Appropedia:Village pump/2020

Hello there! I am considering using Appropedia for posting information, references and links on climate change and related activism. I would be interested to have some more information on Appropedia's rules, which I cannot easily find on the About pages.

Wikipedia's rules on neutrality and notability would prevent posting some useful information there, and this is why Appropedia may be a useful complement. However, I wonder what replaces these two rules on Appropedia? My impression is that Appropedia is not yet developed enough for having formal rules, is that correct?

Moreover I have a technical question. Appropedia was "database locked" for a few days recently, with little information on when that situation started and how long it lasted. Over the last few years, how often did such situations occur? Which percentage of the time is Appropedia fully functional? Shapoklyak (talk) 08:46, 2 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Shapoklyak, hopefully others might answer your questions more directly, but just wanted to say that "information, references and links on climate change and related activism" sounds good to me. As you can see from our Category:Climate change we have so far 80 pages or more on climate change topics, and content related to activism within the Category:Climate action. Browsing these may help give a feel of what we have here so far. Hope that is of some help, and please ask again if I can help further, Philralph (talk) 16:52, 2 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Some other links more directly related to your questions: Help:Contributing content, Appropedia:Policies - includes notes on 'Neutral Point of View' - more at Appropedia:Neutral point of view, Appropedia:Pillars and values, & more via Category:Appropedia guidelines, Philralph (talk) 17:09, 2 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks a lot Philralph! I had failed to find this information, this is exactly what I was looking for. Shapoklyak (talk) 13:37, 3 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I might be able to explain. Our server seemed to be compromised for a few days, but it was solved by Roger who was coincidentally working on the upgrade of Appropedia. We expect the site to be fully functional now, but please let us know if you find anything unusual. --Emilio (talk) 18:20, 2 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for this explanation of the recent bug. Still I would like to know how frequently such technical problems occur. Is there a log of technical issues and notifications? Shapoklyak (talk) 13:41, 3 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Shapoklyak,

In the last 10 years, we have had less than 10 days of locked databases. This happens due to a DDOS, hacking, or massive spam attack. We are quite proud of our uptime over the last 13 years. Does that answer your question? Thanks! --Lonny (talk) 22:35, 4 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yes it does! Thanks. Shapoklyak (talk) 12:54, 5 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I'm copying the following post from User talk:Auri, in case User:Auri, formerly 'Dove' (?) wishes to make a case in support of his/her edits Philralph (talk) 13:13, 18 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"Hi User:Auri, thanks for your message regarding your edits to Inspiring quotes 2. I see you also similarly edited Wendell Berry. I have reverted these edits and will explain why: whilst some of the edits may have been helpful, the majority seemed to be destructive. This is because the original format of a quote is important in conveying what the author intended. For example a coma, which some might find unnecessary may have been deliberately included to signify a pause during a speech. Best not to over concentrate on pernickety detail, as this might seem a distraction, but to instead concentrate on positive and substantive edits. I see you created pages for Greta Thunberg and Naomi Klein. I also see that you have contributed before using the username 'Dove' (?) I'm copying this post to Appropedia:Village Pump in case you wish to make a case in support of your edits."

Thanks. --Lonny (talk) 01:31, 19 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I am suggesting to delete Global Village Construction Kit. This page is a little less obvious if it should be deleted for developed. I would also love to hear from any people involved with the Global Village Construction Set. Thank, --Lonny (talk) 01:40, 19 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I created the Global Village Construction Set in the spirit of that community. It references their work which seems to go . I searched for their project before creating the page, but it seems somehow it has now appeared as if I'm competing with it. This so-called "founder" is an idiot. The pages I've created are made to create a complete system, beyond tools: government, economics (including local currency), spirituality (with new knowledge from prophesy), etc. Please learn wiki:HowWikiWorks. Do any of you know how the internet revolution is being co-opted? Deleting other's pages which are not invasive that are in the spirit of the wiki and its mission is vandalism. Please add me to your admin list if you have to keep him. Pangaia (talk) 00:15, 25 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Lonny. Given that the Global Village Construction Set has its own extensive documentation, perhaps we could have a simple page that just links to relevant entry points on their sites? —The preceding comment was added by Emilio (talk • contribs) 8:20, 23 January 2020

Thanks Emilio. That makes a lot of sense to me. I changed the content of Global Village Construction Kit to point to Open Source Ecology and https://wiki.opensourceecology.org/wiki/. Maybe we can ask OSE what they would like added to Appropedia. --Lonny (talk) 04:02, 27 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! Great idea!--Emilio (talk) 15:26, 27 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your comments, Pangaia. Speaking for the board and the admin team, we do have full confidence in Lonny. About what you share here, I know you have great confidence in your ideas, but I have trouble following your reasoning. So if you are looking for complete freedom to do what you want in a wiki, there may be another wiki that suits you better. Appropedia does have a philosophy and guidelines, and it seems to me that it is only going to be frustrating for you here. --Chriswaterguy 21:05, 25 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, Wilhelm here. I am new on this site, actually stumbled upon it searching the web for sustainability related content. I registered because I would love to contribute; I really like this site. I am a German native speaker.

The page that I landed on is Portal:Sustainability and especially its Portal:Sustainability/Intro|intro cought my attention. I like the approach of linking sustainability and psychology (I refer to the hierarchy of needs by A. Maslow here) and have some scholarly knowledge on this topic.

I am new to editing wikis, really new, even though of course I regularly read Wikipedia as well as other wikis. That is, I do need some advice regarding the editing of this page, especially regarding the communication process associated with it. So, how do I reach the author to propose and discuss changes?

Kind regards to everyone! Wilhelm

Hi Wilhelm, welcome! Feel free to Be bold! and start contributing to any pages you wish. You can check Appropedia:Policies for some pointers on editing Appropedia such as using open licenses and the such. Can you please expand a bit more in terms of your question about the communication process? --Emilio (talk) 16:20, 23 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Wilhelm, just a couple of extra tips: you can add more to introduce yourself by putting something on your user page, if you like. If you prefer to propose or discuss (for example major) changes before editing a page you can do this by putting your suggestions on the page's talk / discussion page first, (although fine to be bold and learn by doing). Beyond looking at the Help:Editing, etc pages, feel free to ask if you need any help with how to do any particular edit, if for example it might seem a bit more advanced eg stuff to do with layout, etc.) Hope this helps Philralph (talk) 16:56, 23 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi guys, many thanks for your advice, it helps. "Communication process" is a somewhat bloated term for "how and where do I discuss edits" — German speaker ;-) — I am looking forward to do some editing, bye, Wilhelm (talk) 18:03, 23 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hello there! In this draft article the reference is badly displayed, with the URL explicitly appearing. However, the input I used was generated by Citer and works well in Wikipedia. Why not display references in the same way as Wikipedia? Shapoklyak (talk) 21:59, 28 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi! Can you point me to some example of how Wikipedia displays references? Perhaps they use a tool to do so. We might be interested in learning how to do this as well! --Emilio (talk) 16:23, 29 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Have a look at the References section of a Wikipedia article such as this one. From a reference you can jump up to the place where it is cited, and look at the source code. I do not know how they do it though. Shapoklyak (talk) 19:54, 29 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

See Wikipedia:Citation templates. Shapoklyak (talk) 20:06, 29 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Would it be possible to import Wikipedia's citation templates? Compare for example Appropedia's Template:Cite web with Wikipedia:Template:Cite web. Shapoklyak (talk) 20:13, 29 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You are right. I wonder if it is a custom template. I swapped access-date for accessdate and website for work on your draft article, and it seems to work. Let me know what you think! --Emilio (talk) 14:45, 30 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the effort. This is an improvement, but the link is still displayed explicitly, which is redundant. And having to do swaps by hand means we cannot directly use Citer for generating references. It would be better if the templates could be harmonized with Wikipedia's, although this might cause problems with existing articles. (However, facilitating future development might be more important than avoiding backward compatibility issues.) Shapoklyak (talk) 14:53, 30 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Also, I moved the reference back to the References section. It is recommended to keep only short reference tags in the main text in order to make it more readable. Shapoklyak (talk) 15:01, 30 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You are right. I am not sure about how to change the template, but if you have an idea, let me know! I'd love to sort it out so you can use Citer as well.--Emilio (talk) 15:41, 30 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hello again! I have done a few unsatisfactory tests here. There are apparently two solutions:

1. Modifying Appropedia citation templates, copying from Wikipedia. Disadvantages: this may disrupt existing pages, and the templates will not be synchronized with Wikipedia's.
2. Using "scary transcluding" for allowing interwiki links to work for templates. Disadvantages: this is an experimental feature, and there would be two alternative templates for the same thing.

Both solutions are above my pay grade, would someone be willing to implement one of them? (This might require admin permissions, although I am not sure.) Shapoklyak (talk) 20:41, 5 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

As a quick fix to the problem discussed above, I have modified Template:Citation/core. This solves the issue of the redundant display of links in the citations of this article. See here for the basic syntax of the template.

If this causes any disruptions, could you please point to them here? Potential disruptions could be the loss of links in citations. The hope is that links disappear only when they are redundant. Shapoklyak (talk) 19:51, 7 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there! Would it be possible to know what the current situation on captcha is? From some discussions here and there I understood that some things were tested. However, I am currently being asked to fill a reCaptcha every time I try to edit a page (which I am not really willing to do)... but it turns out that this is apparently not the case for all users (some have reported not filling out any captcha). Is there a way to avoid at least filling a reCaptcha? (a less intrusive alternative would be fine with me) TFardet (talk) April 14, 2020.

In contrast to TFardet, I do not encounter any Captchas when editing while logged in. I do not remember if this was always the case. I wonder why there is such a difference. Shapoklyak (talk) 18:30, 14 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I checked our spam filter and couldn't see anything with your username. Sometimes we have this problem. User:TFardet, can you send me your IP so I can try to whitelist you? --Emilio (talk) 00:38, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I uploaded quite a few photos which in preview on my computer are the correct orientation. I am just looking for a way to rotate an image when I use it on my pages. Is there a way or do I need to reupload? -User:Zsarnold

This is very odd and seems to be a problem on the site's end. E.g. compare https://www.appropedia.org/images/3/33/OSHE_Growbot_Soil_NutInsert.jpg to File:OSHE Growbot Soil NutInsert.jpg. I tried rotating and uploading an image but MediaWiki warned me that it was completely identical to the existing one (i.e. it wasn't rotated at all). Koavf (talk) 16:14, 27 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Oh my, this is odd. Perhaps it has to do with the original file's EXIF data? --Emilio (talk) 17:55, 27 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I uploaded the images to an online metadata viewer/editor. The EXIF data has some tag set to rotate it 90cw. Zsarnold (talk) 18:04, 27 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Ah! There you go. A less pretty solution might be to use CSS transform? I do think that fixing the image is the best solution of all. --Emilio (talk) 18:14, 27 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

PV Magazine dot com is currently blocked by spam filters this should not be for Appropedia and for Wikipedia. Joshua Pearce (talk) 13:57, 27 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Joshua, PV Magazine dot com is not a working website. Are you referring to https://pv-magazine-usa.com/ maybe? Thanks, --Lonny (talk) 23:01, 30 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yes sorry www.pv-magazine dot com --Joshua Pearce (talk) 00:50, 31 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Still blocked! Joshua Pearce (talk) 18:46, 9 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@J.M.Pearce Should be fixed now. Please confirm when you have the chance, thanks! Sophivorus (talk) 23:28, 4 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

confirmed! Thank you -- Joshua Pearce (talk) 11:59, 5 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks - Joshua Pearce (talk) 16:33, 16 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@J.M.Pearce, Sophivorus We'll look into it. Is the domain thriveglobal.com? Emilio (talk) 17:28, 16 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. Thank you! Joshua Pearce (talk) 17:35, 16 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Done! Sophivorus (talk) 21:09, 16 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Just wondering about an idea?... What if when you hovered over a link to a user page, rather like when you hover cursor over an internal article link you get a popup preview incl image, over a userpage link you got a smallish popup preview of the image from the user info box? Would this be a good idea to make the site seem a bit more friendly, personable, welcoming, sociable, etc? Or is it a daft idea? It's late at night here! Just wondering. And is it do-able? Philralph (talk) 22:49, 30 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It's a great idea, but unfortunately there's a software limitation to it, see mw:Extension:Popups#Why don't I see Popups outside of content namespaces? There's a workaround mentioned there, but it's kind of hacky and would have some undesirable side effects like counting user pages as content pages in the site statistics, among others. :-( Sophivorus (talk) 23:01, 30 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Requesting this to the mw:Extension:Popups maintainers isn't a bad idea. The specific case for users seems like a really valid use for this! Let's cross fingers and hope they implement it. :)) Emilio (talk) 23:06, 30 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Emilio Philralph Good news! While looking if it had already been requested, I found a ticket about it and there someone mentioned a workaround that, per being at the JavaScript level, should have much less side effects, if any. So I just enabled popups on the user namespace, check it out by doing a hard refresh (ctrl + alt + R) and scrolling over our names here! Sophivorus (talk) 23:55, 30 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Wonderful! Even better than I imagined! My image not displaying though? :-( I can maybe just swap another picture into the info box if that's the easiest thing to do? Philralph (talk) 10:30, 31 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Philralph Your image displays fine to me. Did you do a hard refresh? Sophivorus (talk) 11:14, 31 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a way to do a back to the top of the page 'button' towards the end of articles? Or could we make one? eg see Citizens Action Network handbook#Featured video. No worries if not, happy to just use this for now, but just thought I'd ask, Cheers Philralph (talk) 09:25, 4 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yes: just make a template that has any text you'd like with a link that leads to "[[#top|text]]". Koavf (talk) 11:14, 4 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Philralph Hi! I just created Template:Back to top. You can use it wherever you want a back to top button, like I just did at Citizens Action Network handbook#Featured video. Will this do? Cheers! Sophivorus (talk) 12:37, 4 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Sophivorus Terrific! Thanks! Philralph (talk) 15:10, 4 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Since yesterday when I go to a page it goes to some other part of the page rather than the top. Don't know if this anything to do with the above? Just now I tried clicking on back to the top at Citizens Action Network handbook#Featured video it goes to the top of that section? But the skipping seems to happen on other pages as well (?) Philralph (talk) 09:50, 6 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Philralph You're right, it was my wrongdoing, sorry, I just fixed it. Please do a hard refresh (shift + ctrl + R) and it should behave normally now. Thanks for the report! Sophivorus (talk) 09:54, 6 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Sophivorus, cheers! Philralph (talk) 10:00, 6 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Joshua Pearce (talk) 14:57, 24 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I'm trying to find out which one by going to the list and checking the links, but they all look reachable. I'll try to find out more. --Emilio (talk) 15:37, 24 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

We're in the process of a website redesign! Let us know your thoughts! Early days, still plenty to come, see Appropedia:User experience/New skin

Hi! really enjoying using the wiki with it's new design. Thanks to those making this happen. Excited to be progressing many developments to Community action pages. Do please keep us up to date with any further design changes, eg colours, any more radical changes to layout, etc. Philralph (talk) 11:03, 11 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Emilio, Lonny, J.M.Pearce, Philralph, Irene92 Hi all! I think you'll all be most happy to see this: Map (I know I was!) The map displays all pages that have their location set via the "location" parameter of the infoboxes. This includes projects, organizations, users, etc. I'll soon create a nice template to generate sub-maps for specific regions or types of pages, for example a map of just organizations, or just users, or just users in California, etc. Until then, I hope you'll enjoy seeing this early version and sharing your thoughts on how to best use this new potential! Sophivorus (talk) 15:16, 17 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

GOODNESS GRACIOUS! This is so awesome!!! Emilio (talk) 15:32, 17 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Amazing! Brilliant! Philralph (talk) 15:58, 17 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

SERIOUSLY SOOOOO GOOD!! Now we need to set locations for more of our thousand+ projects! Emilio, do we have interns on this or some other plan? --Lonny (talk) 01:14, 20 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

For now, we only have User:Irene92 who has been relentlessly adding content and will continue for the upcoming months. She's editing a bunch of projects now but we'll find the time later on to do this, hopefully. Emilio (talk) 01:30, 20 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yay for User:Irene92! Maybe we can get some students to help Irene in late January. Lonny (talk) 23:19, 20 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Replying to my own question, I think one potential for the map (for this specific, world-wide map, I mean) is to convey in a simple and clear way the global reach of Appropedia. Sophivorus (talk) 14:13, 20 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. It is inspiring how many projects, partners, and appropedians we have from all around the world. Visualizing it will be wonderful. Lonny (talk) 23:18, 20 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi all, I hope you had a nice xmass! Here's my present for you: Template:Map ! Check out the examples in the documentation to see what it can do, and let me know of any further requests, cheers! Sophivorus (talk) 11:21, 28 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I looooooooooooooooooooooooooove this! By the way, I tested it out at El Salvador and it works well. I believe that for now it works if you do country only (I tried mapping through city, country and it doesn't show up yet --check Amún Shéa). I think this brings us to a new level of interaction! Emilio (talk) 22:11, 28 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Emilio Good catch! Your report led me to find a deeper issue with the whole map and location system which I was able to fix. The map now displays more pages and more precisely located. However, I haven't been able to fix the particular issue with Amún Shéa and the map you made. It's not because the region isn't recognized, because Amún Shéa displays properly on the world-wide map as well as when I create a world-wide map about organizations only. But when creating a map of organizations in El Salvador, or a general map of El Salvador, Amún Shéa doesn't display, weird! I'll figure it out eventually, but let me know if you notice any other issue that may give me a clue. Cheers! Sophivorus (talk) 13:27, 29 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Emilio, great that you've included the map in El Salvador! And thanks for the thanks! I must learn how to do that as soon as I can! Not to mention trying out a map on some other page, when I can find the time! Philralph (talk) 22:56, 30 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

We have to add maps for every single country soon enough. We need to organize an edit-a-thon for Community action for sustainability soon! Emilio (talk) 23:01, 30 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This is brilliant. The Template:Map is fabulous. Thanks for creating/sharing it! Kathy Nativi (talk) 23:09, 28 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Wondering about a current project as a possible opportunity re maps. Don't know whether there'll be any interest in this from the others involved, a group convened by The Alternative UK, but am asking via our Loomio group, extract copied to Talk:Examples of Citizen Action Networks, Philralph (talk) 17:29, 31 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]