User talk:Alambre

Top[edit source]

• This will be a blog of my findings, contributions and musings. Most recent stuff closer to the top.
• Links to "working on it" stuff, also near the top.
• Feel free to comment below each date; I'll feel free to edit or delete. Thanks!

Blog[edit source]

20070513[edit source]

• Book: "Healing Appalachia: Sustainable Living Through Appropriate Technology" by Al Fritsch and Paul Gallimore
• Defines "appropriate technology" as "the most basic technology that can effectively achieve the desired result". Sounds like a good definition to me.

20070427[edit source]

Been busy. http://web.archive.org/web/20150907165838/http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/006588.html alerts us to seedpod or wikiseedia ... which apparently are more a thought experiment than a reality at this point. Worth a comment by opensustainappropedians?

20070404[edit source]

I've looked around the place, and I'm still lost. I think I'd like to see some things done differently (but then, who am I to tell?):

• Wikis are flexible and can be used for conversation. But conversations in people's pages tend to be difficult or impossible to find and follow. Conversations could (or even should) have a subject, and then a sequence of people-date-comment "lines". Conversations flow along time.
• Wikis are suited to structured content. Structure can be top-down (you start off with options and after some steps you land in a particular how-to) or content+entry-points (you start with a number of content-pages and then add menu-pages) or whatever. But there's always, in my view, content-pages (how to make a specific solar cooker) and menu-pages (a list of all solar cookers).

Appropedia is a young initiative, and I'm a complete newbie, with lots to learn. I'd like to learn what are the different ways to categorise content-pages. In my view, there are at least these "things":

1. There are the things people want to build: a solar cooker, a bike-powered electricity gadget, etc.
2. There are the categories we can use to group those things: things that allow me to grow food, things that allow me to move things around, things that allow me to have shelter, etc. Why "areas" and "categories" and "portals"? I still don't understand.
3. There are the things that help people contact each other: user pages, categories of users (water-filter expert, translator, etc), and a full conversation space (with topics and a way to categorise topics; i.e., a piece of forum software, not a wiki IMHO). There's also "user resources", which apparently means "tools to create better content"; "user" here would be "content creator", not "fleshdom doer in search of a how-to".

I think numbers 1, 2 and part of 3 work well with a wiki. The "conversation space" part (see 3) works better with a forum (or with a wiki used as a conversation space).

Now, if people who read this include their replies within the outline, I'll be lost. I feel it's better to copy the sentence you're replying to and then write your reply. Or maybe not?

20070403[edit source]

• This place looks messy, unfinished, great to dream about, not so easy to find my way around.
• Still, it has lots of content already, and people are gathering around the site.
• What do people need as builders (for self or others), building-stuff providers, contributors, community life-ers? What do I want to see?
• I've just subscribed. Now I want to find my way around, first.

Welcome, Alambre![edit source]

Glad to see you here and ambitious! Drop a note if you want to chat. --CurtB 05:41, 3 April 2007 (PDT)

Some thoughts[edit source]

Welcome!

In response to your user page... I won't answer your questions, but give some pointers: Things I'd like to explore and understand for myself:

• Who are the users of Appropedia? How can contacts happen?

Userboxes and user categories will help make contacts: See Category:Users by interest. Needs more work - more types of interest, and organizations (e.g. we can make one for Engineers Without Borders Australia of which I'm a member).

• What are the uses of Appropedia? How can assets meet needs?
  • The sky's the limit! :)
• What are some strategies to facilitate the growth and usefulness of Appropedia?
  • Usefulness? Porting is key. Growth? Tell people... but increasing content through porting and simple solid work will draw more people to the site. Better landing pages will work, esp portals.
• How could we move towards a multilingual environment?
  • Check Appropedia:Languages, including external links. (I haven't read them in detail yet). Lucas, one of the authors of the PDF, has recently made contact with Appropedia.
• How does Appropedia relate to other projects?
  • See proposed policies Appropedia:What Appropedia is not and Appropedia:Wikipedia, and also the WikiNode. That pretty much describes our philosophy. Certainly mine, and other admins seem in agreement as far as we've talked about it.
• What other questions should I ask myself?
  • I'll leave you with it - I hope we'll be getting to know you and working with you on this project. --Chriswaterguy · talk 07:06, 3 April 2007 (PDT)