Appropedia:Village pump/2025

Hi all! As a late Christmas present, we've updated Appropedia to the latest MediaWiki version (1.43). This is a Long Term Support version (LTS) which means we won't have to update again until December 2027! As part of the update, we've also retired our beloved Poncho skin, and switched back to the standard Vector, though to the updated Vector 2022 version. The Appropedia Foundation developed the Poncho skin because of some insatisfactions with old Vector's look and feel. However, since then, the new Vector 2022 skin has steadily approached the look and feel of Poncho (which in a way is a confirmation that we were on the right track). Now they are similar enough that maintaining a separate skin is not practical. Thus, to augment the sustainability of Appropedia, we've retired Poncho. Over the next few days I'll do several fixes to some templates and pages that need to be adjusted to Vector, but please let me know if you notice anything I might have missed. Happy new year! Sophivorus (talk) 16:35, 27 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent. Thank you! Lonny (talk) 23:59, 27 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Sophivorus, new view looking mostly OK except for a problem near the top of many, probably most CASwiki pages. 2nd item after intro paragraph, typically a newsbox, gets shunted down leaving big space after intro. Newsbox seems to want to be too wide to fit alongside items to the right such as location box. I'm really wanting to keep the newscards as I think they help a lot with readability. Thanks, Philralph (talk) 12:42, 29 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Similarly a video gallery doesn't work properly (videos display individually) if anything to the right. Philralph (talk) 15:18, 29 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hi again! I just fixed the mobile version and updated most major meta templates, so the site should be looking good now under most conditions. Tomorrow I'll continue updating old code that was designed for Poncho. @Philralph BTW, notice that adding an explicit background color to templates (for example the newsbox at Argentina community action) doesn't work well in dark mode (and can't really be fixed). I'm leaning towards removing the "style" parameters from templates altogether, but let me know how important it is for you, what's the purpose for the styling you do, so maybe I can figure out a solution. Cheers! Sophivorus (talk) 14:46, 30 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks @Sophivorus, I'm not seeing an option for dark mode, is it still there somewhere? The main reason for the background colour on news boxes and event boxes is to help them stand out. This is just really the same sort of thing as looks like we have had with horizontal menus, page data box and excerpts. Would it work if news and event boxes had that same background colour? I'm OK with whatever you decide on this, including no background colour if that seems best.

In the display I'm getting the contents in the side bar which stays there as you scroll down which seems particularly useful. Keeping this there the display for me now is tantalisingly close for the news box to fit alongside the items to the right but perhaps just a few pixels too wide, so still a big gap downwards. I know the card template might be being used for a variety of purposes but there's no real need for the news or event boxes to be wider than would fit into something like two thirds of the available horizontal space.

There's also still a similar problem if there's just a single video near the top of a page, still displaying just a bit too wide to fit alongside right side items. And a video gallery just displays the videos as single videos rather than alongside each other, 2 instead of 3 if there are items to the right as it was with the old display. Thanks again for you help with this, Philralph (talk) 10:47, 31 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hi again @Sophivorus, re my paras 2 and 3 above, I'm thinking there might be a much simpler solution by making a small design adjustment which I think I'd like to implement anyway. Simply by moving the image to the first available ordinary text section, and so moving up the location box, gaps are minimised. I've done examples at Malling community action and Cambridge community action. I'm really keen to make more use of tabs for newscards of different perspectives as in the Malling example. Thanks, Philralph (talk) 14:17, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Further examples at Philippines community action, Mexico community action and Bioregionalism, Philralph (talk) 10:32, 3 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Philralph Hi! I just fixed the width issue with the videos, thanks for noticing. Looking at your examples, I noticed you were often using Template:Newslist and Template:Eventlist within a card, so I went ahead and created Template:News card and Template:Events card. See what I did at Argentina community action (diff) and let me know if you find them useful. Regarding the dark mode, you can find it in the Appearance menu (or the little "mask" icon) near the top right of your screen. Check it out and let me know if you notice any bugs. On that regard, I went ahead and removed the "style" parameter from Template:Card and will probably remove it from other templates too. This is because it's not currently possible to set one styling for light mode and another for dark mode, except from Template:Card/styles.css, but it's not possible to modify that page using template parameters. This will probably be fixed eventually, though. In the meantime, if you want or need custom styling for cards or any other templates, let me know and I can add a custom CSS class to /styles.css and make it work for you. Also, let me know if I didn't address any of your concerns, or if you notice anything new. Cheers! Sophivorus (talk) 14:16, 6 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Sophivorus, thanks for the new templates. 'News card' looking great! I'll test out 'Events card' in the next few days.

All the other stuff no longer any real concern as see I can remove all the display problems by not having contents in the side bar, though can still easily access contents whilst scrolled down further down the page. (If it might be helpful to you I could email you some screenshots of the display problems when I have the contents in the sidebar). Thanks again, Philralph (talk) 13:48, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Philralph Yes, it would be useful! Please share a screenshot and I'll fix it, as it may also affect other users in the present or future. Sophivorus (talk) 14:31, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Email just sent, Philralph (talk) 16:01, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Philralph Should be fixed now, let me know! Sophivorus (talk) 12:48, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

From a quick look, all looking OK now apart from video gallery not displaying smaller neater boxes as for example in Appropedia:Village pump/Archive9#videos in gallery, Philralph (talk) 13:11, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Philralph They look fine to me... Could you share a screenshot again, please? Sophivorus (talk) 13:21, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Email just sent Philralph (talk) 14:00, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Philralph Thanks! I think it should be fixed now, but not 100% sure. Let me know! Sophivorus (talk) 14:20, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Philralph BTW, I'm thinking that Template:News card and Template:Events card could have a title like "News", "Local news" or something (since Template:Card has a "title" parameter we could make use of). Would that be useful? Or is it not necessary? Cheers! Sophivorus (talk) 15:30, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Not necessary thanks, prefer to have it as an actual heading so's appears in the contents anyway. No change for me as to how the video galleries are looking as yet. Philralph (talk) 16:31, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Philralph Hi again, sorry for the delay! I think I fixed it now, can you confirm? Sophivorus (talk) 11:59, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Sophivorus, the first 3 examples I looked at still no change, but when I looked at your revision of Visions UK, which as I see it is the latest revision, video gallery is displaying as it should, so is this one of those things that'll eventually feed through to all the other examples? Philralph (talk) 12:53, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Philralph Yes! I just cleared the site's cache to speed up the process, can you confirm? Sophivorus (talk) 13:17, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Sophivorus, Mmm? Not sure this has worked, yet at least. I'm sending you an email with 3 different screenshots of the same page. Hopefully this might help. Philralph (talk) 15:39, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Philralph Hm if it works sometimes, it's almost certainly a cache issue. Can you try a hard refresh with Shift + Ctrl + R ? Sophivorus (talk) 11:52, 23 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Sophivorus, YES! just looked at 3 examples and all looking ok now, Thanks! Philralph (talk) 12:06, 23 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, I noticed that your article references an outdated stat. Specifically, you mentioned that animal agriculture are responsible for "14.5 percent" of the greenhouse gas emissions. Based on our most recent data, these figures have been updated, and According to the latest data, 15% to 18% of All Greenhouse Gas Emissions Are Attributed to Animal Agriculture. As one of the leading organizations in advocacy, it's the World Animal Foundation's utmost duty to ensure such statistics are current, not just on our platform but also on other relevant platforms. Having recently revised our article with the newest statistics, I wanted to share this so you might consider a similar update. For your reference and to verify the new statistics, please visit our page: https://worldanimalfoundation.org/advocate/veganism-statistics/. To provide your audience with direct access to the latest data, we would be grateful if you could link to our article when making the update. Thank you for your attention to this. Best Regards. Here is the link to your article: https://www.appropedia.org/Impacts_of_agriculture_on_climate_change

Davin Trent, World Animal Foundation, Trentworldanimalfoundationorg, 2400:ADC7:3106:5A00:C480:1407:96CD:13FE 05:59, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I just updated the article with your data (diff), thanks for reaching out! Sophivorus (talk) 11:30, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hello fellow biophiles and land lovers,

We are two friends who have been living and traveling together for 2 years across the states and abroad working on farms and ranches. We are looking for land owners who need help stewarding their land in exchange for allowing us to live on their property and grow veggies. We have both studied Syntropic Agroforestry in Germany as well as general organic farming, herbalism, and animal husbandry.  Lived off grid for years and understand the difficulty and beauty of this way of life. We love and care deeply about the soil and health of the land and how to live in a low impact, reciprocal, life giving way. Please reach out if you or someone you know would be open to talking more! Look forward to hearing from you!

Warmly,

Reese and Nadav

aminadav.and.reese@gmail.com 204.13.45.214 16:27, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hello,

One idea: you can do a book with all the informations of Ekopedia. It will be successful!

Best regards,

Jean-François Jaudon, jaudonjeanfrancoisgmailcom, 176.150.96.90 07:45, 4 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It's a good idea, we've reached out via email, lets continue there! Sophivorus (talk) 15:03, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, a book? I thought you had mentioned an app, but a physical book would be fantastic! Emilio (talk) 15:06, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, I need assistance uploading image files to use on a new web page or on an already existing page I am trying to meet a deadline by Feb. 14th. Thank you - please use my new email notbuttafan@gmail.com or call and talk me through it. 541 592-5368

Bart Orlando, Projects with Bart, notbuttafangmailcom, 50.45.194.9 05:12, 14 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, do you need help uploading new images? You can check Help:Images for information about using images on the wiki. Let me know if there is anything specific you want help with. Emilio (talk) 17:15, 14 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi! You need to be logged-in to upload a file. I just tried uploading one and had no trouble. I think your issue might have been related with a bot attack we've been having recently that made Appropedia slow and unstable. We've managed to stop the attack already, so perhaps your issue is gone now. Sophivorus (talk) 12:36, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Could you please provide me assist me in downloading the page information?

Kind regards

Professor Dr MJ Eilers, Professor Dr MJ Eilers, professoreilersgmailcom, 197.184.82.58 06:40, 1 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, what format do you need? If XML, you can check out Special:Export or the recent https://dumps.appropedia.org. If PDF, you can download specific pages by clicking on Print or groups of pages by clicking "Download PDF" on menus. I'll reach out via email in case you don't read this, cheers! Sophivorus (talk) 14:42, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Good day, I need your guidance on what could possibly be wrong and how to proceed concerning making uploads for a simulator which I have designed and want to be freely accessible. I initially created a page- safe Paediatric male simulator and made initial progress uploading the first part of the text for the simulator. I also uploaded images which I had obtained with kind permission from the original authors. However by the following day, all the uploads had been deleted with Vandalism written on the page. I have since subsequently opened a new page and removed all images from other authors, leaving only my original images but I keep being redirected to the previous images deleted by your team, with information that these have previously been uploaded. Please how can these be corrected and how can I get my page up. Thank you

Chisom Udeigwe-Okeke, Safe Paediatric Male Simulator, chyyyrachelgmailcom, 102.91.72.208 10:33, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi! I'm contacting you via email to sort this out, cheers! Sophivorus (talk) 11:44, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Morning,

I hope you're well. There's a link to content I made connected to a name I no longer wanted to be associated with. I no longer have the login info to remove the content myself, or access to the email that could be used to grant access to my login information. I'm hoping to either change the email associated with this account or have the content removed. My current email is Jp_reid@outlook.com. My username was Jmr219 and the name I no longer want to be associated with is wormidermmm. The link to the content is below. Thanks in advance.

Best, Jason

Appropedia https://www.appropedia.orgPDF /Users/wormidermmm/Downloads/final podium design.dwg

Jason Reid, jp_reidoutlookcom, 2600:6C50:42F0:49D0:8936:41F7:95F:3E46 15:47, 11 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi! I deleted the file which used to be here and re-uploaded it with the metadata manually deleted here. The username should not be visible anymore. I hope this helps! Emilio (talk) 17:08, 11 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I need to have this course in my hospital which is in Busoga Region I head accident and emergency unit

Isabirye Isa, Iganga district general hospital, isabiryeisa1979gmailcom, 41.210.146.70 18:02, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I'm writing you an email to see if we can help! Sophivorus (talk) 11:58, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

we are looking to grow our community of learners at The Learning Street with a focus of one of our offerings

Children's Cinema Club

Saturday morning educational youtube videos for kids. Started last year in Kenya and Austria, looking for more locations

one theme to look at could be climate and permaculture educations

more infos if interested, nigel

there is a big climate competition, perhaps we can collaborate to support climate education in Vienna and Africa ? www.climatelaunchpad.org NigelStonham (talk) 08:30, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Andrew Lamb from IOP made me aware of this project, and told me you live in San Salvador (at least one of you). I am here, too. I have some plans here that would make use of this, and wondered if - since we are in the same country - we could meet for a coffee and have a open chat about some ideas. I may be coming to San SAlvador end of the coming week, but for sure the week after semana santa. Hope to hear from you, Thanks.

Louis Holbrook, Private, accounts-appropediaholbrookno, 149.88.22.144 14:44, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Necesito ayuda en lo indicado. Soy nuevo en éste proyecto.

Roberto Jose Vásquez, Reserva Silvestre Privada San Ignacio, robertojosevasquez130460gmailcom, 152.231.35.101 17:55, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Quisiera mas informacion sobre el programa de sostenivilidad agricola

Copiapo32, Aspodepaz, jaimemejia1402hotmailcom, 181.189.188.130 13:20, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, I am the owner of the user page User:Justin_Jinchuan_Zheng. I respectfully request that this page be permanently deleted for privacy reasons. Thank you! User:Anonymous 19:22, 18 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I've deleted your user page. I can also replace your credits on pages if that is something you want. Let me know your thoughts, thanks! Emilio (talk) 14:50, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This document is the complete design and public disclosure for the MRA-2(ST): a high-endurance, solar-thermal desalination system. This project is now released into the public domain as open-source hardware to establish it as prior art and ensure it can never be patented. The core of the system is a solar collector array that heats a molten salt thermal storage unit, which in turn powers a high-pressure steam engine. This engine drives a piston to generate the hydraulic pressure required for reverse osmosis, creating fresh water from saline sources without any electrical input. The full blueprint, Bill of Materials, and safety protocols are detailed in the attached PDF. This design is provided for the purpose of community review, replication, and improvement, with the hope that it can serve as a foundation for accessible, sustainable water purification technology.

[1]https://archive.org/details/mra-blueprint TheSeaGoose (talk) 21:11, 27 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Deseo conocer nuevas técnicas de agricultura sostenible

Ivanov Castillo González, Inatec, ivanovcastillo95gmailcom, 165.98.243.55 21:17, 27 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

We've been told it needs a new fan. Is there a fan? I thought it used Passive Evaporation and that it has no fan.

Laurie Ardison, ikeandashyahoocom, 2601:647:CA03:6460:B95B:A7C8:D9FD:6345 22:16, 21 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

-- Request erased. Solved.

A call, a call, a call Because of the war in Sudan, we have a medical center that was completely destroyed by the rebellion. It used to serve the village and the surrounding villages. The health center had all kinds of equipment. We hope, we hope, we hope to find someone to donate to us. Laboratory testing equipment for us Please donate even one device, God willing, used and in good condition. The center is in need and had all types of tests available. It also had a miniature color and regular X-ray machine, a modern color ultrasound machine, a modern EKG machine, and an MRI machine. Please donate even one device from the lab and other equipment altgiralrbi@gmail.com

مركز التغيير الطبي الحديث, مركز التغيير الطبي الحديث, altgiralrbigmailcom, 197.252.4.159 10:39, 3 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. There's a link with profane wording on this page: Help:Editing Under "References" at the bottom. I'm not offended but i suspect you wouldn't want it there 😉 Thanks for all the work you do and this amazing resource! I hope this helps --Will StoriesWitha Will (talk) 18:25, 1 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I checked and it's a link to https://motherfuckingwebsite.com, which is actually a legitimate website and relevant to the point being made there. However, it's not essential, so I just removed it. Cheers! Sophivorus (talk) 13:51, 3 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think Sophivorus (talk · contribs) already went and deleted it. We added that website because we discussed it a lot since it talks about simplicity in web design. Thanks a lot! Emilio (talk) 16:59, 5 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Re: "simplicity in web design":

Yes i actually really appreciated the content, i just didn't want u to be surprised or whatever. Thanks for all your work! StoriesWitha Will (talk) 07:02, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there! I updated some of the thumbnails of project pages, who are displayed within the "Search Results" template on our main page Tolocar - Appropedia, the sustainability wiki. When hovering over the titles of the search results, the thumbnails are displayed correctly in the pop-up window. However, on the page itself, some of the search results are not shown with a picture at all, or with an old picture that was already deleted. Does anyone know the "trick" here, so that the search results are displayed with their actual thumbnail picture? Thanks a lot! Sarahmariaj (talk) 09:48, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Sarahmariaj Hi! It seems that the semantic property holding the name of the image did not update correctly. Not sure why that happened, but if it ever happens again, you can force an update by clicking Tools > Refresh on each page with a new thumbnail, and then on the main Tolocar page to update the search results. However, I just did that for you on this occasion, your thumbnails are looking good now. Cheers! Sophivorus (talk) 13:41, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, thanks so much for the quick support! Sarahmariaj (talk) 15:34, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Many pages have been moved to subpages. See for example Category:SELF and Category:Sustainable community action, among many others.
• Subpages now inherit some meta data from their parent page via Template:Page data, unless the subpage sets a value explicitly. See for example how this page inherits its license, keywords, SDG, and affiliated organization from its parent page. Other more tricky properties (authors, language, etc) will follow during December. This change will allow us to control the metadata of related pages more easily.
• Village pump archives have been reorganized per year to keep a more consistent and clear archival rate and system.
• Automatic translations are now hidden by default from category pages. They can be toggled by clicking a switch in the category page. See for example Category:Books.
• A script was run to hard-code the CC-BY-SA-3.0 license to all pre-2020 pages (example), because that was the default license back then.

Cheers! Sophivorus (talk) 15:04, 28 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Why are tables not always going the full width of the screen? Now it seems that most are only geared to phones? Joshua Pearce (talk) 14:00, 19 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @J.M.Pearce! We've been doing all sorts of experiments to improve the pages' readability, not limited to phone readability but in general (see some of my notes here. They were working as normal a while ago, so I'm not sure of whether @Sophivorus made any recent changes to the CSS for tables, but we're still open to discussing what's the best way to work them out. There are a few options such as recommending reduced tables for legibility with full versions as attachments, consider new tools for tables, or make collapsible tables. Let us know your thoughts! Emilio (talk) 18:31, 19 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@J.M.Pearce Hi! I just checked a few random tables and they appear full-width to me. Can you share a link to a problematic one? Thanks! Sophivorus (talk) 11:56, 22 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

All of the tables on pages like Category:FAST Completed are only going 2 or 3 wide. Is it possible to keep them all full width - but then shrink it down to 2 if it is being read on a phone? Joshua Pearce (talk) 20:56, 24 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@J.M.Pearce Hi, fixed! Sophivorus (talk) 12:48, 26 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! Joshua Pearce (talk) 13:06, 26 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]