Fatima's Internship[edit source]

Hi Curt. Thank you for that message. I have spent the last one hour going throught the Wikitutorial like you said and am just trying to remember how and what all I did on Appropedia last semester before I begin to port ( I think it has all come back to me!!). Though I am not sure how to use user-talk; I hope I have'nt completely messed up your page.

I am glad to be working with you! And I have uploaded a picture of myself. It is always good to associate a face with a name!--Fatima 13:56, 23 January 2008 (PST)

Refreshed todo (not prioritized)[edit source]

  • Link to forums
  • Cards
  • Main page
    • How to support Ap
    • Highlighted contributor, organization, portal, initiative

More

  • Grantwriting
    • Big picture, Scope / scale, Metrics (how to measure success)
    • Phasing / Staging
    • Who to apply to?
    • Who approves grant requests / proposals prior to submission?
      • Internal grant review board?
  • Portals, Logo
  • NS coloring, RSS, Interns
  • Porting / conversion tools
  • Original namespace management

My useful links[edit source]

Add to "Requested content" to "not found" search text See MediaWiki:noarticletext See Special:Allmessages See MediaWiki:noexactmatch

Possible initiatives[edit source]

  • Recruiting interns
  • Posting online volunteering positions
    • Porting talent
    • Searching for material and getting republication permission
    • Fact checkers
    • Editors
    • Experts
  • Identifying specific topic areas for expansion, i.e. focus initiatives
  • Re-invest in porting efforts
  • scripting / bots to automate text-to-wiki imports (perhaps for CD3WD)
  • Activity to increase the internal article-to-article links
  • More clarity around the portals idea: Topics portals, Org portals, etc.
  • More clarity around org partnership details
    • Expansion of org pages to support an Org portal?
  • Aggressively pursuing the Peace Corps Volunteer project ideas
  • Working on Wanted pages and Wanted categories
  • Working on dead external links (with bot support)

My "Appropedia To Do List"[edit source]

  1. Continue driving for incorporation and non-profit status
  2. Invest in understanding pywikimedia or similar bots, MWiki-Browser
  3. Development of NGO partnership concepts
  4. Topic and Area categorization work
  5. Push development of Mission statement!
    • Mission statement highlighted on Community portal, Village pump and About Appropedia.
  6. Policy page work
    • delete, content (political activity), naming
    • encyclopedic (exists), request copyright permission
    • categorization policy (started this with Appropedia:Categorization?)
    • More work on porting / original content policy details: Portals?
  7. Promotion and advertising of Appropedia
    • Creation of links within Wikipedia pages
    • Google ads, Green Options ads, others?
  8. Porting
    • Need to revise and document the "Original content policy"
    • Practical Action technical briefs
    • cd3wd! Ask Eric?
    • biosandfilter guidelines
    • Expand on the "How to port" page to give suggestions about porting, conventions?
      • how to organize a porting effort (single page vs multiple pages, etc)
      • how to create a new "XXXXpage" template?
      • how to port from web, from Word docs, etc.
        • port the text first, without photos, and without worrying about formatting
        • do some formatting
        • port the photos last
      • should we keep some info on the talk page about the status of the port?
  9. Organizing various pages that are somewhat hidden under Village Pump, etc.
    • Add to About page?
    • Add page about various template resources and other useful tools?
      • "Porting Helpers" box (like the photovoltaic box)
      • Add a link (like Helge's) to add a question on prominent pages like Village Pump
  10. Development of a "LDC Development Framework" involving all various players (see User_talk:Curtbeckmann/Framework)
  11. Development of "Host_village" category
    • Related development of "Host Village Questionnaire" to aid in developing pages
  12. Non-NPOV approaches
    • Encouraging "opinion pages" within the namespace of users and orgs?
    • Create a category and highlight "opinion of the week" or whatever? I'm willing to go slow on this. "Rhetoric" or "Commentary" are interesting, not mudslinging...
  13. Work on getting logo-based "Appropedia buttons" for blog pages, etc
  14. Engage with EWB-SFP colleagues and see if their wiki and see if there is appropriate content for Appropedia

Archived topics[edit source]

Several old topics have been moved to User talk:Curtbeckmann/Archive

  • Interwiki
  • Blogging
  • Adminship
  • Archiving
  • What Extension
  • Recent Ports
  • Porting, historical link templates, “Beyond Dams” stuff
  • Content duplicated - one of them needs deleting?
  • Hello Curt
  • Thanks for the Tome
  • Titles of original documents
  • Worldchanging
  • Spelling/Grammar Notification
  • Sparsely populated parent categories & empty sub-categories

Transclusion[edit source]

FYI - if we use transclusion method for protecting the text of original documents, then there's a neater way than using the "Template:" space. Any page can be transcluded. For example, edit this section/page, add the text {{Parras Water}} and click preview - the whole article is transcluded.

Even the text of a category page can be transcluded. I created Category:Water/test, with just a sentence, which I'll transclude here:

Testing transclusion text.

I assume the software searches in the template space, then failing that it looks for the page with that name and no "Template:" prefix.

The upshot is that I think it would be better to put the protected text in a page with the same name plus a suffix (e.g. "/protected"). What do you think? --Singkong2005 · talk 04:34, 5 January 2007 (PST)

I learned about the transclusion of non-templates when I was about halfway thru templatizing things. I think the "/protected" approach could work fine. My biggest concern is where the search engines send people. I also like grouping all originals together, which works slightly better with namespaces, in my opinion, but a Category also works quite well (as long as we have <noinclude> around the Categorization).
So, to reiterate, my biggest concern is ranking of originals versus derived material. I think rearranging our current approach (30+ pages) won't take too long, whatever the new approach is... And we'll need to document the policy etc, but I'll have to defer to our search engine expert (Lonny) for which approach (if any) works best in that regard. --CurtB 07:59, 5 January 2007 (PST)
I think this approach is compatible with the namespace solution; I don't think the templates should get significant google hits. For one thing, they'd be on the same site, so I imagine they'd be indented under the main linked page, if they show up; or possibly show up only through the "more results from this site" link. The Appropedia search engine might be trickier - hadn't thought of that.
We will (I say boldly) have a notice template at the top of the /protected page, through the use of code like "<noinclude>{{transcluded}}", where {{transcluded}} (or whatever) is a notice that this page is just for transclusion.
Another thought has just occurred to me - if someone wants to copy material (including wiki markup) from an original document, transclusion could make it confusing. That's almost enough to put me off the transclusion approach. (We could add an edit button as part of the template at the top of the original page, but it's all getting confusing by that point.)
Following from that last thought, here's a possible alternative approach: don't use transclusion, but simply protect all original documents. At the same time, implement a liberal policy of appointing admins (which I favor anyway). Basically anyone we believe to be responsible and basically wiki-aware, who's been active for at least a few weeks, could go on probation as an admin. That way we quickly have a sizable number of admins to look after original docs, and who can quickly respond to any suggestions for changes to protected pages that are made by non-admins. Before doing that, though, it might be worth finding out why Wikipedia took a less liberal path, even though I think Jimbo expressed a preference for a liberal policy, in the early days. Hope i haven't done too many run-on sentences... just a quick response before I pull myself out of the vortex and make a dent in the boring stuff like tax that I should have done weeks ago...
Btw, I know I haven't answered your comment on my Wikipedia talk page - I think it's a great idea to get in touch with editors there. Perhaps after we've got the WikiGreen thing done, so we've got more to impress people with. --Singkong2005 · talk 21:57, 5 January 2007 (PST)

Solar hot water[edit source]

Not sure if you moved Category:Solar hot water to Category:Solar thermal hotwater, but I still favor the first - more succinct. Plus thermal seems unnecessarily specific - it's generally superfluous, but even if there were a system heating water via photovoltaics (very inefficient) then it could go in the same category. Also, hot water should be 2 words.

Wanted to check with you first, cat moves being more awkward than normal page moves. --Singkong2005 · talk 18:12, 7 January 2007 (PST)

Discussion tracker[edit source]

As Lonny mentioned recently, it can be hard to keep track of what's happening on the community discussion pages, with there being such a number of pages, so I had a first go at a {{Discussion tracker}}. {{Discussion tracker|Curtbeckmann}} gives


Hope you find it helpful. --Singkong2005 · talk 19:33, 11 January 2007 (PST)

Category naming[edit source]

Finally avoided other distractions for a short time and had a look at User talk:Curtbeckmann/Category naming. I think it's very good, and would strongly support this being our working policy on category naming. I've also made some renaming suggestions, under yours on that page. --Singkong2005 · talk 13:24, 12 January 2007 (PST)

Redlinks[edit source]

Hi Curt,

Saw your recent comments, and just wanted to let you know that we are still working on the interwiki map today. --Lonny 20:39, 15 January 2007 (PST)

Thanks, Lonny. I figured as much...but was concerned about the high profile links begin red. Fixed a few that were easy to find, then it got inefficient real fast... Thanks for the heads up. --CurtB 20:55, 15 January 2007 (PST)

Topic table[edit source]

Should I leave comments directly on User:Curtbeckmann/Topic table (seeing as it's a work in progress)? Or perhaps we could chat about it. --Singkong2005 · talk 21:20, 29 January 2007 (PST)


Hi Curt, just came across the topic page that you modified as it was out of date . [Yes, I know it was a few months ago, but I haven't been here for a while!!].

The new page does not match the left hand nav bar and I always thought the original was a good way of finding pages quickly. Also I think the original page gave an impression that there was plenty going on in the site unlike the dry page that is there now. Maybe it would be better to keep the original for the time being? -Cgfoz 12:43, 29 April 2007 (PDT)

Welcome[edit source]

Welcome, Steve! Glad to have you on board! --CurtB 20:05, 30 January 2007 (PST)

Retrieved from "https://www.appropedia.org/User_talk:PlantPhotos"

Thanks for the welcome. I am checking this wiki frequently, and love the whole idea. I grew up on a Vermont farm, mostly subsistence, grew most of our own food, and went shopping about once every 6 weeks. This was in the 1970's or so. I was born in 1957. I see this returning, as energy, and environmental concerns again become of utmost importance. I have been living the appropriate technology lifestyle for 50 years, so hopefully can contribute some useful information to those younger people who are thinking about it now. --Steve Gallagher 15:08, 4 February 2007 (PST)

moving cats[edit source]

A partial solution to loss of history when moving categories. See Help:Moving a page#Moving a category. --Chriswaterguy · talk 01:17, 14 February 2007 (PST)

Thanks, Curt and robotic minion. The author thing didn't quite work (dates instead of author names) but all up, good effort. And we now have a more settled naming system, which makes me happier about posting and sending links, nowing they'll stay valid. --Chriswaterguy · talk

Rename from Transportation to Transport?[edit source]

Please see Category_talk:Transportation#Can we rename from Transportation to Transport? - thanks. --Chriswaterguy · talk 04:56, 20 February 2007 (PST)

Greenlivingpedia[edit source]

Curt, thanks for making contact with me on Greenlivingpedia. I had located Appropedia after we created Greenlivingpedia and have linked to it from our Directory. We think there is space for Greenlivingpedia to progress with a focus on sustainable housing in Australia. Let's progress with mutual collaboration and interwiki links for now, and consider merging down the track. Regards, Peter Campbell 21:51, 5 March 2007 (PST)

Your thoughts requested...[edit source]

at User_talk:Chriswaterguy#Greenlivingpedia interwiki. Thanks --Chriswaterguy · talk 16:02, 16 March 2007 (PDT)

attribution in comments[edit source]

Hi Curt, to clarify what I'd suggested about attribution in comments, I redid your edits in Category:Water. Instead of leaving a note on the page to credit the author, I used the edit summary: add content by David Bartecchi of Village Earth, as part of the merger of the Village Earth wiki).

I also redid the previous move (I didn't realize that "rollback" undid every edit by the previous editor) with edit summary "arsenic" content moved to Arsenic in groundwater (just doing what Curt did, but trying different approach to edit summary for such moves). LMK if there's a prob. --Chriswaterguy · talk 16:36, 17 March 2007 (PDT)

Rethinking categories[edit source]

See User_talk:Lonny#Photovoltaics how-to? --Chriswaterguy · talk 06:08, 24 April 2007 (PDT)

Missing Images Bot Needed[edit source]

Hey Curt, got a way to tag pages with one or more missing images? I noticed a number of the CD3WD pages were lacking images. It wasn't real consistant, so I don't know if they were already missing pre-assimilation or not, but anyway, a bot to tag them with a 'Missing Images' category would be nice, that way I can just pull up the category and fix them.

Or is there another way to identify them ?

I wrote a little php script that loops through and detects them, it's not great, but it works. A bot would be better. I've got this script on a 1 sec per page throttle, so it plays nice and won't grab all the bandwidth. See Back_Yard_and_Commercial_Rabbit_Production_12 as an example of a page with missing images.

Ericblazek 06:57, 11 May 2007 (PDT)

Moving categories, an update?[edit source]

I must be behind the times in some respects. Obviously some recent version of MediaWiki has made it easy to move cats as with pages - or is there a clever way? I was definitely warned - some months ago - that it would not work, that you could add a cat redirect template but you had to change each item manually. Your note mentions "category.py". Er?? Sort me out? (But I'm off to bed very soon, so you may get no more for the next 20+ hours!) Robin Patterson 07:36, 31 May 2007 (PDT)

More newcomers to welcome[edit source]

Show up clearly on Recent changes - a redlinked "Talk" page. Over to your welcoming squad!! Goodnight. Robin Patterson 07:42, 31 May 2007 (PDT)

Imagemap extension for buttons[edit source]

Curt,

I have installed the Imagemap extension which supports buttons (images) linking directly to urls and interwikis rather than the image itself. I have used buttons on the front page of Greenlivingpedia if you want to check this out. It might be worth using this functionality for Appropedia too, at least on the front page. I have left a note about this for Chris too. Regards, Peter Campbell 07:11, 25 September 2007 (PDT)

Hi Guys,
We use an image map extension. Currently we only use it with the highlighted project (see front page), but maybe we should start using it for buttons like on Greenlivingpedia (which looks great). Thank you so much for the update Peter. We really appreciate it. --Lonny 09:26, 25 September 2007 (PDT)

about Help:Ayudar a los conceptos básicos[edit source]

Hello, I just saw your translation into Spanish of Help:Conceptos básicos. There are some expressions which don't sound very well. Do you mind if I check your translation? --Javier Carro 22:10, 16 November 2007 (PST)

Hi Javier,
I'd love it if you chipped in and improved the page! Longer response at User talk:Javier Carro. Thanks. --CurtB 23:10, 16 November 2007 (PST)
I'm glad to hear that. Thanks a lot for the welcoming :)--Javier Carro 23:49, 16 November 2007 (PST)

Welcome note glitch[edit source]

There's a problem with the welcome template you're using - e.g. see how this edit below the welcome note puts the text inside the box - I've noticed it elsewhere too. Lacking a </div>, it looks like... but when I went to {{welcome}} it seems to have the </div>. Are you using a different template? --Chriswaterguy · talk 23:45, 5 December 2007 (PST)


Article Count and translations[edit source]

Hi Curt -- I noticed the number of articles just got cut in about half --what happened???

Also I would like to target some languague profs at Clarion to begin spanish translation -- are we ready for commissioned assistnments -- and is there anything I should know besides what is on the Translation page??

Thanks --Joshua 13:29, 1 January 2008 (PST)

Hi Guys,
Hope you don't mind, but I went ahead a butted into this conversation. Thank you, --Lonny 18:36, 1 January 2008 (PST)
Well, my biggest concern is that I didn't get an email from these edits.
Second comment is that I believe that our article count was quite inflated as the result of something during the integration of a bunch of content months ago. But I would have estimated our article count in the 2000 article range, maybe 2500, not 1400, so something's not right now, as Lonny says. <sigh>
Third is, I think Lonny covered the bases on Spanish. I'll check back again in a while on Spanish, but I'm currently sucked into some other topics... Durnit. --CurtB 22:05, 2 January 2008 (PST)
Perhaps you didn't get an email because you'd previously been notified of an edit to that page, but hadn't actually viewed the page since? (This is an issue for me on many pages.) --Chriswaterguy · talk 14:38, 9 January 2008 (PST)

Displaying a search box in a wiki page[edit source]

This is supposed to display a search box (for the APDS):

<script src="http://gmodules.com/ig/ifr?url=http://www.google.com/coop/api/008224879786263662799/cse/dlukhlm8-0m/gadget&synd=open&w=320&h=75&title=Appropedia's+Public+Domain+Search&border=%23ffffff%7C0px%2C1px+solid+%2399BB66%7C0px%2C2px+solid+%23AACC66%7C0px%2C2px+solid+%23BBDD66&output=js"></script>

Does this mean it's impossible? It doesn't work in LJ either (with or without the "embed" option).

Next step: I'm looking at how to put the homepage of the search engine onto the Appropedia domain. --Chriswaterguy · talk 17:44, 9 January 2008 (PST)

Community discussion template[edit source]

Template:Working in public

email[edit source]

Curt,


I just sent you a bunch of huge files to help fund appropedia - please let me know if you got them. Thanks --Joshua 09:51, 13 September 2008 (PDT)

license announcement - a better way[edit source]

Hi Curt,

I had a think about the license announcement a few hours ago. Since we're not inviting comment (at least, not in a way that could conceivably affect anything), it makes more sense to do this as part of a newsletter, probably highlighting the Ekopedia partnership like you said.

This became clear when I was sitting here tired earlier this evening, and to do the letter at that stage would have meant going into town again. :-). But I do think this way makes better use of the limited access we have to people's attention.

I figured I'd borrow this computer and let you know, so you wouldn't be wondering in the morning about what happened to the announcement. --User:Chriswaterguy 05:47, 21 April 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Changes to the Highlighted Project template[edit source]

Hi Curt,

All apologies, I did not realize I dropped anything. I will definitely make sure to keep the template as is.

Cheers, --Steven M. 18:02, 1 May 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Curt's experiments with templates that automatically insert signatures[edit source]

Below occurred after doing {{subst:User:curtbeckmann/squiggletemplate}} CurtB 00:07, 13 September 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Below occurred after doing {{User:curtbeckmann/squigglecallertemplate}} Here is a bunch of text that is within the template. For example, this template could mention that this page is part of a translation that is underway. And we want to automatically capture the signature of the user, and the timestamp. That requires a subst, but we don't want the subt to happen within this template. Hmm. Trying to surround the subst with includeonly: {{subst:User:curtbeckmann/squiggletemplate}} Okay, this is after the include only.

What the heck, also try putting 4 ~'s within "include only". CurtB 00:13, 13 September 2009 (UTC) Done. See if that works.Reply[reply]

Doing another edit to see if that monkeys things up (bet it does).

Open Access Content[edit source]

Hi Curt

I'm doing pages for the organizations whose content we are mirroring here trying to add notes on the license conditions etc.

Do you have any info on the permissions we got from VITA and BOSTID and others to post their stuff? I can't find anything about these. I want to reuse some of the Rural Electrification Systems content (by VITA) but I can't see if I have permission to do so.Joe Raftery 15:43, 20 December 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I've been thinking about this - thanks, Joe, for taking action! I'm not sure if we got clear permission to use some of these with our license. (People say "sure, use our stuff" but CC-BY-SA is sometimes more than they had in mind.) So do we need to contact them again? When we clarify, I think pages of the form Beyond dams/license etc would be a good place to sum up any permissions we get via email (i.e. where we can't link directly to a web site).
If we don't get permission, we can always mark them {{open access}}.
Hasta 2010! --Chriswaterguy 16:56, 23 December 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]
rather than a separate page for the license I think we should have a category page or an organisation page for each organisation whose content we use and that should have detail of the license (who gave, when, what web page we found it on) and also detailed attribution information (official name, current name, postal address, web site, URL for freedownloads web page). I would be against this being on a page which is separate from the organisation - especially if the permission only applies to certain works. Lets make the organisation page the standard place to go to find out about licensing. Joe Raftery 21:25, 25 December 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I like a combination of these. If the organization page is not too big (most are not) and what they have licensed is easily described (typical) then we do it just as you (Joe) have described. If there is more to it, then we can make the licensing a subpage (and we can use more than one in some exceptional cases) of the organization, and link to it on the organization page. We should also have a spot or category where we keep a list of pages that we need to document the licensing of. Question: When we get license from web pages or email, should we capture an image or perhaps just the text of that, and upload as an attachment? Web pages and emails are not permanent things... CurtB 16:19, 28 December 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]
That makes sense. For licenses taken from the web I would say we copy the exact language of the license from the web page and also record not just the url but the date it was downloaded and what it applies to (what was on that page). I'm sorry if I seem to be running round the site lately being the hall monitor asking if you guys who have been here much longer than me have been doing your paperwork. I just feel it will be easier to sort now before the copied content gets inextricably mixed. See my post at the Appropedia_talk:Village_pump#Imported_pages about a template to mark pages with missing license info. Joe Raftery 17:05, 28 December 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I'd also suggest that when there is any detail in the permission statement that isn't of interest to the average user, that be kept on a separate page (e.g. Fred confirmed to Mary via email that "yada yada..".)
We've actually been looking for a hall monitor, so your work is appreciated. Seriously, I've sometimes felt like that myself, and am very glad to have someone else taking an active interest in cleaning up our permissions. --Chriswaterguy 16:52, 11 January 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Natural dying of textiles[edit source]

Hey Curt, I just finished a rough article at Appropriate textile production manual. Aligning some already present articles to the pages list, I noticed that Natural dying of textiles (renamed from DYETEXT) isn't well ported (by your Curtbbot). Perhaps someone can update the page ?

Thanks, KVDP 13:19, 28 December 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Travel Intern Steward[edit source]

Hi Curt,

I wanted to ask if the 3-month volunteer position for the Travel Intern Steward is still open? If so, I am hoping you can point me in the right direction to apply. I am really interested in helping out and contributing more of my time to Appropedia.

Thanks, Ayon

Language fluency boxes[edit source]

See User talk:Chriswaterguy#Language fluency box templates for user pages - thanks --Chriswaterguy 02:40, 1 April 2011 (PDT)

AbuseFilter shutdown method - just in case[edit source]

Hi Curt,

I want to make sure that admins know how to shut down a problematic AbuseFilter, in case someone contacts you:

All activity by the AbuseFilter is logged at Special:AbuseLog. That will show (for example) that User:JohnDoe triggered filter 3, and you can view the attempted edit. An admin can also click through to the filter and change the settings so it doesn't "Block". It can be left on "Log," though, so we can analyze what's going wrong.

Hopefully that won't be needed though. Thanks! --Chriswaterguy 20:35, 22 December 2011 (PST)

Your 2021 impact stats are right here![edit source]

Let's recap.png

Hi Curt! We thought you may want know that your top performing pages so far are:

  1. Solar-charged lawnmower (118 977 page views) Update!
  2. How to make and use a sawdust toilet (49 158 page views) Update!
  3. Hydraulic ram pumps (44 698 page views) Update!
  4. Water diversion (36 563 page views) Update!
  5. Irrigation methods (20 881 page views) Update!

Overall, your impact has been of 503,546 page views, woozaa!

Also, your user page has received 2539 visits! People are interested in knowing more about you, edit your user page to tell the world what you've been up to.

Thanks for your contributions and for making Appropedia great, have a merry green Christmas!!

The Appropedia Team

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