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== Site speed post upgrade ==
== Site speed post upgrade ==
Post the server upgrade, the site is still running fairly slow on my computer browser compared to other wikis I use, but it is still usable.  [[User:Peter Campbell|Peter Campbell]] 03:47, 8 April 2008 (PDT)
Post the server upgrade, the site is still running fairly slow on my computer browser compared to other wikis I use, but it is still usable.  [[User:Peter Campbell|Peter Campbell]] 03:47, 8 April 2008 (PDT).  PS: I use siteground.com for hosting Greenlivingpedia.org and they do a good job mostly.

Revision as of 10:49, 8 April 2008

Template:CPheader Template:Shortcut

Redirect Problem

When redirecting to a category, subcategories are not displayed. See Adobe vs Category:Adobe for an example. Is there a fix for this, or should we just make a user-must-click style redirect? --Lonny 00:37, 29 June 2006 (PDT)

This bug has been fixed in the new version of mediawiki. See http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=710 for a history of this bug request. Now we just need to get around to an update of this site. Until that happens, feel free to add redirects to categories with the knowledge that eventually subcategories and articles will show on that redirected-to category. --Lonny 01:20, 29 June 2006 (PDT)

Directory of articles

I was thinking, the List of topics is useful, but being able to find all documents through the directory structure would also be good.

How about all top level categories, such as Category:How tos or Category:Alternative building, go into a category such as Category:Fundamental or [[:Category:Categories, like in Wikipedia - Wikipedia:Category:Fundamental and Wikipedia:Category:Categories.

However, if a page hasn't been categorised, you won't find it via directories. So, it's good if there's something that lists all articles. Is there an "allpages" and/or "recent pages" link for the wiki? Thanks, --Singkong2005 t - c 08:36, 1 July 2006 (PDT)

I found the allpages link, via the Special:Specialpages link, bottom left. --Singkong2005 t - c 23:51, 5 July 2006 (PDT)

Directory of articles response

Absolutely. What do you think about some diffent metacategories, such as:

  • Topic_fundamental - This is the main category for all other topic categories. For instance Alternative_building is a Topic_fundamental for the subcategories Bamboo, Earthships, Strawbale, Ferrocement and Earthen Construction ,and for the subsubcategories Adobe, Cobb, etc.
  • Topic - This is the category for all topic categories. This category will eventually get very full, in which case we could retroactively make a Topic_L1, Topic_L2, etc. respectively for the subcategories, subsubcategories, etc. (or we could just do it now as well)

Alternative building - Category:Topic fundamental

  • Strawbale - Categories:Topic|Alternative_building (or Categories:Topic|Topic_L1|Alternative building)
  • Ferrocement - Categories:Topic|Alternative_building (or Categories:Topic|Topic_L1|Alternative building)
  • Earthen construction - Categories:Topic|Alternative building (or Categories:Topic|Topic_L1|Alternative building)
    • Adobe - Categories:Topic|Earthen construction (or Categories:Topic|Topic_L2|Earthen construction)
    • ...

--Lonny 15:34, 2 July 2006 (PDT)

and then each topic would also have an array of subcategories that are part of other metacategories such as

    • Adobe - Categories:Topic|Earthen construction
      • Projects - Categories:Projects|Adobe - Adobe construction projects
      • Curricula - Categories:Curriculum|Adobe - Adobe realted curricula, lesson plans, worksheets, assignments, etc
      • How tos - Categories:How to|Adobe - How to make adobe buildings and adobe in diffent forms
      • Organizations - Categories:Organization|Adobe - Organizations focused on Adobe construction
      • Theses - Categories:Thesis|Adobe - Treatise, economic plans, and other works on Adobe
      • Tools - Categories:Tools|Adobe - Tools such as clay content calculator and loading tables
      • Programs - Categories:Program|Adobe - Adobe building intensives, schools and other programs
      • Collab - Categories:Collab|Adobe - Services offered and needed, events, book/link/article reviews and other collaborative working pages
      • Maybe photos - Category:Adobe on an image page in the Image namespace - Photos of adobe (I am worried that the page may get too big... so maybe a seperate category Adobe Photos, or just hand made galleries so that captions are supported)
      • Maybe users - Category:Adobe on a user page in the User namespace - Users with a defined interest and experience in Adobe (this could help build networks of people, and allowing for users to find user pages on which to make contacts, ask questions, etc.)

Therefore I am proposing the following metacategories:

and I am proposing encouraging putting categories on entries in the User and Image namespaces (note: images that are in a category appear as thumbnails in that category page). Quick note, if we decide to do this, we should decide on singular or plural names for the metacategories... i.e. Projects vs Project and Program vs Programs.

What do you think? --Lonny 15:34, 2 July 2006 (PDT)

Decided on singular. Changed some links above. I will rework this structure on Appropedia:About --ATSysop 04:33, 11 October 2006 (PDT)

Alternative proposal

I've been taking some time to think about this. I think it's best to keep it simple, and use the self-organising nature of the wiki as much as possible. I think the only thing that we need to add to the category structure is a top layer, i.e. Category:Fundamental or equivalent (I'd prefer shorter names where possible). I've created it and started putting the tag on appropriate subcategories, so click Category:Fundamental and see what you think. (It can always be deleted later if necessary).
Categories such as Category:Monograph and a category for collaborations will be useful. (This is similar to to Wikipedia's WikiProjects category - and see also the Collaborations page in the Wikipedia namespace, which lists types of collaborations.)
I'm not clear on what role a Topic category would serve, and Topic_L1 etc doesn't sound intuitive. If we want a list of all pages, maintained automatically, we can use Special:Allpages (which I just discovered by clicking on the Specialpages link - bottom left, unless you're using a non-standard skin).
This is the Wikipedia approach to categories, as I understand it... I guess part of my reason for preferring this is that I'm a creature of habit, and the Wikipedia system makes sense to me (and has been the subject of a lot of refinement by a large community of editors). That doesn't means it's always best to do things the Wikipedia way, of course. --Singkong2005 t - c 23:51, 5 July 2006 (PDT)
Still working on a reply. --Lonny 01:34, 7 July 2006 (PDT)

Maintaining category structure

Here are some links that make it easy to ensure that the category structure is complete:

And one link to find pages that haven't been linked to yet:

  • Special:Lonelypages (orphaned pages, not linked from other pages. Aim to keep empty or near empty).

--Singkong2005 t - c 08:58, 6 July 2006 (PDT)

Lonely pages not all that lonely

Note that Special:Lonelypages does not consider being categorized as a link. Too bad there is not a page for Uncategorized, Lonely pages. Therefore we should not look to keep Special:Lonelypages empty because some pages will only be linked to by categorization, e.g. Hand stitching, which is part of the How to category. --Lonny 16:51, 6 July 2006 (PDT)
You're right. We might check Special:Lonelypages on occasion to see if there's articles that should be linked from elsewhere, but a category link may be enough. Special:Uncategorizedpages & Special:Uncategorizedcategories are the ones to work on keeping empty, then. --Singkong2005 t - c 01:02, 8 July 2006 (PDT)
I'll create Help:Categories (or should it be Appropedia:Categories?) to contain the explanation for using categories. I'll also delete Category:Testsubcat and Category:Testcat, and move explanatory material to the new page. --Singkong2005 t - c 22:45, 20 July 2006 (PDT)

Sub-categories/metacategories in topics

The metacategory schema would be a strong feature of the whole organizational structure described above. Can MediaWiki be made organize specific articles under metacategory headings on the Category:Fundamental pages, in the same fashion that they have been listed above in this discussion? I don't know of a way to accomplish this other than by using pipes to define the terms by which articles are sorted in a category tag [[Category:metacategory|metacategoryname article title]]. Unfortunately, this will not create subheadings in the list of category contents, only sort alphabetically, grouping articles with similar sort-words together without subheadings. The challenge here is to have articles displayed in a category and also be sub-sorted based on what other categories they belong to.--Aaron 10:33, 5 July 2006 (PDT)

As we add category tags to articles and on other category pages, the wiki software automatically creates the directory structure - see my comments above. I'm not sure if I got your question though, so please ask again if I haven't answered properly. --Singkong2005 t - c 23:51, 5 July 2006 (PDT)
I think what Aaron means is the following - Do you know how Articles and Subcategories show up automatically under a Category pages? I think Aaron is asking if the same can happen for the other Areas, e.g. seperate Articles, Subcategories, Tools, Monographs, etc. I think that the answer is no. Maybe for seperate namespaces, but I tried it, to no avail, by including a user in Category:Photovoltaics... the user was listed as an Article alphabetized to U for User, but no seperate Users section. Please let me know if I am offbase, or if this makes no sense.--Lonny 02:21, 7 July 2006 (PDT)
Thanks, Lonny, that is what I mean. I have edited my original discussion post to be clearer. I will look into any extensions for MediaWiki which might offer this functionality.--Aaron 14:06, 7 July 2006 (PDT)
Okay, I'm with you now - sorry for the misunderstanding. Aaron's idea is a clever solution, but with the lack of headings, and the non-intuitive way of writing category links are problems. I'm inclined to just use subcategories for now (E.g. make Category:Users interested in photovoltaics* a subcategory of Category:Photovoltaics) and perhaps at some time in the future there will be a feature in the MediaWiki software that allows the articles in subcategories to be listed beneath a heading. --Singkong2005 t - c 01:10, 8 July 2006 (PDT)

Userboxes

Someone may also choose to create a userbox which also adds the page to the category. So if you create {{User photovoltaic}}, that userbox can contain code to add you to Category:Users interested in photovoltaics. (The easy way is to start by copying and pasting from, say, Wikipedia:Template:User WikiProject Environment). --Singkong2005 t - c 01:10, 8 July 2006 (PDT)

Check out Photovoltaic members to see the new userbox implementation. Comments or suggestions? --Lonny 17:02, 17 July 2006 (PDT)
Very good - I've adapted your code to make {{User watsan}}, with the category Category:Water & sanitation members. Sanitation is currently a redlink. It may need to be changed to Category:Wastewater depending how we organise the categories.
The way "member" is used in the userboxes may suggest that the user is the member of a group related to that topic (as with WikiProjects on Wikipedia), so I'm trying to think of a concise way of expressing it, while still linking to the category. No better ideas yet - I'll ignore for a while and either it will be fixed, I'll think of a solution, or I'll realise it doesn't matter ;).
I also copied these (with small changes) from Wikipedia, to put userboxes in a column on the right:
See my user page for an example. These can also be useful in formatting articles when material such as images are to be placed in a column on the right. --Singkong2005 t - c 20:24, 17 July 2006 (PDT)

Categories & articles

Another issue I've been giving thought to. Lonny, I noticed at Category talk:Appropriate technology, you wrote:

I redirected appropriate technology to here at Category:Appropriate technology... Obviously there are some problems with the way we are using categories... One problem with the redirect to the category is that subcategories do not appear at the bottom of the category page after a redirect (although this does not affect category:appropriate technology as there are no subcategories).

Another small issue is that it will affect the layout of links on the "What links here" page, making it slightly more confusing.

Most likely the software doesn't handle the current usage well because it wasn't intended to. Cross-namespace redirects (e.g. appropriate technology to Category:Appropriate technology) are discouraged on Wikipedia, and I suspect on other Wikimedia projects as well.

A suggestion to separate articles from categories

I'm now leaning towards separating the articles from the categories, so that the category pages are solely for the purpose of categorising, perhaps with a brief intro. Other material would go in the article namespace, e.g. the material in Category:Appropriate technology would be moved to Appropriate technology, and replaced with nothing, or a brief intro.

I think that users should be able to view all pertinent information and links (especially to articles and subcategories) in one place.
I see your point. I'm slightly concerned that people will be confused, seeing a Category in the title, but viewing an article, and not seeing the categorised articles unless they scroll down. But the best thing is to get some non-users to have a play with it and observe their reactions. This may be easier for you, being in an academic environment, with lots of guinea pigs (i.e. students) if only you can catch them and sit them down in front of a computer... but I'll also try it with my friends when I get a chance. --Singkong2005 t - c 01:26, 8 July 2006 (PDT)
The redirect problem has been fixed in new versions of MediaWiki, see Appropedia:Village_pump#Redirect_Problem Village Pump for more. Now we just need to update. --Lonny 16:18, 6 July 2006 (PDT)
Mediawiki update is complete. Redirects are working (as is cite.php, and hopefully some other cool features). --Lonny 23:35, 6 July 2006 (PDT)

Inline links to category pages

One way in which category pages differ from article pages is that it is not possible to make an inline link to a category page, at least with any method I have found, other than formating the link as if it's external. For example, the code [[category:Solar Hot Water]] will an article in the solar hot water category and add a link to the category at the bottom of the article page, but it won't include the inline link like [[Solar Hot Water]] would. The only workaround I can think of is to do something like I've done on Talk:Book reviews, which is to include the complete URL to the category page in a single-bracketed external-style link. Is there a better way to do this?--Aaron 00:25, 29 August 2006 (PDT)

Add a colon before the C, like this: [[:Category:Appropriate technology]] which shows as Category:Appropriate technology. Of course in this case we can also just link Appropriate technology which redirects to the desired page - it should ideally be the same for other category-article pages too. --Singkong2005 talk 07:55, 29 August 2006 (PDT)

Namespaces

I haven't figured out whether projects should get their own namespace - one argument for this is that it becomes more obvious that it's a project from looking at the name. One drawback is that linking to the projects pages becomes slightly less intuitive.

I agree, linking should be intuitive. Projects should not get their own namespace. I think that we can take care of everything with categories. After we talk some more about the categories, the About appropedia page should be updated. --Lonny 16:18, 6 July 2006 (PDT)

I notice that Knots: has been used as a namespace. That probably should be changed. Maybe they should go into the article namespace? (e.g. Bowline knot. This would be in Category:Knots which would be a subcat of Category:How tos.

The Knots: fake namespace thing should definitely be changed to exactly as you say. --Lonny 16:18, 6 July 2006 (PDT)
Knots are now taken care of. --ATSysop 01:21, 7 July 2006 (PDT)

An alternative is to use How to: is used as a namespace. I think that goes against the common wiki approach (in Wikimedia projects and Wikia) which is to use namespaces only for completely different types of pages: (Special:, Help:, Template:, or project-related i.e. Wikipedia: or Appropedia:), or for completely separate projects (such as the Cookbook: prefix in Wikibooks).

Let me know your thoughts. --Singkong2005 t - c 09:35, 6 July 2006 (PDT)

Counter to what I hoped for at the beginning of this wiki, I think that we can avoid namespaces and opt for categories. Those categories that I would have like to be namespaces can now be just listed under the Category:Fundamental or something like that. More about this on our category conversations above. Thank you for your thoughts and suggestions. --Lonny 16:18, 6 July 2006 (PDT)

Headings with no text

I was wondering whether others agree with me that we should follow the Wikipedia policy of not putting headings in unless there's actually text. I understand why it's done - the headings are thought to be an indication of what is needed... but I feel it looks cluttered, and takes up the time of the reader, looking through the page and realising there's nothing there. Also it may just as likely discourage additions, by placing expectations/limitations on what is to be added. E.g. Category:Solar distillation - I would like to remove most of the headings and let the page develop naturally. --Singkong2005 t - c 05:53, 14 July 2006 (PDT)

I agree that we should not put up headings unless there is content. I do not think we should waste people´s time, by bringing them to blank pages. But I do not feel that Category:Solar distillation fits the description of empty. I think that even mostly blank categories, as long as the have listed subcategories or articles, should remain.
Certainly the categories should remain - I meant just avoiding headings without content. I've made a change here to demonstrate the kind of thing I mean. It's nothing major, but it improves the presentation. --Singkong2005 t - c 12:11, 17 July 2006 (PDT)
I see what you mean. Looks better, not nearly as misleading and now users can browse stubs to see pages that need a good start as well. --Lonny 17:13, 17 July 2006 (PDT)
I think that truly contentless pages, such as PDF should be deleted.
Yes! Done. --Singkong2005 t - c 12:11, 17 July 2006 (PDT)
Note that PDF has been moved to Help:PDF, and now has content, and a purpose, i.e. for when PDF files are linked, and the {{PDFlink}} template used. --Singkong2005 · talk 04:56, 25 November 2006 (PST)
What do you think about mostly blank pages, such as Environmental art, which seems to have been created and abandoned? --Lonny 10:52, 17 July 2006 (PDT)
There's not much there, and I can't see what it's meant to become. In cases like this, perhaps we could post a note on the creator's talk page, asking if they want to expand it. If not, I'm inclined to delete. Alternatives:
  • Put it in a separate "limbo" category of stubs that aren't necessarily ever going to go anywhere (and removed from other categories). It could stay there for a while, and if there's no change, it gets deleted. Though that's probably more effort than it's worth.
  • The material from the page could just be posted on the creator's talk page, with an invitation to recreate the page if they wish to do so with a little bit more substance. (This is my preferred option). --Singkong2005 t - c 12:11, 17 July 2006 (PDT)
Excellent on the deleted blanks. I like this last option the best. Should we could inlude a link to recreate the page as well (mostly just for newer users), or will this add to our wanted page list? --Lonny 17:13, 17 July 2006 (PDT)
Good point about the wanted page list. I think no link is best - just the deleted content. If they created it once they can do it again; and they can always ask, or if we really think it's necessary we could add a link to a wikimedia/wikipedia guide to creating a page. --Singkong2005 t - c 19:35, 18 July 2006 (PDT)


Another option is to move it to the userspace of the editor who created it, and make a note on their talk page. This preserves the complete edit history, in case it's of value, and gives. I've done this with Environmental art. --Singkong2005 talk 08:43, 8 August 2006 (PDT)

Language userboxes

This is really not a high priority right now - however it would be nice if eventually we had a system of language userboxes, like Wikipedia:Template:Babel. However, using the Babel template requires the existence of the full range of language userbox templates like Wikipedia:Template:User es-2 - up to 7 for each language.[1] Manually copying them all is not a practical option - is there another way? --Singkong2005 t - c 00:05, 18 July 2006 (PDT)

If the answer isn't to hand, we could ask at MediaWiki.org - especially if there's a page there for those actually dealing with the software. There may be a way of copying a whole range of pages, e.g. using a "getwiki" command? --Singkong2005 t - c 21:22, 22 July 2006 (PDT)

Program categories

If there's a lot of programs in a certain area, and they're listed in the appropriate category, then someone browsing the category will find it hard to tell at a glance which are the articles about the topic and which are the program writeups.

To solve this, I've decided to be bold and start creating program categories, e.g. Category:Solar programs, which are subcategories both of the topic (Category:Solar) and of Category:Programs. (See Category:Programs - any such category will show in there.)

An alternative would be to make all the articles as category pages (perhaps that's already the policy?) and so anything not in the category namespace must be either a how-to or a program... However, that still seems a bit confusing, for people creating or reading pages, especially for anyone not familiar with the category policy. --Singkong2005 t - c 21:38, 30 July 2006 (PDT)

Program category response

I understand your thinking here. This is actually the question that Aaron was asking, i.e. if there was a way to effect other delineations besides Subcategories and Articles on Category pages. I still do not know an easy answer to this question. I see making extra categories, such as Category:Solar programs, Category:Solar organizations and Category:Solar tools as an unfortunate answer to this problem because of the extra clicks that a browswer must make and extra work editors must do. That said, it is a workable answer. It is possible that Namespaces may again be a possible part of the solution, if, for instance, a page under the Programs Namespace could appear on a Category page in its own subsection (which I think would require some advaced coding). Another solution may be to use sort keys. See the breakdown below:

  • Using sort keys
    • We could use use P for programs, O for organizations and T for tools... but this may be confusing when other articles starting with those letters are included. One fix for that could be to sort key all inclusions, A for Articles and the such.
    • Or we could use a code such as: 1 for Programs, 2 for Organizations, 3 for Tools, etc.

It does seem that a defacto policy of all topic articles being categories has started. This makes some sense, since all topic articles should be open as categories for all types of writeups. Can you think of a topic article that this would not be true for?

I had assumed this would not always be the case, but I may be wrong. Not sure.
I originally didn't like the topics-as-categories policy (or category-article policy), but I do see the advantages. I'm thinking about a template to create a fairly unobtrusive box for the top of category articles, explaining briefly why the reader has been directed to a page that says "Category:". E.g. This is a "category article" and includes both the article and a listing of all pages in this category."
Re: The sort code option - it's a clever workaround, but my feeling is that it isn't very intuitive and so won't be used by most editors, requires extra maintenance, and as you say, it's a problem when other articles start with those letters... so I'd prefer to find another solution.
We seem to have a relatively large number of categories for a small number of articles... I might hold off on creating separate cats for programs/projects, for now. We can single out the articles (as opposed to project writeups etc) in a "See also" section at the end, which is not a perfect solution, but it does help separate the article types to an extent. Perhaps we should just do that for now, and see how it develops.
Keep in mind the MediaWiki software is open-source and a work in progress. (E.g. I just found a great way of setting up forums on a wiki, at the Campaigns Wikia forums.) So we can wait and see what features are added, or we can suggest features (somewhere on mediawiki.org, I'd guess).
Another related thing that occurs to me, with the category-article policy - we'll have to be careful to choose the the best name early on. Moving a category must be done manually and thus doesn't allow the edit history to be preserved - especially if the old category page is deleted. --Singkong2005 talk 20:02, 3 August 2006 (PDT)

In addition, the addition of Zaragoza to Category:Solar hot water programs seems erroneous. Zaragoza is a Project not a Program.

Ah... well I suspect it would be going too far to have both a Category:Solar hot water programs and a Category:Solar hot water projects - is there a word that covers programs and projects so we can put them in category? Or is that less than ideal? Anyway, as stated above, I'll hold off creating this kind of category for now, and will revert the changes if that's preferred. --Singkong2005 talk 20:02, 3 August 2006 (PDT)

Programs are much more overarching, such as Category:Parras and The Solar Living Center Workshops.

Thank you for being bold. --Lonny 13:41, 3 August 2006 (PDT)

GoogleMaps API

Hi All,

I just added the Google Maps API and the GoogleMapsExtension for MediaWiki. Check out some uses at my office map and Arcata marsh, and check out Help:Maps for more on how to use it.

Enjoy, --Lonny 11:42, 8 August 2006 (PDT)

Very good - however, I don't think it covers very much outside the USA, Canada & Europe yet - which is worth noting on Help:Maps, if true. At least http://maps.google.com/ doesn't seem to, but it wasn't resolving properly for me even in US/Canada searches. The map on your page looks good, though. --Singkong2005 talk 19:19, 8 August 2006 (PDT)

Blogs

What are the prospects of hosting blogs on Appropedia? I was originally thinking of using a wiki format site, but it seems to me that perhaps the conventional blog format actually makes more sense for the that purpose. I don't know anything about options in blogging software, but I'm sure there's good open-source ones.

The next question is whether blogs hosted here can easily be added to blog search engines (see Wikipedia:Technorati, which also mentions Google, Yahoo, PubSub and IceRocket).

Another question is whether we would have any particular policies regarding content, or have a completely free-speech approach. --Singkong2005 talk 20:23, 8 August 2006 (PDT)

Update: Blogs can easily be added to search engines; the question is whether this is possible if it's done on a MediaWiki page; also whether RSS is possible. I'm currently inclined to want to use standard blog software, or perhaps a Bliki (a combination of the wiki and blog concepts). This would also be more accessible for people who are used to blogs. Wikyblog.com doesn't resolve properly in Opera, but it seems that there are several other options. See Blikis listed on WikiIndex for examples of blikis, and the Wikipedia article for links about the software.
Re POV/NPOV: I had missed Lonny's comment (in our discussion on his talk page) that I think that we can deal with the issue of expressing views using a blog template that explains the much looser NPOV rules in the blog space. That should work. I think it's wise to clarify what if any boundaries there are - I'd be inclined to go for minimal restrictions (obviously something like hate speech would be unacceptable). We might encourage the overall tone to be constructive, but that's probably best as a guideline rather than a policy; I wouldn't want to stop someone from saying that "politician X is an idiot", though I would hope they went deeper than that. --Singkong2005 talk 16:38, 4 September 2006 (PDT)
I've been thinking some more about what to look for in a blog... regardless of where it's hosted, there'd need to be:
  • a spam filter for comments, or one of those things where the poster has to type in the wavy letters...
  • some kind of comments notification - preferably a bit sophisticated, so that getting 20 comments doesn't mean getting 20 emails.
Other suggestions (features, or software/sites) welcome!
I just had another thought... if there's other sites that have a lot of international development-related blogs (e.g. HungerMovement Blogs; see also Blogs), that could be a good place to blog, in that it draws attention to Appropedia from people who share the same interests. Something to weigh up, especially if using blogging software here is not practical. --Singkong2005 talk 19:06, 8 September 2006 (PDT)

"Create page" box

Wikia allows the code "<inputbox>" which can be used to create a box for automatically creating pages, with optional pre-loaded text. This is useful for newbies. See here. Can this be easily activated in Appropedia? (I tried copying the code but it doesn't work, so I guess there's a software tweak or add-on involved). --Singkong2005 talk 08:23, 9 August 2006 (PDT)

Using Wikimedia Commons images - direct, or upload here first?

Is it possible to show images from the Wikimedia Commons? We can link easily enough - commons:Image:BuddhisticStatuesHKe1.jpg - but I don't know how to show the pic. Do we have to upload it here first? --Singkong2005 talk 08:56, 9 August 2006 (PDT)

It is not yet possible to embed images from wikimedia commons, but maybe in the future, for now you must upload the file here first. See Commons for more. --Lonny 18:19, 24 October 2006 (PDT)

A templates to list pages in a category?

Regarding the discussion above, #A suggestion to separate articles from categories:

I wonder if it's possible to make a template which lists the pages in a certain category? e.g. we could call it catlist, such that {{catlist|Alternative building}} lists each article in that category.

This would give us everything we want: much more flexibility in how we present category lists at the end of an article; we could putting article in the main space rather than the category space, avoiding the "category" in the page title, and allowing pages to be moved while retaining the edit history.

I need to learn more about writing templates, but hopefully it's possible. --Singkong2005 talk 19:47, 9 August 2006 (PDT)

I've asked about this at the help page on meta, so we'll see what response we get. --Singkong2005 talk 07:34, 10 August 2006 (PDT)

Uploading .doc files

Lonny, I know you mentioned wanting to be able to upload .doc files... just wanted to mention that I would like to upload a couple of files:

  • a brochure (Brochure used by Engineers Without Borders NSW for their Appropriate Technology Day, Sunday, 2 April 2006. Released under free licence with the permission of Nicole Teo.)
  • my thesis - then at least it will be available, until I'm able to convert to wiki markup. I plan to put the abstract as a wiki page and link to the .doc file.

Another option would be to use a separate site or non-wiki part of this site to host the files. --Singkong2005 talk 23:01, 9 August 2006 (PDT)

Please try to upload those now. I have opened up Appropedia to doc, xls and pdf documents. I look forward to seeing the brochure and especially your thesis. Please let me know if there are any problems. --Lonny 10:42, 5 September 2006 (PDT)

Short URLs

I have implemented short URLs at the test wiki, http://www.buildcapacity.org (this is a lagged version of appropedia, for the sole purpose of testing before breaking appropedia). So far the only problem that I have found is that pages with ampersands will only load the part preceeding the & symbol. Does anybody want to try to find more errors before I implement it here at Appropedia? Your logins should work fine at BuildCapacity. What do you think? --Lonny 23:14, 28 September 2006 (PDT)

I've had a bit of a look, and had no problems - I certainly like the shorter form (and having the "appropedia.org/wiki/Pagename" form does seem wiser and safer than the even shorter version "appropedia.org/wiki/Pagename," based on what I've read on the page.
I've no idea what to do about the "&" problem. It doesn't seem to cause problems in Wikipedia, e.g. Wikipedia:Penn & Teller and Wikipedia:Tom & Jerry. That's assuming you're referring to the title - or did you mean the page content? --Singkong2005 · talk 00:10, 16 October 2006 (PDT)
Check out http://www.buildcapacity.org/wiki/Testing_the_short_url_fix_%26_with_the_ampersand for an example of the problem. I think there must lay a solution in the modrewrite rules. --Lonny 01:12, 16 October 2006 (PDT)
Is the ampersand problem related to Apache rewrite rules, and not MediaWiki? I googled wikimedia ampersand title and got some interesting hits. Check these out:
 :::*http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/mediawiki-l/2005-June/005814.html
I recognize that we're using 1.7, not 1.4, but the behavior is so close must be related...? --CurtB 13:24, 2 November 2006 (PST)

Short URLs implemented at Appropedia

After testing at buildcapacity.org, we now have short URLs implemented here. Please let me know if you come across any problems, and note that ampersands can not be used in titles. --Lonny 16:34, 20 November 2006 (PST)

Excellent! And for some reason (is it coincidence?) I notice that all of a sudden my Favicon is also working! Very cool on two counts! --CurtB 16:40, 20 November 2006 (PST)
Fantastic! Thanks for all the work! --Singkong2005 · talk 19:55, 20 November 2006 (PST)

Generic interwiki link template

Just had a thought - we could create a template to make a box like {{Wikipedia}} and {{Wikipedia p}}for a generic wiki link, as long as the wiki is on our interwiki map, e.g. {{wiki|Solar hot water|solaroof|Sola Roof}} would create the link solaroof:Solar hot water.

Won't be too hard, will think about this when I have time... --Singkong2005 · talk 17:48, 24 October 2006 (PDT)

ISBN & Book sources

If we insert a book's ISBN, e.g. ISBN 1853395218, it links to a Book sources page. However, it's much less complete than the Wikipedia book sources page. Without trying to independently maintain a book sources page to compete with Wikipedia, is there a way that we can take advantage of Wikipedia's more complete page?

Perhaps link directly to the Wikipedia page (which has the disadvantage of taking people away from Appropedia)?

Or transclude the Wikipedia page? --Singkong2005 · talk 21:38, 5 November 2006 (PST)

How do we protect css pages?

We can edit eacher other's css pages... unlike Wikipedia - see Wikipedia:Project:Protection_policy. --Chriswaterguy · talk 08:12, 22 April 2007 (PDT)

Drafts?

Is there a place to save a draft prior to posting? Flying in the face of the Be Brave philosophy, it would be nice to have a place to work on an article before posting... Thanks Steve.mccrosky 16:57, 4 June 2007 (PDT)

Hi Steve, I agree that sometimes it is nice to have a place to work on articles, before presenting them to the world. Is the User:Steve.mccrosky/Sandbox temp space working for your needs? --Lonny 06:06, 5 June 2007 (PDT)

Yup, thanks, I figured it out. Steve.mccrosky 06:43, 5 June 2007 (PDT)


Is there a place to browse the list of uploaded files?

Steve.mccrosky 21:31, 8 June 2007 (PDT)

Special:Newimages and Special:Imagelist are the two best places. You could also use the all pages search in a names space, such as http://www.appropedia.org/index.php?title=Special%3AAllpages&from=&namespace=6, but that seems less useful. Check out Special:Specialpages, for more similar pages. --Lonny 10:01, 9 June 2007 (PDT)

Hey Guys

Great work on your site, seen it grow over the past few months. I like the speed! I'm looking for a fast server to host a wiki site, www.peacecorpswiki.com/.org. The one the site is on currently is slow and not optimized for wiki. Any suggestions? -Will--68.48.162.236 05:51, 13 February 2008 (PST)

Hi Will,
Thanks for the compliments on the site. The last two years have seen a lot of growth and excitement. Great work on your wiki. We currently use Dreamhost for hosting. Our missions are quite similar, please email me (lonny) for more details and to discuss possible ways for us to support your project or partnership opportunities.
Until soon, --Lonny 10:50, 13 February 2008 (PST)

Site speed post upgrade

Post the server upgrade, the site is still running fairly slow on my computer browser compared to other wikis I use, but it is still usable. Peter Campbell 03:47, 8 April 2008 (PDT). PS: I use siteground.com for hosting Greenlivingpedia.org and they do a good job mostly.

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