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Layout falls apart on Google Chrome (1.0.154.43): the sidebar on the left is pushed below the bottom edge of the main content block. (I'm using XP, and an 1280x800 resolution.) --[[Special:Contributions/86.101.62.230|86.101.62.230]] 21:11, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
Layout falls apart on Google Chrome (1.0.154.43): the sidebar on the left is pushed below the bottom edge of the main content block. (I'm using XP, and an 1280x800 resolution.) --[[Special:Contributions/86.101.62.230|86.101.62.230]] 21:11, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
:Thank you.  We are currently working on that and should have it fixed in less than two weeks.  --[[User:Lonny|Lonny]] 00:24, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Revision as of 00:24, 27 January 2009

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Feel free to ask a general question or make a comment about Appropedia. For policy questions, see the Policy discussion page. For questions and comments on more specific issues, it may be best to find the relevant article (if it exists) and ask on the talk page.

Archive

Older discussions can be found at Appropedia talk:Village pump/Archive. If you wish to continue those discussions, please start a new section on this page - do not add new comments to the archive page.

Topics that have been spun off to other pages

To keep this page manageable, some bulky topics have been moved to their own pages

Section 4

RSS reader and running feeds on the wiki

Try this extension: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:RSS_Reader Since you guys run the wiki on dreamhost add this file: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:RSS_Reader/cURLRSS Most rss feeds should run, including your recent changes feed. --Willd 05:49, 30 April 2008 (PDT)

Looks good! It's probably just a matter of our overworked tech volunteers testing and installing it. --Chriswaterguy 07:01, 30 April 2008 (PDT)
Hi Willd,
Thanks for the suggestion. I am glad that they finally fixed it. I had no idea what was wrong with all of my RSS efforts. cURLRSS definitely worked. So now we have a working RSS reader. Yay! Thank you, --Lonny 00:42, 2 May 2008 (PDT)

Where should ISBNs link to?

We can find a better target for ISBNs than the existing Special:Booksources page, which just links 4 booksellers, of which the Amazon link is broken - e.g. see ISBN 978-1594201530.

Can we link somehow to a Maatiam page (listing purchase prices and options with various booksellers) so any purchase benefits Appropedia or other charity? I'm finding http://appropedia.maatiam.com/ is very slow for me today though, so I don't know what's possible there.

I really like this page: http://isbn.nu/978-1594201530 but I assume ISBN.nu gets the commission, and Maatiam & Appropedia would miss out. Something like that would be much more helpful though.

Could we even (speculating wildly) do our own mashup like ISBN.nu, and get the commission ourselves? We could also invite people to go to that page to make their purchases, so it would do something like what Maatiam does... but within the Appropedia skin. That would be both shiny and useful. --Chriswaterguy 20:53, 1 May 2008 (PDT)


The Wikipedia equivalent of our page, Wikipedia:Special:BookSources/9781594201530 is also interesting. Not the nicest layout, but an extensive list of libraries, with links to searches. --Chriswaterguy 21:42, 1 May 2008 (PDT)

How to live on frogs

Just kidding. This cliché joke is to tell you all that I started french articles and I hope i'll be able to translate a few ones. Using french langage serves the aim of Appropedia as it's widespread in Africa. I'm enthusiastic about this project  ! Ascanio 00:56, 22 May 2008 (PDT)

Le puits du village

I've created a page named "Le puits du village" (the village well) to serve as a french-speaking Village pump. Then I checked the French members and there's only four of us at the time. So I wrote a short page on fr.WP hoping that it will direct people involved in AT to Appropedia. Ascanio 01:10, 22 May 2008 (PDT)

Appropedia: a wiki for solutions? (Setting our boundaries)

I'd like to suggest a primary, simple yardstick for whether content is suitable for Appropedia: It should be about solutions, or perhaps practical solutions.

This came up when I edited Majority world to be more Neutral point of view (NPOV), and in the process got into an editing vortex and created several other article. I asked for feedback, and Vinay Gupta pointed out by email that If you pop the can of worms and start asking "why?" pretty soon you come down to intensely political answers. The idea that people are being ripped off at gunpoint via trade agreements was mentioned, and is a good example of the heated discussion we don't want to focus on.

Note that these issues are interesting and important, and should be debated, but are different kinds of questions. not here. Looking at our new Vision and mission statements (ctually a work in progress) it does make sense to stick to immediate solutions.

Among the pages I started and added to during this editing spree, the suitable articles definitely include:

...and might include these, or part of these:

but definitely don't include most of the content currently on:

If unsuitable, content should be marked for transwikiing.

We don't necessarily want to delete the pages from here. We can just note the relevance to development or sustainability, perhaps mention the controversies and link to the appropriate pages both on Wikipedia, and on another wiki where analysis is welcomed - see #Where do we send issues content?. Extensive linking and discussions can be placed there, off Appropedia. E.g. majority world & developing world etc could redirect to a brief summary & links, with a note that on Appropedia you can use whichever term you prefer as long as the intended meaning is clear.)

Of course user pages can be more flexible, as long as they're not used in a polemic or adversarial way.

Apologies if i'm stating the obvious. We've talked plenty about scope before, but I think we're still a bit vague.

Feedback appreciated! --Chriswaterguy 19:29, 29 May 2008 (PDT)

Where do we send issues content?

Which wiki? Issuepedia has been mentioned in the past, and is suitable in scope but is mainly just one person (doing an admirable job). Discourse DB is also interesting, and I think I saw another one months ago (a debate wiki perhaps, or maybe it was Discourse DB but they've since changed their look). There's oneworldwiki.com but it doesn't seem to be a wiki - I've pinged them to ask about this. --Chriswaterguy 18:41, 29 May 2008 (PDT)

Announcement box

An alternative way of displaying announcements on the main page - more information, but slightly less pretty: Appropedia:Announcements/test. --Chriswaterguy 17:24, 3 June 2008 (PDT)

"Sustainable living" & visibility on the web

No one will find us if they search for sustainable-living - I searched with Google, showing 100 results per page, and searched for the text appropedia an each page. No hits in the offered 9 pages, even though the phrase does occur (searching for sustainable-living site:http://www.appropedia.org/ does give a few results).

I've done some wikilinking of sustainable living now, so we'll see if that helps. --Chriswaterguy 22:54, 10 June 2008 (PDT)

Cheap solar air conditioner

Hi people, I've just adapted this page from the french Ekopédia, but I'm not sure it's understandable. Also, I couldn't upload the original images. Can you help ?Ascanio 02:13, 14 June 2008 (PDT)

Try opening the images at Ekopédia, saving to your computer and then using Special:Upload. Or is there a different problem?
The images help a lot in making sense of the concept (I don't know French, but I glanced at the original page). --Chriswaterguy 06:46, 14 June 2008 (PDT)
Uploaded, please see the talk page of Cheap solar air conditioner. Remi 22:57, 6 July 2008 (PDT)

Trolls

We may want to reconsider putting the newest pages - up automatically on the front page - as this puts direct links to anyone spamming or putting up negative content -- --Joshua 08:18, 19 July 2008 (PDT)

Wiki collaboration...

http://doodle.ch/8pvtwr2pp82m794y (To indicate your availabilities)

Hi everybody,

As you might know I am working besides my studies to promote collaboration between wiki that works for sustainability and green causes.

I start with Ekopedia, got in contact with Green Wikia, Appropedia and many others... A short list here show some of them... http://www.appropedia.org/Site_list_for_Sustainability_Wiki_Search

They don't always know each others... They are sometimes afraid to loose their identity in any kind of co-creation... However they are all motivated and passionated wishing to improve the world.

Through my studies I learn facilitation and a basis of my formation is learning by doing so what I propose to you is to try a Skype meeting to generate/co-create a better/some collaboration... Why a Skype meeting? Because where are all around the world and I don't have the resource to invite all of you at my apartment for a meeting. Skype seems a good way to collaborate and skip space issue. It will be a challenge (for me at least) to facilitate this Skype conference but I believe that it can be fruitful.

Here is a tools to find a date... I propose to do that end of August, before I will be farming in Belgium with my best friend. So just follow the link and let me know your availabilities.

http://doodle.ch/8pvtwr2pp82m794y

I would like also some feed(-back) forward... What do you think about this initiative? What would be your expectations from it? What are your position toward "your" wiki (time-role-...).

So hope to generate enthusiasm and get some reactions.

See you soon

-- Olivier Chaput KaosPilot Team 1 Rotterdam

"Each snowflake in an avalanche pleads not guilty." "Chaque flocon de neige dans une avalanche plaide non coupable." "Cada copo de nieve en una avalancha aboga no culpable." 'Ogni fiocco di neve in una valanga perora non colpevole'

Human population

Hey, all:

I see in several places here references to "emergy" and "human population", both of which extremely important concepts for the site. Personally (proselytizing here), human population over arches everything. Yet, despite this importance nowhere do I see pages for these concepts or topics. If I knew how to set up new pages I would have done so, but if someone else will do that much, I will add some content to each of them. Thanks for the assistance.

Addendum: Chicken tractor! There is a reference to them, but a page would be great as a solution for raising chickens.

SustainableDavid 12:07, 11 August 2008 (PDT)

Hi David - we'd love to have content on these things. Chicken tractors are great, and population is very important (which is not to say we'll necessarily agree, but we can work together to make a useful page). I've unfortunately been tied up with admin work, and haven't been doing much of the more important work of creating content, lately.
To create a page, either click a redlink (like this:chicken tractors and human population); or search for the title you want, and if it doesn't exist, you'll get a red link at the top of the search results. Click it and start editing!
To find material to start with, one idea is to look for public domain content with the Public domain search. Most of what you find there should be public domain. It's not perfect, but can be useful. Make sure you note at the end where it comes from - either put the link and note that it's public domain (and someone else can finish the template notice) or even better, have a try at using the template notice yourself - see {{Pd source}}. Don't hesitate to ask for assistance! --Chriswaterguy 12:49, 11 August 2008 (PDT)

Hey, Chris: Thanks for your response. I tackled Chicken Tractor in a very self-generated, generic, no-frills way, and will do Emergy, to practice for Human Population. Take a look and do any formatting. I do suggest the topic title should be single rather than plural, but whatever convention that applies is fine. I will take more of your advice to find public domain material, but this was just a quick addition. Thanks!

SustainableDavid 18:09, 11 August 2008 (PDT)

Thanks! I did the headers and added categories - you can see the changes via the history tab. --Chriswaterguy 18:28, 11 August 2008 (PDT)

Library Section?

Hey, all:

In my continuing education here (unfortunately real slow on formatting), I have seen references to Appropedia being a library, and noticed one member mentioning reviews of books, so I was wondering if a specific section could be set up so that members could list and review actual books and articles deemed appropriate to the content here? With all the assembled brain power, it seems having much of the foundation of all that brain power available for others would be very beneficial--a real understatement. I am one who certainly believes that 'knowledge is power, and power is to be shared'. What does everyone think?

SustainableDavid 12:46, 13 August 2008 (PDT)

Sounds good (and note there is already a Book reviews page), but I'm wondering what the best way is. A lot of reviewing and rating already happens, especially on Amazon and on some of the Facebook applications like Visual Bookshelf and i-something (I forget).
My preference would be to have some kind of widget that works cross-site (i.e. OpenSocial style), so someone could have their book reviews show in Appropedia and on other sites. I'm hoping this will be technically possible very soon. The challenge, then (and I don't know the answer to this, but it might influence which widget we choose) is how do we have a way of navigating the books on sustainability, or renewable energy, or appropriate technology? And how do we have a way of seeing what particular people said about it? I'm interested in seeing the reviews of my friends, of Appropedians in general, and of people who whose opinions I respect, but who I may not be connected to other than reading their reviews.
Unfortunately that sounds like a "wait on", don't do anything, which I don't like. So feel free to review, and experiment, and you can always copy and paste your reviews into the widget later, if we do end up going with a widget. --Chriswaterguy 13:03, 13 August 2008 (PDT)


Hey, all:

Well, shut my mouth and take away my cake. I had searched for things like 'library' ,and 'bibliography', 'literature', and even (I think) 'book' and 'review' but only found terms embedded in other pages. I think a much more visible, better organized page would attract more contributions and use, and be much more comprehensive in a short time.

Being rigorous about applying principles of appropriateness, I and can look up and see easily 10 books I would add--100 if I relaxed my own standards. A subset of many people's assembled individual achievements would doubtlessly apply. Lots of articles and the periodicals they appear in adds to the volume of knowledge. And having seen "Dharma Bum" (not that I disapprove) there are not very many limits.

Okay (holding my hands up with thumbs and index fingers extended like a pretentious Hollywood director), I envision a page entitled "Written Resources", etc., with 3 separate subgroup listings: Books, Articles, and Periodicals. Each alphabetical entry in each of these should be a standard-format citation, with added things like ISBN, ISSN, online sources, e.g. websites, Gutenberg, etc. Links to Appropedia pages which cite each entry should be included. Keywords, etc. would aid searching.

Ala the "Book Reviews" page, signed reviews follow each citation. 'Quality of the entry' voting could be used by members, but to me, 'Appropriateness' to the site is more useful. Not have seen anything else like it, it seems to me a means of voting in a range of -1 to +1 could be temporarily attached to each entry to allow voting on what stays and what goes. After "X" number of votes (one person one vote), each entry below zero would be deleted.

'Appropriateness' to the site adds value to the site, and prevents valuable publications from being lost among all the rest. Much of the literature we would benefit from is accompanied by millions of others, of utterly no use or negative value to us. If this fits a 'widget' (and I will imagine what that is!) I think this would be a valuable addition. Being centralized, and consistent, and visible, like having a Carnegie Library in every town square (with apologies, a reference to American history) makes it a very good, easy, permanent way for those of us with some knowledge under our mental belts to share information with those who wish to learn. It is also a good antidote to mindless TV!

I'll start a page with a few citations in each of the subgroups, and others can take it from there.

SustainableDavid 16:58, 13 August 2008 (PDT)

Thanks David, and sorry for taking away your cake ;).
The default MediaWiki search isn't very good, and "review" wont find "reviews". We want to have a Google search inside the MediaWiki skin, and have a solution lined up, but need a super-geek who has the time and know-how to actually install it.
Thanks for taking this initiative - relevant book reviews are great! --Chriswaterguy 17:54, 13 August 2008 (PDT)

Hey, all: Okay, Chris, I did a page "Written Resources" and plugged in some entries, and even did a little formatting. There is much more to do re: features and legibility, as stated above, but for now this effort can be edited/evaluated. I look forward to responses! SustainableDavid 20:09, 13 August 2008 (PDT)

Great! I'm working on other Appropedia-related stuff and may not have time to sleep tonight, so ping me later if you get no response. -- a deeply unbalanced Chriswaterguy 21:02, 13 August 2008 (PDT)


Hey, Chris: And I in turn am sorry you feel deeply unbalanced. Would you like some cake? (Heh heh.) Actually, something such as deep belly breathing (really) helps a lot of people and it has elements of Yoga in it. Sincerely, it does help with being 'unbalanced'.

I went back to "Book Reviews" and wanted to know if, with permsission of the members who wrote there, it could be copied to "Written Resources" to consolidate information. And it occurred to me there might be individual reviews on individual pages by themselves. Are there, or is there a good way to find out?

I would like to invite everyone to comment on/edit "Written Resources", so it can be expanded and improved. Thanks! SustainableDavid 18:09, 14 August 2008 (PDT)

Thanks David. Yoga is great (have been doing that lately), catching up on sleep is very good, and cake - that goes without saying!
Refactoring a page (I think that's the term used on Wikipedia) is fine, but comments should be maintained in the same form - i.e. if something is retained as a comment, with someone's signature it should be copied in it's complete form, and it shouldn't be ambiguos as to what the commenter actually wrote. Writing a good edit comment helps too - e.g. moved from [[Book reviews]] (copy from the title to make sure the capitalization is right, otherwise the link won't work). --Chriswaterguy 18:21, 15 August 2008 (PDT)

Advertising?

Is there a policy on spamming and ads? I wasn't sure about In-N-Out Burger, doesn't seem to be that related to the project's mission (except possibly the vegetarian thing?). I guess a more general question would be whether there's a policy for determining whether a page makes it into the project's scope? Is there a deletion policy? How about a policy about where to draw the line when a page starts sounding like advertising (e.g. a neutrality policy)? delldot talk 11:50, 23 August 2008 (PDT)

We've talked about being more friendly to commercial enterprises - as long as the content contributes to the wiki in some way, with some practical solution or idea. I think that this article doesn't do so in its current state. Maybe mark it, and invite improvement of the article? --Chriswaterguy 19:55, 23 August 2008 (PDT)
Good point about supporting business if it adds something. I can't see this article ever being useful, but I could be wrong--I don't know anything about this business. What do you think about the idea that if you're not hardline against spam it could get out of hand? I'm pretty against advertising. For example, I don't like the advertising for American Express on the main page. Seems to me if you're going to bring business to an enterprise you've got an ethical responsibility to make sure it's not evil. Anyway, I think advertising presents a conflict of interest that could cost you in accuracy. delldot talk 20:42, 23 August 2008 (PDT)
This article might need to evolve into one about running green & healthy hamburger restaurants, to be useful. In other words, a complete change. The Sun Frost energy efficient shower is more like how I imagine a useful page from a business.
We don't have a problem with spam at present (that I'm aware of) apart from the cases you mentioned. The AmEx mention on the frontpage - I wondered about that, but I'm not personally aware of AmEx being a notably bad company, and I thought that if they're giving $2.5 million away to a good cause, so they can get publicity, that's not so bad - better than getting publicity through conventional advertising spending. But that's just a thought - I'm not sure what I actually think.
Certainly an article on green & healthy hamburger restaurants would be great, but it seems like if you need to do a complete rewrite and a rename, there's no point in not deleting, at least in pure terms of content.
I don't know any dirt on AmEx either, but I bet I could dig some up. :P At any rate, I'm just stating my bias; that stuff makes me shudder. But I do think it's worth considering where the line should be drawn. e.g. if Shell Oil does some philanthropic work, would we lend them these pages for advertisement? I would think of that as harmful. So how evil can a company get away with being? delldot talk 21:07, 23 August 2008 (PDT)

Site notice

I just discovered how MediaWiki:Sitenotice works. I tried it out, and it can leave a message at the top of every page, e.g.:

Appropedia runs on volunteer labor and generous donations. You can support this work by donating to the Appropedia Foundation (tax-deductible in the USA).

Do we want to have something like this? (I do.)

Do we want to have it like Wikimedia sites (note I don't yet know how they do this):

  • with a "dismiss" option?
  • in a box? (this is more visually intrusive, so i'd say only if we have the dismiss option.)

Please suggest better wording of the notice.

Also, after a week, I'd like to replace it with a notice about the upcoming OpenSustainabilityCamp. --Chriswaterguy 20:04, 23 August 2008 (PDT)

Great stuff! I support posting an OSNCamp notification immediately. I like something short such as "Join us at OSNCamp at SFSU on Oct 18-19. Click "here" for info and registration"... with appropriate embedded links, of course. CurtB 17:26, 15 September 2008 (PDT)
Practicing here: Join us at OSNCamp in San Francisco on Oct 18-19! Registration is here
More info is here: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Interface/Sitenotice
We should increment the Sitenotice id whenever we update the Sitenotice. I couldn't see info about how links are handled, and what wiki coding is supported, etc. Experiment, I guess...

NOINDEX tag

Useful info for anyone making test pages (like Main Page tests) or any other pages which shouldn't be indexed by search engines - just add __NOINDEX__:

New magic words __INDEX__ and __NOINDEX__ control whether a page can be indexed by search engines (although note that Wikimedia's robots.txt, which excludes things like AfD subpages, takes precedence over this). The keywords do nothing in "content namespaces" ― which means the main namespace on the English Wikipedia, but other sites may have additional content namespaces.[1]

--Chriswaterguy

Musing on subcategories for Programs

I was just talking with Lonny's friend Matthew Marshall, who works in Denver city government. He was asking about programs, such as their program to encourage drivers not to leave their cars idling. I said yes, Appropedia is for content such as that.

However, I'm not sure how to categorize pages such as these, or Environmental Management System, as our Category:Programs is so far about a different kind of program, e.g. the Parras summer programs.

I'm thinking that we need new sub-categories, but I'm just having trouble thinking of the right category names... should Environmental Management System go in Category:Sustainability programs? (too vague?) or Category:Efficiency programs? (Too specific?) --Chriswaterguy 11:31, 30 August 2008 (PDT)

To help explain this to people, I will work on a government portal... or rather, 2 portals:

--Chriswaterguy 21:50, 15 September 2008 (PDT)

Preventing attack with name string

We need to limit length of user names -- always protect highlighted project - and add negative word search to ban user names that would be defamatory. Finally a super user must get rid of string as user name from latest attack. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Fixer, 6:43 25 Sep 2008

Agreed - good suggestions.
Protecting projects - I'd hoped we could avoid this, but until we have super-shar anti-vandal tools (and a patrol team covering all time-zones) then we need to protect. Or maybe apply "flagged revisions" to such pages.
Other suggestions: Will see if we can get any MediaWiki gurus to help set this up - let us know if you have any suggestions!
Thanks again for your fixing work! --Chriswaterguy 11:59, 25 September 2008 (PDT)
Lonny has implemented MediaWiki:Usernameblacklist, and also protected that highlighted project, as you suggested. Thanks again. --Chriswaterguy 00:57, 26 September 2008 (PDT)

Collapsing categories

It is nice and neat to have all the categories collapse into the expandable list with the + This system could be improved, however, it categories without any subcategories were signified in some way maybe a - and/or there was a way to expand all the subcategories at once to see the tree under a specific topic. --Joshua 13:17, 2 October 2008 (PDT)

Integrated Systems of Production

I am interested in combining appropriate technologies into "integrated systems of production" designed to reduce cash costs - as an alternative to economies of scale. The classic example is George Chan's Integrated Farm Management System. I have other examples listed in my AboutUs wiki pages.

What if the volunteers at Appropedia agreed to focus on a project such combining a solar energy facility with a Greening the Desert project as a model to reduce global warming by both replacing fossil fuels and sequestering carbon in plants grown where they do not currently grow. I am thinking of things like:

  • Pump in sea water to grow algea for diesel,
  • use the water in evaporative coolers for greenhouses built under the solar panels
  • incorporate dehumidifiers into the design to produce fresh water,
  • provide food, water, shelter . . . for people to build and maintain the systems
  • and as many other things as we can add in - using each resource for as many integrated purposes as possible.

Once the project is defined, we volunteers would then conduct outreach to experts in each aspect of the plan - to both make the plan better and bring more interest to Appropedia.

I am thinking about maintaining a portal on integrated production systems but I thought I would see if there is any interest first. David Braden October 15, 2008

This sounds intriguing. I'm interested, more on the side of how to make this work on a wiki, helping coordinate... but Monday or later will be a better time for some of us to think about this, after OSNCamp 2008. --Chriswaterguy 08:02, 16 October 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Integrated Systems

Thank you for your interest Chris. I look forward to your comments. I tried to edit the last comment but could not find how to save it. What is the trick to that? David Braden October 16, 2008 9:46 MDT.

Sorry - we've added new edit features, and still having some bugs.
At the top right, click "Generic edit". "Classic edit" would then take you back to the older style wiki editing page... but for some reason it breaks on this long page. Lonny has been working on it, and we're getting help. Thanks for hanging in with us! --Chriswaterguy 15:59, 16 October 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Template links to Wikipedia

I have moved {{wp sup}} - the superscript link to Wikipedia, like thisW - to {{w}}, for simplicity. (It displays as W, so it makes sense for the code to be W).

I also want to replace the use of the {{wp}} template with a wikilink (to an Appropedia article) and a {{w}} link to Wikipedia. So for example:

W

would become:

water wheelW

No doubt there will be some that don't quite turn out right, and will need to be fixed manually - I should be able to manage it.

Just want to flag it - if no objections in the next couple of weeks, I'll get to work with the bot! --Chriswaterguy 03:23, 2 November 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Rice Hulls

I live in Shreveport,LA and would like to find a source for rice hulls close enought to have them transported to this area. Any help would be great. Can be reached at yahoo as ladyglennaelf.

   glenna

Interaction and linking between Demotech, design for self-reliance and Appropedia

Hello Chris, Lonny and to whom it may concern!

Hope all is well and all of you are enjoying the idea of "Yes we can", though it is sad that Sarah's expensive outfit will not make it to the ward robes of the White House.

In the mean time I have made a short description in the Category Demotech of all of Demotech's designs and writings. All of them link to the more extensive and better illustrated pages on the Demotech website. Maybe that is not what Appropedia likes best, but is is the only workable solution for me, as I regularly update these pages. It does not invite visitors from Appropedia to change anything or add anything. That is counter the idea of Open Source, however it did not happen anyway ever! In principle it is still possible. A visitor could make a new page to comment on what she or he finds at the related page at Demotech. Also each Demotech page is linked to a wiki page that invites comments. Even more: each page at Demotech offers a form inviting to add comments, but it is seldom used.

Illustrative is it to look at the Appropedia page 'Night Reader' (see: http://www.appropedia.org/Night_Reader ), I have no idea when this page was copied from the Demotech web page http://www.demotech.org/d-design/designA.php?d=44 This Demotech page contains so much more relevant info and does NOT contain some harmful misunderstanding of the original design now to be found in the Appropedia page. I know that I can correct such a mistake, I even could add that educational tools to make the NightReader are available at Demotech, but it is a lot of extra work and in my real life it just does not get done.

So I prefer a well illustrated and inviting introduction of each of the Demotech designs, writings and concepts, with a clear link to Demotech. But also with a notepad attached to that Appropedia page on which comments can be left without first linking to Demotech. If ever on a beautiful day someone really would do some work on such a design, but would not like to involve Demotech in it, then this notepad page could expand into an alternative for the original Demotech initiative.

I have a few related questions: At http://www.appropedia.org/DemoSticks_displays there is to be found DemoSticks displays. This page could be removed, as a link to a link to the complete and lateste updated page is available at by the page http://www.appropedia.org/Category:Demotech_Means_to_get_informed Same for the Appropedia page http://www.appropedia.org/Demo_Camp_Units and the Appropedia page http://www.appropedia.org/Demo_Camp_Einheiten, all of them can be replaced by the page http://www.appropedia.org/Category:Demotech_Means_to_get_informed

But I would like to add a small picture of each item next to the text, very much the same as I did it at http://www.demotech.org/d-design/d-categories.php?cat=1

Would it be possible to batch upload the about 50 small 180 x180 px pictures each of them an illustration of the listed Demotech design initiative?

Another question is how to create links in other Appropedia lists, say 'Water' or 'Sanitation' or other topics that Demotech designs relate to. Where to find such lists?

To conclude with a real burning question: I look for a research center or anything that functions like that for doing design research on toilet systems. Right now I work on three sanitation systems, the Hy2U (see: http://www.demotech.org/d-design/designA.php?d=91 ), the BathroomBox or SolarSanitation (see: http://www.demotech.org/d-design/designA.php?d=53 ) and the BathroomToilet-unit (see: http://www.demotech.org/d-design/designA.php?d=36 ). Support for this work in my own workshop in the Netherlands has vaporized, so I want to move out and find a place where an institute, school of interested people would welcome work on these designs, preferably close to users for which these designs are meant. It would take one or two months. There is always the possibility to come back when the work catches on and needs further support. These designs already have a long history behind them, had some success and I think it is a big shame that I have not been able to give pace to the research still needed. OK, where is that institute, school or are those interested people? Please let me know at info@demotech.org

Kind regards, Reinder / Demotech http://www.demotech.org .

I'm happy to see more linking - even if it's not on Appropedia, it should be at least indexed and linked here.
For the Appropedia community's information, can I ask what the "harmful misunderstanding of the original design" is? (Just a quote is fine.)
Batch upload of images: I previously couldn't find anything about how to add this feature - maybe I wasn't using the right phrase, but using your phrasing I found mw:Extension:MultiUpload, Batch Upload Images to MediaWiki and more references. We are looking for tech help for a number of things, like setting up a test wiki for the extra features we want, and this is another good thing to try out... if you know anyone who can help with adding features to MediaWiki, let us know!
Batch upload of images - Take 2: If anyone understands how to use a perl script, it may be that this perl script to do batch uploads of images doesn't require changing anything on the wiki...?
Re toilet research - I have asked the Appropedia twitter network. You could also ask on Global Swadeshi. --Chriswaterguy 19:02, 12 November 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Chris, thanks for feed back, re. happy to see more linking ... Please instruct me how to link and or index the items in the Appropedia Demotech category to the Appropedia categories of 'Water', 'Sanitation and others. Where to find such lists? Maybe there are related list or categories in the content of the new big partners.
Re: Harmful misunderstanding: The NightReader should NOT use WHITE LEDs. Yellow LEDs are OK for reading, they work with consideralbel less voltage, are cheaper, probably use less milli amps as well. The NightReader is really targeting at the minimal amount of light, NO MORE than needed for reading those 6 lines of a page in a book. In practice that is just enough. The related big working condition is NOT ATTRACTING INSECTS that otherwise would crawl over the lighted section of the paper and hinder concentration on work. Not attracting insects too asks for minimizing light to what is needed, as well as a proper cap that shields the light of in all directions apart from where your eyes have to see the paper. The NightReader is in a delicate balance of many functions and working methods to realize these functions. But further optimalization is always possible. Recently Demotech made a new model that works in the same way, but that is far easier to make and has some other advantages. Expect soon info on this on the Demotech NightReader page. But then what to do with the present NightReader publication at Appropedia? Whose responsability is it to update such info, initially posted not by Demotech? This is the same question as I put to the Village Pump as in regard of the outdated Appropedia DemoUnits entries.
Thanks for the link to Twitter. I have to find out how this works.

You people are good! Ferreal yall!

Ifn ya have a newsletter er sumpn'.....hook a brotha up. Please. :)

ian ..sacredpond@hotmail.com

peace

Hi Ian,
Thanks for the message. We don't currently have a newsletter, but we are working on one. We'll let you know when one comes out. Thanks! --Lonny 23:54, 12 November 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

ThinHouse

Oregon family working toward a sustainable 2000 watt lifestyle. See www.thinhouse.net.

Webpage editing screen

For some reason my actual webpage shows something completely different than my editing page and I can't figure out why.

It is under

http://www.appropedia.org/index.php?title=Arcata%27s_Oxidation_Pond&action=edit

Is the lack of "WYSYIWYG" confusing you? Unfortunately, we still have to edit the "wiki markup" but hope to have it working like a regular editor one day. See Help:Contents too - that may help.
In the meantime, you can use preview to see how things display. Do you have someone (a classmate) you can sit down with and figure this out? --Chriswaterguy 14:58, 17 November 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Good suggestions - Sharon

Health hazard if used for drinking water

Researchers found that plastic water bottles release cancer-causing agents after they are boiled, even after they are rinsed out. [2] Be careful not to eat or drink off of heat-treated bottles. This is especially true for pregnant women and young children.

How to request a category rename

We're just getting started adding some location pages for Illinois. We created Category:Cook County. It should be Category:Cook county, Illinois. An admin person has to make this change. Right? How to we request a rename of a category? User:Bmorrisett

No admin is needed for this. You just have to go into each page and edit it to change the category name. Once there are no pages referring to the old Category you can propose the Category for deletion or just redirect to the new Cat.filceolaire 22:09, 28 November 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Okay, thanks. How do I propose the Category for deletion? User:Bmorrisett

To propose a category for deletion use the {{Delete}} template by pasting that code into the top of a page. Thank you, --Lonny 04:50, 4 December 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

SSB Maker

I would like to get in touch with any of the team members of the SSB Makers.

My email is glotieno@gmail.com Regards, George

Hi George,
You can try to leave a message on the talk page of the Interlocking_Stabilized_Soil_Block_(ISSB)_Maker project page. Or you can try to email the page editors directly with at:

Good luck, --Lonny 04:50, 4 December 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

SD wiki sites list

Chris, I added to http://www.appropedia.org/SWS_included_sites_list, as there seemed to be more than just your search output there. I made a page: to try to keep with your format of the name and only the name in the list: http://www.appropedia.org/Connection. I hope you think it's in the right place. I actually think it might be better to use a short sentence (up to 200 char?) with every link, so people don't have to go through a whole learning process to see what's there.

best, phil

Please DELETE roadside.jpg

Copyright issues

Thanks Acg34,

The photos are now deleted. --Lonny 21:28, 7 December 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

wiki-net

Mattis Manzel:
Hi everybody. Pretty nice wiki work you are doing, as far as I can tell after some reading. I'm working on the wiki-net. If you ever feel like experimenting with it in any context, feel free to. As an example see the kabo-wiki-hive. Have a nice day all.

:(

I'm spamming your site on Wikiversity, apparently.

Comment on the bookmark gadget

I personally find the bookmark gadget to be poorly placed right under the logo. About 80% of the time (or at least it seems that way) when I try to click on one of the menu links, I inadvertently swing over the bookmark widget and it pops open and obscures the link I want. And this from a widget that I have never used and do not expect to ever use. That is to say, it's all pain and no gain from my perspective. I'd like to hear from others if they think that a) it's a cool tool, and b) it should be placed there (versus, say, along the top edge of the page where my cursor rarely goes).

Thanks for the feedback, all. CurtB 01:12, 14 January 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Layout problem

Layout falls apart on Google Chrome (1.0.154.43): the sidebar on the left is pushed below the bottom edge of the main content block. (I'm using XP, and an 1280x800 resolution.) --86.101.62.230 21:11, 16 January 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Thank you. We are currently working on that and should have it fixed in less than two weeks. --Lonny 00:24, 27 January 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]
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