Appropedia:Village pump/2014

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I keep getting the "OOPS! Our anti-spam system identified your edit as suspicious.[...]"-message so I followed the included 'what to do'-list:

1. Does not apply (I am logged in).
2. Does not apply (not a student).
3. Tried making another edit and re-saving, to no avail.
4. So here I am at the Village Pump.

Article in question: How To: Beekeeping; Purpose of my edit: some basic formatting (mainly lists).

Sorry about that. You should be able to get through now. --Chriswaterguy (talk) 19:19, 19 January 2014 (PST)

It works, thank you. Hrhr (talk) 09:21, 20 January 2014 (PST)

How should we deal with speculative content? What if it's for potentially dangerous applications, such as designing microlights and other aircraft?

I've moved some content of this type to userspace, and deleted some content that I was particularly concerned about. See the discussion at User talk:KVDP #Your autogyro and User talk:Chriswaterguy #Aircraft images for some of my reasoning.

But I'd like to know what you, fellow Appropedians, think about this. (Be bold is a great policy, but I try to be less bold with admin actions.). --Chriswaterguy 21:03, 23 February 2012 (PST)

My first question would be about the legal implications. Aviation is heavily regulated in most civilized countries, so we'd have to avoid steering anyone in an illegal direction. My second question would be about whether the technology in question makes any attempt to be sustainable. Powered flight in its current form is (probably) the branch of transport technology most dependent on fossil fuels, in particular liquid fuels from petroleum. Powered flight places severe demands on the energy storage to weight ratio of an energy carrier. Flying is one of the most unsustainable activities an ordinary person might engage in. If Appropedia is going to promote any kind of flying, it should not rely on burning fossil fuels. Unless someone has figured out a way to do that, I think we have an endless number of more appropriate and sustainable things to write about. --Teratornis 20:53, 28 August 2012 (PDT)

Great points. If someone has designs for a solar and/or human powered aircraft that has actually flown, I'd be happy to see this on Appropedia (with a big safety disclaimer, of course, plus something about regulatory issues). Then we're talking demonstration technology rather than practical transport solutions, but these things have value in technological development. --Chriswaterguy 02:31, 11 September 2012 (PDT)

I don't know anything about manned aircraft based on appropriate tech, though it seems to me that there is some potential for lighter-than-air craft, some sort of dirigible.

Quite a bit has been done on solar-powered unmanned drones, though. Google recently bought a company; the goal is to use them for Internet service in isolated areas. There have been other stories about using them for surveillance and/or to replace cell phone towers. Pashley (talk) 16:39, 22 April 2014 (PDT)

Here's a stab at a strategic plan - what do you think? --Chriswaterguy 00:28, 19 September 2013 (PDT)

I think its a good start. I added some comments on the Talk page there. --PatSunter (talk) 19:08, 12 March 2014 (PDT)

I removed the {{delete|advertising}} from Beyond Building Energy. We have been allowing sustainable businesses to have pages about themselves. I like having such pages, especially where they have information that might be valuable to a reader, but we need to work out clearer limits. E.g. is Beyond Building Energy the sort of page we want to have on Appropedia? --Chriswaterguy (talk) 21:35, 19 November 2013 (PST)

• Maybe there is a need for a template for sustainability-oriented businesses or organizations? I.E. not a delete template, but something to the effect that it is a business, Appropedia does not endorse businesses or their products, but allows relevant ones a page, so the reader should do their own research etc. I also think its ok, as long as they don't try to start inserting lots of "advertorial" style content in more Encyclopaedic pages (an issue we had a while back on Public transport). --PatSunter (talk) 21:06, 14 March 2014 (PDT)

Thanks Pat, good approach, I think. --Chriswaterguy (talk) 04:58, 17 April 2014 (PDT)

Yes, good approach. Here's another wiki's page on the topic: [1]? Pashley (talk) 10:57, 17 April 2014 (PDT)

Hey I am sorry but I face the spam problem too. I've tried change the content of the page Cshr25, and I was sure I got logged in. No idea why it treated me as a spammer.
I couldn't even leave a message on the supporter's page. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Cshr25, 21 January 2014

(For the record, this was resolved. --Chriswaterguy (talk) 04:46, 17 April 2014 (PDT))

An article [2] on work in Huntsville, Alabama on tornado resistance, "micro-grid" energy sources, sustainable tech, ... Pashley (talk) 11:18, 15 April 2014 (PDT)

That's very cool! I wonder what it would take to find students interested in developing pages on this. This touches on a bunch of important topics. --Chriswaterguy (talk) 04:36, 17 April 2014 (PDT)

An Indian reservation with a solar project. This is a fairly isolated community; I do not think it is on the electric grid or that it is reachable by road. It is not in the far North, only Northern Ontario so laititude below 60. Pashley (talk) 19:59, 17 April 2014 (PDT)

Where does this fit in? Inventor & press make some rather strong claims for it. Pashley (talk) 16:03, 22 April 2014 (PDT)

Three teenaged Irish girls got the top prize at a Google Science Fair with work that looks rather interesting: http://www.independent.ie/business/technology/news/irish-teenagers-bag-top-prize-at-google-science-fair-2014-30607710.html

I would like to make a page on the practice of companies presenting themselves as environmentally friendly when they are not in reality (a.k.a. "greenwashing") but I'm not sure if it's something the community is interested in: this isn't a guide for a specific project or proposal for a kind of technology. Is this fit for Appropedia? Koavf (talk) 10:43, 7 October 2014 (PDT)

I think it's a good fit for Appropedia.

(Searching…) Aha – we have a page called greenwash. What do you think of moving that to greenwashing and developing it further? --Chriswaterguy (talk) 16:07, 7 October 2014 (PDT)

Ha. I didn't even think to search greenwash. I'll see if I can add to that. Thanks. Koavf (talk) 10:12, 9 October 2014 (PDT)