Appropedia:Village pump/2008

Hi. I see that we have a General disclaimer at Appropedia:General disclaimer.
I'd like to offer two tentative suggestions for other more specific disclaimers to be made as templates to be placed at the top of articles.

1) A medical disclaimer: (roughly along the lines of) "Appropedia cannot offer medical advice or information. Always seek the guidance of a competent medical professional who is familiar with your specific situation."

2) A science disclaimer: - Although Appropedia theoretically espouses the scientific method and scientific rigor (Appropedia:Rigor), it is my sense that we permit articles on traditional techniques and alternative techniques that may not fit the tightest standards of scientific rigor. Therefore it might be handy to have a disclaimer along the lines of
"This Appropedia article discusses a traditional or alternative idea or technique which may not be fully accepted by the scientific or medical communities. No one from Appropedia is responsible for anything you do with the contained information, except yourself."

I am new to Appropedia -- more experienced editors should rewrite these as appropriate. -- Writtenonsand 07:17, 20 February 2008 (PST)

In principle it sounds good. I've often thought that a more prominent disclaimer at Wikipedia would be good, basically telling people to think critically no matter what they read. There are more critical issues here, when we have how-tos, including for medical equipment like asthma inhalers.

You're right that there's plenty of stuff on here that isn't explicitly scientific, but it's a broad wiki, and my initial thought is that our main concerns are about things we know to be unscientific (i.e. where there's evidence against it, rather than just lack of evidence for it). That will be hard sometimes, and I realize that some will say that there is no evidence against crystal healing, and we can't prove beyond all possibilities that a car can't run on water.

I obviously need to think about this further. I wouldn't want to support the inclusion of some material just because I'm comfortable with it (because I've spent a lot of time with hippies) while rejecting other material which is no worse. --Chriswaterguy · talk 07:27, 20 February 2008 (PST)

Well, that was my point in suggesting that this be handled with a disclaimer template (as opposed to outright exclusion). We would still be including the scientifically funkier items, but applying a disclaimer to them where appropriate. Something along the lines of

"This article -- we're not saying that it's definitely wrong, but it's off the beaten track. Just so you know." -- Writtenonsand 08:26, 20 February 2008 (PST)

I've been Wikifying articles from Dead-end pages and Orphaned pages and I see a number of pages that have no useful content (for example, some that were apparently created for bygone class projects but currently contain nothing, some that look like somebody's idiosyncratic notes for something that may never be expanded into an article, etc). We might want a way of quickly adding these pages to a list of "Suggested for rapid deletion" so that an admin could check and make the call keep/delete. A template to be added to pages might be a good way of handling this - something like {{rdelete}}. -- Writtenonsand 17:55, 23 February 2008 (PST)

Tl|Rdelete works for me. Alternatively maybe we can just use {{Delete}}, but immediately blank the content of pages that need rapid deletion. Thoughts? --Lonny 18:09, 23 February 2008 (PST)

Sounds good - but minimal use of blanking, as this makes it slightly harder for the admin to review what's being deleted. In most cases an admin will see the delete notice it in a matter of hours, anyway, if there's note put in the edit summary. --Chriswaterguy · talk 18:16, 23 February 2008 (PST)

Just discovered the {{Delete}}! That works okay for me - I don't know if we do need a separate "rapid delete". Up to the admins. -- Writtenonsand 18:20, 23 February 2008 (PST)

Hygiene Standard Institute and Hygiene Standard Institute (HSI) seem to be copyvios from material at site http://www.internationalhygiene.org/ -- Writtenonsand 00:06, 24 February 2008 (PST)

Hi Writtenonsand,

Often organizations post their mission and about information directly. This usually works well for them as it spreads the word about their organization. It appears that the author Sreejiagriman is from the organization and has been lambasted for posting it on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Sreejiagriman). But their content is okay on Appropedia because of our different criteria. So it is probably not a copyvios issue. We should probably post a note on the user's page, asking the user to state their affiliation and rights to post the info. We could also email admninternationalhygieneorg and ask them, if we get no response on the user page. In addition, we should probably merge the two pages and delete some of the google backlinks that are listed on the page. Thoughts? --Lonny 11:14, 24 February 2008 (PST)

I wrote this response yesterday but didn't realize it didn't save properly: "I emailed the article's creator (using "Email this user"), so if there's no response, I think we remove the copyvio material and turn one article into a stub, and the other into a redirect." But you're right about contacting the organization before taking drastic measures.

I was thinking about whether it's okay to accept info about an organization - as you say, it probably benefits the organization, but they still need to be aware of the license it's posted under and give approval. The person posting it may have had the authority to post, thereby releasing it. Anyway, it amounts to what you said - it's probably okay, but we'll work on contacting the user (steps taken) and I think notify the organization as well, just as a matter of course. Then if we get no satisfactory response from either, we remove enough of the content that it's no longer copyvio.

I think we need an additional template to {{copyvio}}, for pages which are potentially copyvio but can probably be resolved with a little effort. --Chriswaterguy · talk 15:16, 24 February 2008 (PST)

An organization recently gave permission to use text from their website, as long as it's not used in a way that reflects badly on the organization. Obviously we can't make that promise, if it's released under an open license.

Then I notice we have Template:OrgPOV

Technically, using this wouldn't change anything in terms of ability for people to reuse the content, but it could help an organization feel better, knowing that they can have a page where they can give their POV. That raises all kinds of policy/guideline questions, e.g. can someone else add a link to the See also section, debunking the organization's work, if the organization doesn't approve.

So... now I'm thinking that the place for content from a single POV is in userspace. Mainspace articles (such as Foundation for Sustainable Development) should always allow for other points of view. However, we can note that userspace in Appropedia is higher profile than in Wikipedia (it is included by default in site searches, networking is encouraged, and many editors feature in mainspace, through their projects). --Chriswaterguy · talk 04:45, 13 March 2008 (PDT)

When I first came to Appropedia, I thought of it as another Wikipedia except with a focus on AT. I saw that there was potential for greater collaboration and thought I would encourage this on Appropedia via what we eventually decided to call "Appropedia Action Groups"

Appropedia Action Groups is an umbrella organization of autonomous groups which collaborate with one another via this wiki to exchange technologies, opportunities, support, and ideas to improve the world.

However, the more time I spend here, the more I realize that you guys have been trying to utilize Appropedia as a forum for user and group collaboration all along. I think that along the way I might have come up with two things you haven't tried to my knowledge (have you?)

Firstly I don't know if you guys have tried to encourage local groups to tackle development projects. If you took the Engineers Without Borders model and blended it with a wikiproject model, I think you would have something slightly new and potentially powerful.

Another Idea that I don't know has been tried is turning Appropedia into and idea clearinghouse. By indexing ideas for research projects, international development projects, social businesses, etcetera, I think we can fuel the aforementioned wikiprojects.

I think that together we can create a new type of volunteering by blending existing models and creating new ones which:

• is marketable such that users will take interest - we have to show how groups working through Appropedia are different from other organizations and point out their advantages
• presents a low barrier to entry so that it is easy to get involved
• has massive diversity of opportunities to suit anyone's passion
• will give an outlet to all of the people who want to do something for the world but don't know what that something is
• can self maintain - if our model effectively replicates the psychological rewards of current volunteer organizations, we can maintain a consistent volunteer base
• scalable worldwide

Practically, I had originally envisioned carving out a niche within Appropedia for the hoped for users and groups. For instance a sub category in the users category for the "AAG users" and a sub category in the Organizations category for "AAGroups" However I'm not sure how appropriate that would be. (would that be appropriate?) --David.reber 01:00, 12 April 2008 (PDT)

Great thinking - keep it up! We want to fully support you in this effort.

As for how the niche will work best, I think creating categories is usually helpful, as long as it remains clear how someone can get involved. --Chriswaterguy 18:10, 17 April 2008 (PDT)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Biography/Outreach/Newsletter/Issue_005 on the referenced page, at the bottom of the page there is a to do list that can be expanded by clicking "show" or hidden by clicking "hide"

how did they do that? --David.reber 14:44, 12 April 2008 (PDT)

The easiest way is by using a template like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Hidden/doc. Appropedia could add something like this. So far we have decided against it because of the reduced accessibility caused by using the show/hide feature. Do you think it is a necessary component? Thank you, --Lonny 01:00, 2 May 2008 (PDT)

Would it make a difference if we could make it accessible to everyone by:

1. having it expanded by default, so people without javascript can see it, and/or
2. only using it in a template that displays a link at the top to the full to-do list, and make sure that everyone can access the link easily. --Chriswaterguy 01:26, 2 May 2008 (PDT)

If there are tasks where we'd like a limited group of people to take responsibility, but we want to involve more people than just the admins, we can think about establishing sets of "trusted users" like at Commons:Project:Flickr images/reviewers & Commons:Project:OTRS ("Open-source Ticket Request System," for volunteers to respond to emails, in several languages, including permission emails).

Like Commons, a high priority for this group(s) would be want this group to handle permission & license issues. It's appropriate that we don't leave this to the broader community, but restrict it to those who have shown a solid understanding of the issues.

The downside is potentially a bit more elitism and more bureaucracy, even though it actually means giving up control to people beyond the admins and the BoD. I suggest we choose a different name for the group(s) - e.g. "License taskforce" and/or "Appropedia contact team" - and keep the process simple.

I see this as a medium priority - other things are more pressing right now, but permissions and responding to queries will become more important as we do more publicity. How does that sound? --Chriswaterguy 18:00, 17 April 2008 (PDT)

I just wanted to leave my thanks here to the founders of Appropedia. This space is amazing and you are changing the world. --David.reber 17:45, 22 April 2008 (PDT)

Thank you - we believe in what we're doing, and are glad that the potential of this work is starting to be seen. It's great to have you as part of the Appropedia community. --Chriswaterguy 09:37, 24 April 2008 (PDT)

Since a wiki page is unstructured, it's easy for people to not event details out properly things out , do we need to add structure for when people add event details? The options are:

• Template: this means the user has to learn the format. Too hard for a newbie.
• Some kind of wizard add-on, using a form. Good idea, if and when it works.
• Promote the idea of sharing event details in the wiki, always mentioning the need for time, date (day, date, month & year) and place (including state and country). This seems most suitable for now.
• Maybe Semantic MediaWiki has a solution - not as easy as forms & wizards, but more flexible & intuitive than a template. However this may require each event to go on a separate page, for effective searching. (Maybe it will be possible to have a list of upcoming events in a page, based on Semantic parameters...?)

--Chriswaterguy 09:31, 24 April 2008 (PDT)

I agree - If we combined the tagging provided by semantic mediawiki with forms that people could fill out, we could create a consistant user experience that was queryable like a database.

For instance our form should have boxes for time, date, title and tags. A script will convert the user entries into a standard format and apply media wiki tags. That way you could search for all events within a particular area, on a particular topic, within a particular time.

I have been startd a wiki wish list--David.reber 10:29, 24 April 2008 (PDT)

Great thoughts.

Have you seen Appropedia:Desired features? What we need is an expanded tech team. We need more eco geeks! -Chriswaterguy 10:43, 24 April 2008 (PDT)

Try this extension: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:RSS_Reader Since you guys run the wiki on dreamhost add this file: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:RSS_Reader/cURLRSS Most rss feeds should run, including your recent changes feed. --Willd 05:49, 30 April 2008 (PDT)

Looks good! It's probably just a matter of our overworked tech volunteers testing and installing it. --Chriswaterguy 07:01, 30 April 2008 (PDT)

Hi Willd,

Thanks for the suggestion. I am glad that they finally fixed it. I had no idea what was wrong with all of my RSS efforts. cURLRSS definitely worked. So now we have a working RSS reader. Yay! Thank you, --Lonny 00:42, 2 May 2008 (PDT)

We can find a better target for ISBNs than the existing Special:Booksources page, which just links 4 booksellers, of which the Amazon link is broken - e.g. see ISBN 978-1594201530.

Can we link somehow to a Maatiam page (listing purchase prices and options with various booksellers) so any purchase benefits Appropedia or other charity? I'm finding is very slow for me today though, so I don't know what's possible there.

I really like this page: http://isbn.nu/978-1594201530 but I assume ISBN.nu gets the commission, and Maatiam & Appropedia would miss out. Something like that would be much more helpful though.

Could we even (speculating wildly) do our own mashup like ISBN.nu, and get the commission ourselves? We could also invite people to go to that page to make their purchases, so it would do something like what Maatiam does... but within the Appropedia skin. That would be both shiny and useful. --Chriswaterguy 20:53, 1 May 2008 (PDT)

The Wikipedia equivalent of our page, Wikipedia:Special:BookSources/9781594201530 is also interesting. Not the nicest layout, but an extensive list of libraries, with links to searches. --Chriswaterguy 21:42, 1 May 2008 (PDT)

Just kidding. This cliché joke is to tell you all that I started french articles and I hope i'll be able to translate a few ones. Using french langage serves the aim of Appropedia as it's widespread in Africa. I'm enthusiastic about this project ! Ascanio 00:56, 22 May 2008 (PDT)

I've created a page named "Le puits du village" (the village well) to serve as a french-speaking Village pump. Then I checked the French members and there's only four of us at the time. So I wrote a short page on fr.WP hoping that it will direct people involved in AT to Appropedia. Ascanio 01:10, 22 May 2008 (PDT)

I'd like to suggest a primary, simple yardstick for whether content is suitable for Appropedia: It should be about solutions, or perhaps practical solutions.

This came up when I edited Majority world to be more Neutral point of view (NPOV), and in the process got into an editing vortex and created several other article. I asked for feedback, and Vinay Gupta pointed out by email that If you pop the can of worms and start asking "why?" pretty soon you come down to intensely political answers. The idea that people are being ripped off at gunpoint via trade agreements was mentioned, and is a good example of the heated discussion we don't want to focus on.

Note that these issues are interesting and important, and should be debated, but are different kinds of questions. not here. Looking at our new Vision and mission statements (ctually a work in progress) it does make sense to stick to immediate solutions.

Among the pages I started and added to during this editing spree, the suitable articles definitely include:

• South to North knowledge transfer
• How I switched to CFL lighting and improved my love life (a somewhat tongue in cheek suggestion on the Rigor policy draft page)

...and might include these, or part of these:

• What works in economic development
• War economy

but definitely don't include most of the content currently on:

• Colonization
• Neocolonialism
• Majority world
• Good intentions, disastrous outcomes (though this article points to some important principles of development that should be developed or at least referenced on Appropedia.)

If unsuitable, content should be marked for transwikiing.

We don't necessarily want to delete the pages from here. We can just note the relevance to development or sustainability, perhaps mention the controversies and link to the appropriate pages both on Wikipedia, and on another wiki where analysis is welcomed - see #Where do we send issues content?. Extensive linking and discussions can be placed there, off Appropedia. E.g. majority world & developing world etc could redirect to a brief summary & links, with a note that on Appropedia you can use whichever term you prefer as long as the intended meaning is clear.)

Of course user pages can be more flexible, as long as they're not used in a polemic or adversarial way.

Apologies if i'm stating the obvious. We've talked plenty about scope before, but I think we're still a bit vague.

Feedback appreciated! --Chriswaterguy 19:29, 29 May 2008 (PDT)

Which wiki? Issuepedia has been mentioned in the past, and is suitable in scope but is mainly just one person (doing an admirable job). Discourse DB is also interesting, and I think I saw another one months ago (a debate wiki perhaps, or maybe it was Discourse DB but they've since changed their look). There's oneworldwiki.com but it doesn't seem to be a wiki - I've pinged them to ask about this. --Chriswaterguy 18:41, 29 May 2008 (PDT)

An alternative way of displaying announcements on the main page - more information, but slightly less pretty: Appropedia:Announcements/test. --Chriswaterguy 17:24, 3 June 2008 (PDT)

No one will find us if they search for sustainable-living - I searched with Google, showing 100 results per page, and searched for the text appropedia an each page. No hits in the offered 9 pages, even though the phrase does occur (searching for sustainable-living site:https://www.appropedia.org/ does give a few results).

I've done some wikilinking of sustainable living now, so we'll see if that helps. --Chriswaterguy 22:54, 10 June 2008 (PDT)

Hi people, I've just adapted this page from the french Ekopédia, but I'm not sure it's understandable. Also, I couldn't upload the original images. Can you help ?Ascanio 02:13, 14 June 2008 (PDT)

Try opening the images at Ekopédia, saving to your computer and then using Special:Upload. Or is there a different problem?

The images help a lot in making sense of the concept (I don't know French, but I glanced at the original page). --Chriswaterguy 06:46, 14 June 2008 (PDT)

Uploaded, please see the talk page of Cheap solar air conditioner. Remi 22:57, 6 July 2008 (PDT)

We may want to reconsider putting the newest pages - up automatically on the front page - as this puts direct links to anyone spamming or putting up negative content -- --Joshua 08:18, 19 July 2008 (PDT)

http://doodle.ch/8pvtwr2pp82m794y (To indicate your availabilities)

Hi everybody,

As you might know I am working besides my studies to promote collaboration between wiki that works for sustainability and green causes.

I start with Ekopedia, got in contact with Green Wikia, Appropedia and many others... A short list here show some of them... https://www.appropedia.org/Site_list_for_Sustainability_Wiki_Search

They don't always know each others... They are sometimes afraid to loose their identity in any kind of co-creation... However they are all motivated and passionated wishing to improve the world.

Through my studies I learn facilitation and a basis of my formation is learning by doing so what I propose to you is to try a Skype meeting to generate/co-create a better/some collaboration... Why a Skype meeting? Because where are all around the world and I don't have the resource to invite all of you at my apartment for a meeting. Skype seems a good way to collaborate and skip space issue. It will be a challenge (for me at least) to facilitate this Skype conference but I believe that it can be fruitful.

Here is a tools to find a date... I propose to do that end of August, before I will be farming in Belgium with my best friend. So just follow the link and let me know your availabilities.

http://doodle.ch/8pvtwr2pp82m794y

I would like also some feed(-back) forward... What do you think about this initiative? What would be your expectations from it? What are your position toward "your" wiki (time-role-...).

So hope to generate enthusiasm and get some reactions.

See you soon

-- Olivier Chaput KaosPilot Team 1 Rotterdam

"Each snowflake in an avalanche pleads not guilty." "Chaque flocon de neige dans une avalanche plaide non coupable." "Cada copo de nieve en una avalancha aboga no culpable." 'Ogni fiocco di neve in una valanga perora non colpevole'

Hey, all:

I see in several places here references to "emergy" and "human population", both of which extremely important concepts for the site. Personally (proselytizing here), human population over arches everything. Yet, despite this importance nowhere do I see pages for these concepts or topics. If I knew how to set up new pages I would have done so, but if someone else will do that much, I will add some content to each of them. Thanks for the assistance.

Addendum: Chicken tractor! There is a reference to them, but a page would be great as a solution for raising chickens.

SustainableDavid 12:07, 11 August 2008 (PDT)

Hi David - we'd love to have content on these things. Chicken tractors are great, and population is very important (which is not to say we'll necessarily agree, but we can work together to make a useful page). I've unfortunately been tied up with admin work, and haven't been doing much of the more important work of creating content, lately.

To create a page, either click a redlink (like this:chicken tractors and human population); or search for the title you want, and if it doesn't exist, you'll get a red link at the top of the search results. Click it and start editing!

To find material to start with, one idea is to look for public domain content with the Public domain search. Most of what you find there should be public domain. It's not perfect, but can be useful. Make sure you note at the end where it comes from - either put the link and note that it's public domain (and someone else can finish the template notice) or even better, have a try at using the template notice yourself - see {{Pd source}}. Don't hesitate to ask for assistance! --Chriswaterguy 12:49, 11 August 2008 (PDT)

Hey, Chris: Thanks for your response. I tackled Chicken Tractor in a very self-generated, generic, no-frills way, and will do Emergy, to practice for Human Population. Take a look and do any formatting. I do suggest the topic title should be single rather than plural, but whatever convention that applies is fine. I will take more of your advice to find public domain material, but this was just a quick addition. Thanks!

SustainableDavid 18:09, 11 August 2008 (PDT)

Thanks! I did the headers and added categories - you can see the changes via the history tab. --Chriswaterguy 18:28, 11 August 2008 (PDT)

Hey, all:

In my continuing education here (unfortunately real slow on formatting), I have seen references to Appropedia being a library, and noticed one member mentioning reviews of books, so I was wondering if a specific section could be set up so that members could list and review actual books and articles deemed appropriate to the content here? With all the assembled brain power, it seems having much of the foundation of all that brain power available for others would be very beneficial--a real understatement. I am one who certainly believes that 'knowledge is power, and power is to be shared'. What does everyone think?

SustainableDavid 12:46, 13 August 2008 (PDT)

Sounds good (and note there is already a Book reviews page), but I'm wondering what the best way is. A lot of reviewing and rating already happens, especially on Amazon and on some of the Facebook applications like Visual Bookshelf and i-something (I forget).

My preference would be to have some kind of widget that works cross-site (i.e. OpenSocial style), so someone could have their book reviews show in Appropedia and on other sites. I'm hoping this will be technically possible very soon. The challenge, then (and I don't know the answer to this, but it might influence which widget we choose) is how do we have a way of navigating the books on sustainability, or renewable energy, or appropriate technology? And how do we have a way of seeing what particular people said about it? I'm interested in seeing the reviews of my friends, of Appropedians in general, and of people who whose opinions I respect, but who I may not be connected to other than reading their reviews.

Unfortunately that sounds like a "wait on", don't do anything, which I don't like. So feel free to review, and experiment, and you can always copy and paste your reviews into the widget later, if we do end up going with a widget. --Chriswaterguy 13:03, 13 August 2008 (PDT)

Hey, all:

Well, shut my mouth and take away my cake. I had searched for things like 'library' ,and 'bibliography', 'literature', and even (I think) 'book' and 'review' but only found terms embedded in other pages. I think a much more visible, better organized page would attract more contributions and use, and be much more comprehensive in a short time.

Being rigorous about applying principles of appropriateness, I and can look up and see easily 10 books I would add--100 if I relaxed my own standards. A subset of many people's assembled individual achievements would doubtlessly apply. Lots of articles and the periodicals they appear in adds to the volume of knowledge. And having seen "Dharma Bum" (not that I disapprove) there are not very many limits.

Okay (holding my hands up with thumbs and index fingers extended like a pretentious Hollywood director), I envision a page entitled "Written Resources", etc., with 3 separate subgroup listings: Books, Articles, and Periodicals. Each alphabetical entry in each of these should be a standard-format citation, with added things like ISBN, ISSN, online sources, e.g. websites, Gutenberg, etc. Links to Appropedia pages which cite each entry should be included. Keywords, etc. would aid searching.

Ala the "Book Reviews" page, signed reviews follow each citation. 'Quality of the entry' voting could be used by members, but to me, 'Appropriateness' to the site is more useful. Not have seen anything else like it, it seems to me a means of voting in a range of -1 to +1 could be temporarily attached to each entry to allow voting on what stays and what goes. After "X" number of votes (one person one vote), each entry below zero would be deleted.

'Appropriateness' to the site adds value to the site, and prevents valuable publications from being lost among all the rest. Much of the literature we would benefit from is accompanied by millions of others, of utterly no use or negative value to us. If this fits a 'widget' (and I will imagine what that is!) I think this would be a valuable addition. Being centralized, and consistent, and visible, like having a Carnegie Library in every town square (with apologies, a reference to American history) makes it a very good, easy, permanent way for those of us with some knowledge under our mental belts to share information with those who wish to learn. It is also a good antidote to mindless TV!

I'll start a page with a few citations in each of the subgroups, and others can take it from there.

SustainableDavid 16:58, 13 August 2008 (PDT)

Thanks David, and sorry for taking away your cake ;).

The default MediaWiki search isn't very good, and "review" wont find "reviews". We want to have a Google search inside the MediaWiki skin, and have a solution lined up, but need a super-geek who has the time and know-how to actually install it.

Thanks for taking this initiative - relevant book reviews are great! --Chriswaterguy 17:54, 13 August 2008 (PDT)

Hey, all: Okay, Chris, I did a page "Written Resources" and plugged in some entries, and even did a little formatting. There is much more to do re: features and legibility, as stated above, but for now this effort can be edited/evaluated. I look forward to responses! SustainableDavid 20:09, 13 August 2008 (PDT)

Great! I'm working on other Appropedia-related stuff and may not have time to sleep tonight, so ping me later if you get no response. -- a deeply unbalanced Chriswaterguy 21:02, 13 August 2008 (PDT)

Hey, Chris: And I in turn am sorry you feel deeply unbalanced. Would you like some cake? (Heh heh.) Actually, something such as deep belly breathing (really) helps a lot of people and it has elements of Yoga in it. Sincerely, it does help with being 'unbalanced'.

I went back to "Book Reviews" and wanted to know if, with permsission of the members who wrote there, it could be copied to "Written Resources" to consolidate information. And it occurred to me there might be individual reviews on individual pages by themselves. Are there, or is there a good way to find out?

I would like to invite everyone to comment on/edit "Written Resources", so it can be expanded and improved. Thanks! SustainableDavid 18:09, 14 August 2008 (PDT)

Thanks David. Yoga is great (have been doing that lately), catching up on sleep is very good, and cake - that goes without saying!

Refactoring a page (I think that's the term used on Wikipedia) is fine, but comments should be maintained in the same form - i.e. if something is retained as a comment, with someone's signature it should be copied in it's complete form, and it shouldn't be ambiguos as to what the commenter actually wrote. Writing a good edit comment helps too - e.g. moved from [[Book reviews]] (copy from the title to make sure the capitalization is right, otherwise the link won't work). --Chriswaterguy 18:21, 15 August 2008 (PDT)

I just discovered how MediaWiki:Sitenotice works. I tried it out, and it can leave a message at the top of every page, e.g.:

Do we want to have something like this? (I do.)

Do we want to have it like Wikimedia sites (note I don't yet know how they do this):

• with a "dismiss" option?
• in a box? (this is more visually intrusive, so i'd say only if we have the dismiss option.)

Please suggest better wording of the notice.

Also, after a week, I'd like to replace it with a notice about the upcoming OpenSustainabilityCamp. --Chriswaterguy 20:04, 23 August 2008 (PDT)

Great stuff! I support posting an OSNCamp notification immediately. I like something short such as "Join us at OSNCamp at SFSU on Oct 18-19. Click "here" for info and registration"... with appropriate embedded links, of course. CurtB 17:26, 15 September 2008 (PDT)

Practicing here: Join us at OSNCamp in San Francisco on Oct 18-19! Registration is here

More info is here: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Interface/Sitenotice

We should increment the Sitenotice id whenever we update the Sitenotice. I couldn't see info about how links are handled, and what wiki coding is supported, etc. Experiment, I guess...

I was just talking with Lonny's friend Matthew Marshall, who works in Denver city government. He was asking about programs, such as their program to encourage drivers not to leave their cars idling. I said yes, Appropedia is for content such as that.

However, I'm not sure how to categorize pages such as these, or Environmental Management System, as our Category:Programs is so far about a different kind of program, e.g. the Parras summer programs.

I'm thinking that we need new sub-categories, but I'm just having trouble thinking of the right category names... should Environmental Management System go in Category:Sustainability programs? (too vague?) or Category:Efficiency programs? (Too specific?) --Chriswaterguy 11:31, 30 August 2008 (PDT)

To help explain this to people, I will work on a government portal... or rather, 2 portals:

• Portal:Governments and sustainability
• Portal:Government supported development programs

--Chriswaterguy 21:50, 15 September 2008 (PDT)

Is there a policy on spamming and ads? I wasn't sure about In-N-Out Burger, doesn't seem to be that related to the project's mission (except possibly the vegetarian thing?). I guess a more general question would be whether there's a policy for determining whether a page makes it into the project's scope? Is there a deletion policy? How about a policy about where to draw the line when a page starts sounding like advertising (e.g. a neutrality policy)? delldot talk 11:50, 23 August 2008 (PDT)

We've talked about being more friendly to commercial enterprises - as long as the content contributes to the wiki in some way, with some practical solution or idea. I think that this article doesn't do so in its current state. Maybe mark it, and invite improvement of the article? --Chriswaterguy 19:55, 23 August 2008 (PDT)

Good point about supporting business if it adds something. I can't see this article ever being useful, but I could be wrong--I don't know anything about this business. What do you think about the idea that if you're not hardline against spam it could get out of hand? I'm pretty against advertising. For example, I don't like the advertising for American Express on the main page. Seems to me if you're going to bring business to an enterprise you've got an ethical responsibility to make sure it's not evil. Anyway, I think advertising presents a conflict of interest that could cost you in accuracy. delldot talk 20:42, 23 August 2008 (PDT)

This article might need to evolve into one about running green & healthy hamburger restaurants, to be useful. In other words, a complete change. The Sun Frost energy efficient shower is more like how I imagine a useful page from a business.

We don't have a problem with spam at present (that I'm aware of) apart from the cases you mentioned. The AmEx mention on the frontpage - I wondered about that, but I'm not personally aware of AmEx being a notably bad company, and I thought that if they're giving $2.5 million away to a good cause, so they can get publicity, that's not so bad - better than getting publicity through conventional advertising spending. But that's just a thought - I'm not sure what I actually think.

Certainly an article on green & healthy hamburger restaurants would be great, but it seems like if you need to do a complete rewrite and a rename, there's no point in not deleting, at least in pure terms of content.

I don't know any dirt on AmEx either, but I bet I could dig some up. :P At any rate, I'm just stating my bias; that stuff makes me shudder. But I do think it's worth considering where the line should be drawn. e.g. if Shell Oil does some philanthropic work, would we lend them these pages for advertisement? I would think of that as harmful. So how evil can a company get away with being? delldot talk 21:07, 23 August 2008 (PDT)

We need to limit length of user names -- always protect highlighted project - and add negative word search to ban user names that would be defamatory. Finally a super user must get rid of string as user name from latest attack. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Fixer, 6:43 25 Sep 2008

Agreed - good suggestions.

Protecting projects - I'd hoped we could avoid this, but until we have super-shar anti-vandal tools (and a patrol team covering all time-zones) then we need to protect. Or maybe apply "flagged revisions" to such pages.

Other suggestions: Will see if we can get any MediaWiki gurus to help set this up - let us know if you have any suggestions!

Thanks again for your fixing work! --Chriswaterguy 11:59, 25 September 2008 (PDT)

Lonny has implemented MediaWiki:Usernameblacklist, and also protected that highlighted project, as you suggested. Thanks again. --Chriswaterguy 00:57, 26 September 2008 (PDT)

It is nice and neat to have all the categories collapse into the expandable list with the + This system could be improved, however, it categories without any subcategories were signified in some way maybe a - and/or there was a way to expand all the subcategories at once to see the tree under a specific topic. --Joshua 13:17, 2 October 2008 (PDT)

I have moved {{wp sup}} - the superscript link to Wikipedia, like this^W - to {{w}}, for simplicity. (It displays as W, so it makes sense for the code to be W).

I also want to replace the use of the {{wp}} template with a wikilink (to an Appropedia article) and a {{w}} link to Wikipedia. So for example:

water wheel^W

would become:

water wheel^W

No doubt there will be some that don't quite turn out right, and will need to be fixed manually - I should be able to manage it.

Just want to flag it - if no objections in the next couple of weeks, I'll get to work with the bot! --Chriswaterguy 03:23, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I live in Shreveport,LA and would like to find a source for rice hulls close enought to have them transported to this area. Any help would be great. Can be reached at yahoo as ladyglennaelf.

	 glenna

Oregon family working toward a sustainable 2000 watt lifestyle. See www.thinhouse.net.

For some reason my actual webpage shows something completely different than my editing page and I can't figure out why.

It is under

https://www.appropedia.org/w/index.php?title=Arcata%27s_Oxidation_Pond&action=edit

Is the lack of "WYSYIWYG" confusing you? Unfortunately, we still have to edit the "wiki markup" but hope to have it working like a regular editor one day. See Help:Contents too - that may help.

In the meantime, you can use preview to see how things display. Do you have someone (a classmate) you can sit down with and figure this out? --Chriswaterguy 14:58, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Good suggestions - Sharon

Researchers found that plastic water bottles release cancer-causing agents after they are boiled, even after they are rinsed out. ref Be careful not to eat or drink off of heat-treated bottles. This is especially true for pregnant women and young children.

We're just getting started adding some location pages for Illinois. We created Category:Cook County. It should be Category:Cook county, Illinois. An admin person has to make this change. Right? How to we request a rename of a category? User:Bmorrisett

No admin is needed for this. You just have to go into each page and edit it to change the category name. Once there are no pages referring to the old Category you can propose the Category for deletion or just redirect to the new Cat. filceolaire 22:09, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. How do I propose the Category for deletion? User:Bmorrisett

To propose a category for deletion use the {{Delete}} template by pasting that code into the top of a page. Thank you, --Lonny 04:50, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Also, If you've got a lot of pages to recategorize (say 10 or more), then I can help - leave a note on User talk:ChriswaterguyBot saying exactly which category to change, to what. Only do that for non-controversial changes, or where consensus has been reached. Thanks. --Chriswaterguy 16:58, 13 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to get in touch with any of the team members of the SSB Makers.

My email is glotieno@gmail.com Regards, George

Hi George,

You can try to leave a message on the talk page of the Interlocking Stabilized Soil Block (ISSB) Maker project page. Or you can try to email the page editors directly with at:

• Special:EmailUser/Mokrauer
• Special:EmailUser/Shamo

Good luck, --Lonny 04:50, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Please DELETE roadside.jpg

Thanks Acg34,

The photos are now deleted. --Lonny 21:28, 7 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm spamming your site on Wikiversity, apparently.

Looks like any problems have been resolved now :-). --Chriswaterguy