolution of the title question, but "Global Alternatives to Carbon" is more comprehensive, and more descriptive. Below is my first attempt at an automatic signoff.

SustainableDavid 09:23, 10 August 2008 (PDT)

I would like to copy the category structure of my site http://www.demotech.org as it to found at http://www.demotech.org/d-design.php
In fact I consider to port the whole of the structure of the Demotech site to Appropedia to invite the cooperation that is up to now too limited. In this category structure I like to port an abstract of the content as it is to be found at the Demotech website. This regards an abstract of all of the design initiatives and all of the publications. I want to link all of these abstracts to the full original content at the Demotech site.

Next to that I want to link each of these design initiatives to a discussion page, thus creating a space that acts much like a forum, where each post is allocated next to the general info it is about.

In the Demotech web site there is, next to the main HTML part of each design initiative also a Wiki part. This Wiki part is meant for reporting on research done on this design initiative. I set it up to facilitate intern students and students doing their thesis. It is tested only with a few intern students. It worked fairly well: the general setup of the research fitted the work of the students well enough. See an example at: http://www.demotech.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Design/D53
I hope to get comments on the idea to port this section to Appropedia and not to have it anymore in the Demotech site. Maybe not only for the Demotech design topics, but added to any topic in Appropedia that is suitable for it and needs to be researched on. Specially it is meant to assist teachers and students in the hope to involve world wide education in the research for appropriate solutions.

I look forward to get from the village pump inspiration and guidance. Reinder, Demotech, design for self-reliance, 25 May, 2007

[--Demotech 26 May 2007 (PDT)--]

Hi Reinder,

We are very excited by this proposal. I am currently on my way to New York, and have very limited computer access for the next couple of days. I greatly look forward to continuing this exciting conversation towards promoting wider cooperation. --Lonny 23:24, 25 May 2007 (PDT)

Sounds good! I'm a little unclear on the details, but it seems we're agreed on the general direction and can start work on it. --Chriswaterguy · talk 02:20, 26 May 2007 (PDT)

Hi Reinder,

See my response and questions at User talk:Demotech, design#Sub-sub categories for the sub-category Demotech.

Thank you, --Lonny 00:51, 1 June 2007 (PDT)

A couple of interesting developments in networking:

To help with inter-wiki networking, http://www.wikia.com/wiki/Society_Gardens has been created on Wikia: This is a summary of active, established Wikia sites on serious topics (ie not entertainment or gaming).

To help with networking within a wiki, the CAN system (community and networking card), has been discussed at WikiSocial, and is being tried out at Sustainable Community Action. See Sustainable Community Action's community and networking card page. When I get a chance I'll look into this further. --Chriswaterguy · talk 09:00, 13 July 2007 (PDT)

Hey y'all. I haven't added much here, but I've been trawling for a while. I run another wiki - Envirowiki - on environmentalism and social justice (intended as a much more theory based wiki than this, I think).

I've been thinking, especially since doing a great course on technology and systems design last semester at Newcastle Uni, that appropedia could benefit from a theory category or portal, leading to pages about things like thermodynamics, systematic design theory, ecology, basic machines, and how they relate to technology. This could be helpful in showing people how to create new AT, along side all the examples of existing AT.

Let me know what you think, in the mean time, I might start a few pages with the little I know about these fields. cheers. --Naught101 01:59, 4 August 2007 (PDT)

Hi Naught101,

Great work at Envirowiki. We definitely want to help people create new AT. I say go for your additions and we will try to help along the way. I am excited to see your pages. Thank you, --Lonny 10:05, 4 August 2007 (PDT)

Started a page at Systematic design, though like I said, I don't know that much about it really. It'd be good to get some more info. Added it to the category:theory, which doesn't exist yet, but there might be other pages already that could be added that that. I was thinking, why isn't there a page on appropriate technology? (that page redirects to here). It would be a good idea to have an introduction to theory page on it somewhere (maybe there already is?), could remove the redirect (my favourite), or have it at appropriate technology theory, or introduction to appropriate technology, what's best? Added a few links to my previous post. --Naught101 04:30, 5 August 2007 (PDT)

Is there a policy about page substitutions? I have seen that there is a page "3rd world arm lamp (old model)" and "3rd world arm lamp". When the user wants to replace his newer one with a better version, should than the old one be replaced or would it be better that from now on there exists three pages like "3rd world arm lamp (1. model)", "3rd world arm lamp (2. model)" and "3rd world arm lamp". I would prefer the latter since the first page may contain information that is useful to somebody. LeissKG 13:19, 25 August 2007 (PDT)

Agreed. We should also make a template to tag pages as referring to old models, to be placed on those pages. Also the current page should link to the old pages, probably in the "See also" section near the bottom. --Chriswaterguy · talk 20:46, 25 August 2007 (PDT)

I think I have found a way to make porting PDFs easier. I use an OCR program ( older versions are often quite cheap ) to capture the document and much of its formatting. I ported Refrigeration for developing countries this way and have some remarks to the process.

• Select the correct language for the OCR process before you import pages.
• Go through all pages and correct the detection frames. Picture frames are usually to small ( there should be a small border around the picture). Delete spurious text frames in graphics. If there are to much dividers in tables remove the superfluous one.
• Do the OCR and afterwards the spelling correction.
• Export the OCRed document. Use a format that exports the images as individual files ( like HTML ).
• Give the exported images meaningful names afterwards.

Now how do we get the text in wikipedia format? Since this week you can use the wikipedia export mode from OpenOffice 2.30. I have also some remarks about this. I did not all of this in my first try and did have some work to change the formatting afterwards.

• Export the OCRed document again, this time use WORD or STARWRITER as format.
• Do as much formatting in OpenOffice. Marks Headers as such using the formatting tools.
• Add the captions to the Pictures

If you are satisfied with the formatting export to wikipedia format.

Changes that you should do now:

• Put the image names in the placeholders in the created document.
• Blocks of short text lines are formatted as paragraphs this creates to much space between lines. Delete this space and replace it with a < br >

If you are satisfied upload your document and the images to appropedia. Do a last check of the formatting of the finished page. --LeissKG 10:42, 19 September 2007 (PDT)

A lot of the content on CD3WD carries a copyright other than CD3WD ( e.g. VITA ). I assume the site owner has authorization to carry this content on the CD's and his web site. I'm not sure if this allows for porting to Appropedia. If this could be clarified I would like to port some energy related pages. --LeissKG 07:44, 22 September 2007 (PDT)

I have had email discussions with the guy from CD3WD and am concerned about whether there's clear written permissions to use the material. I'm not sure how much of a concern this is to other people, but I'm not keen on putting material on Appropedia with dubious copyright. If it's hosted somewhere else and linked from here, that's less of a concern for me (though it's still not strictly acceptable to link to something if there's a copyright breach, and this is not allowed on Wikipedia).

I should clarify - he has received permission for all his content, but often verbally I think, to use it in CD3WD. This does not mean it's released under an open license, and thus we don't have permission. - Chriswaterguy · talk 19:58, 6 November 2007 (PST)

A possible solution (which involves much more work) is extracting the key points and a few quotes from the relevant documents. Another approach (which will also involve a lot of work) will be getting written or emailed permission, preferably to release under GFDL.

(If they release it under a different license, or retain copyright but allow us to publish it, that's also possible, but we'll just need to mark it clearly as having a different copyright.) --Chriswaterguy · talk 02:24, 28 September 2007 (PDT)