- This page is under construction and may contain incorrect information.
A history of collaboration
Appropedia has a strong history of collaboration.
Lonny started Appropedia in April 2006, focused on appropriate technology, assisted by other people from Humboldt State University's Campus Center for Appropriate Technology.
In May 2006 he started a conversation with Chriswaterguy via his Wikipedia userpage.[1][2] Chriswaterguy was focused on appropriate technology articles in Wikipedia,[1] but by June 2006 he was convinced to join forces at Appropedia. Appropedia now covered broader issues of international development and sustainability - a logical development due to the large amount of overlap and synergy between these topics. It also developed a policy of complementing Wikipedia, referencing encyclopedic material there, and focusing instead on project information, original research, how-tos, networking and anything else not suitable for Wikipedia.
A note left on another site[3] led Curtbeckmann to join Appropedia, bringing energy, new ideas and different perspectives. He put a lot of energy into gaining permission to port quality content from other sites, leading to an acceleration in Appropedia's content growth and profile. Likeminded people and organizations were happy to give permission to use their material (see below).
Goodsignal worked away in the background, doing technical work. (since when?)
Contact with WikiGreen in late December 2006 led to an enthusiastic response from Ericblazek[4], and a very quick decision to join forces. (Chriswaterguy logged on one day to find that the merger, which he had supported, had been agreed upon and implemented by those on the other side of the planet, largely while he was asleep.) It was decided to use the name Appropedia, at least for the time being. This brought an enormous amount of content, the work of Ericblazek and (what's the name of other WG person?), ported with permission from various publications.
Since then Appropedia has made connections with more and more people and organizations:
- A long-running discussion with Village Earth led to their wiki merging in March 2006. This was the original wiki on appropriate technology.
- Sustainapedia, a planned website by a group of people with a similar vision and much ambition, led by Ryan Legg (On2Leggs), and Jim Harris of Cleantech[5]. The Sustainapedia and Appropedia teams quickly agreed to collaborate, and are now working out the details.
- The How To Live Wiki, the site of Vinay Gupta, known for the Hexayurt, merged much of its material into Appropedia in March 2006, and Vinay joined the Appropedia team.
Other exciting conversations are ongoing, with highly regarded organizations on the verge of joining this collaborative community. We look forward to being able to mention them here soon!
Partners
Questions:
- Who do we have approval to credit?
- Do in alphabetical order to avoid favoritism? Or Foundation partners first, then complete list incl foundation partners?
- Village Earth
- Architecture for Humanity, developers of the Open Architecture Network.
- Sustainapedia.org - ongoing discussions about an even grander vision (actual name yet to be decided). Sustainapedia itself has an impressive list of partners...
Content has been contributed by many organizations and individuals. These include:
- Village Earth
- Demotech[[6]
- Experiments in Sustainable Urban Living
- Practical Action (formerly ITDG)
- CD3WD
- The Sietch - coming soon. We're working on a way of importing blog summaries.
- Appropriate Infrastructure Development Group - coming soon. They use a CC2 license, and we're still working out the wrinkles.
Wikis:
- The wikis who merged into Appropedia, enthusiastically choosing to collaborate: two fledgling wikis[2] the very substantial WikiGreen, and the pioneering Appropriate Technology Wiki by Village Earth. Most recently, howtolivepedia has merged a large portion of its content into Appropedia.
One national Engineers Without Borders organization is moving towards merging their wiki with ours, and both sides are excited about this - but we'll be a little discreet and not mention which country till it's confirmed and official. We are engaging in conversations with EWB in different countries as well, and hope for cooperation with all such groups.
Related but different wikis. We have agree to link to relevant materials on each others' sites:
- Sustainable Community Action Wiki - focused on activism
- Issuepedia - focused on analysis of a wide range of issues.
Wikis engaged in ongoing conversations:
- Greenlivingpedia - who has given us some great pointers about serving the mainstream as well as hippie and super-geeky people; SustainapediaNW, TipThePlanet.
We also wish to thank the organizations who share a principle of openness, and allow their content to be reproduced here without our even asking. These include:
- FAO
- SODIS?
Notes
- ↑ Since the late 90's, Chriswaterguy envisaged a collaborative site where people would share ideas, and the focus would be on facts rather than opinion, focusing on the key issues that made a difference in the world. It was to be called Roots of Change and he registered rootsofchange.net.au in 1998 or 1999. However, he didn't know how to make a collaborative website, and it never got past a vague idea. When he learnt about Wikipedia he saw this as the realization of his earlier dream - someone had figured out how to make collaborative website. Lonny pointed out, however, that certain types of content and collaboration are not suitable for Wikipedia. Appropedia, and to an extent Wikipedia, is a realization of this earlier dream.
- ↑ The Development and Sustainability Wiki by Chriswaterguy and the WinWinWiki by Curtbeckmann.