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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

• Appropedia:Mission
• Appropedia:Anti-Vandalism Measures
• Appropedia:Logos
  • Includes discussion of subtitles
• Appropedia talk:Technical questions
• Appropedia talk:Policy discussion
• Appropedia:Copyrights
• Main Page prototyping page
• Promotion of Appropedia
• Appropedia:Articles to translate
• Past discussions have been moved to Appropedia talk:Village pump/Archive for easy viewing

Section 5

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)

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

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]

Can we add a category to cover this topic, like: Non-profit social economy or social-ecological sustainable embedded economy, natural balanced economy, .. ? Jafra April 8, 2009

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]

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

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]

Ian, I've added you to the list at Appropedia:Newsletter #Subscribers - hope to have a newsletter happening soon! --Chriswaterguy 01:13, 4 March 2010 (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

David Reber nominated as admin

I've nominated User:David.reber for adminship. See Appropedia:Administrators/Nominations#David Reber . --Chriswaterguy 06:33, 13 February 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Adminship - making two levels, and changing the name

I've suggested changing the name "admin" to "librarian", as in the Spanish Wikipedia. Another option is "steward". Please leave any comments or suggestions at Appropedia talk:Administrators/Process.

I've also suggested making two levels of adminship - see Appropedia:Administrators/Process and leave comments on the talk page. Thanks! --Chriswaterguy 19:49, 13 February 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Usability / Making it accessible for beginners

Hi,

this is probably a difficult problem, and I haven't fully fleshed it out in my own mind, but:

It's pretty difficult to quickly navigate to content that is likely to be useful to a lot of people. For example, I tried issuing the following queries:

• "light bulbs" (i.e. trying to learn about energy-efficient lightbubls)
• "energy efficient house" (how to make house heat/energy efficient)
• "carpool"

None of these queries give me anything remotely relevant (or even easy to comprehend) in the top results.

Similarly, it's not at all intuitive how to navigate to the content above from the front page.

I think this is a serious problem, as it will result in many (esp. first-time) users getting frustrated and turning away. I know that people read/write Appropedia for many purposes, but I believe that the majority first-time visitors probably want something that's simple and general.

The solution to this is not easy, but off the top of my head I can think of a few things:

• A "simple" portal with simplified/limited content (something like Simple Wikipedia [2])
• Improving tagging / search technology (e.g. does the current search engine have a "PageRank"-like feature that prioritizes pages by their popularity)?
• An introduction/guide on the front page (that lets you quickly learn about / navigate to general issues of interest).

I'd be very interested in thinking about these problems further. (I'm a computer science grad student with a background in HCI).

Thanks so much for your message, Kkireyev! I agree that we need major improvements in navigation. I had to look up HCI (Human-computer interaction^W - that's very relevant to the work we need to do improving the site, so we'd love to work with you on this.

We do have some plans in these areas, but it's been slow work because there's so much to do, and not many of us with tech skills (my own tech skills are very limited). Any help you could lend, both on conceptual and practical levels, would be greatly appreciated.

The first thing I'd suggest is to join the Tech for sustainability wikis - that's where we talk about tech ideas. Perhaps you could introduce yourself there, copy this message there, and tell us a bit more about yourself?

Re the portal and the front page ideas - we're thinking about adding a navigation tool like the one at Appropedia:CategoryTree to the front page, but I'm still working on the images. See also Main Page tests - that's very much under construction, but it shows some of the attempts made to tidy and slim down the front page, and make more room for important stuff that helps people navigate. Feel free to play around with that page if you like.

Re the search engine - updated comment: Wikipedia has a nicer search engine, which was announced here. It's apparently not part of a new version of MediaWiki - we could do with some tech help in working out how to apply it to Appropedia. I don't know whether this is the kind of thing you're interested in, but if you know anyone (or anyone is reading this) who can help, please let us know! --Chriswaterguy 16:37, 7 March 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Open Green Map

We should consider partnering with Open Green Map to integrate the GIS functionality we have been looking for into appropedia. Any thoughts? --Joshua 18:35, 30 March 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I love it, I love it, I love it :)

am glad to be here within ... thanks for all have constructed this great work. Jafra

Swadeshi Business Models with ecology as business partner

There is no category about economy here to look up or construct such business models!

My personal motivation is that I am planing to return to my home-community which is NOT independent and controlled by foreign power. Socially, the community is heavenly collapsed like so many indigenous communities fall as victim of absurd , political power, profit and industrialization.

To start new sustainable human and moral eco-business in such a community I thought about the principles. On of them to have ecology as corporation partner as it is participating on productions and produced value. Having ecology as partner of production and consumption cycle will create a balance within our relationship to it and to each other as we all share it.

In old-school, state taxes used to cover this responsibility. But I can imagine that future value-corporation community will take more direct influence on their ecosystem if they consider themselves as such. To take ecology as partner is essential as all of us would have the same partner to adjust , revise and tune how much products actually we need with.

There many good sites http://www.corporation2020.org , http://www.futureofed.org/driver/the-maker-economy.aspx, .. but I did not find any document in which the ecology is explicit partner of the corporation. The idea would be to map "natural capital" involved in the business as virtual partner. Part of the revenue will have to flow back to sustain natural capital and make it more "wealth" (wellness) The patterns here are very helpful: http://www.conservationeconomy.net/pattern_map/noflash/index.html

Do you know any business model, where ecology is direct part of the shares so that I can study and use it for my business idea? Jafra April 8, 2009

Sorry we haven't been much help - I'd suggest posting this to the forum at Global Swadeshi. I'm sure you'll get a response there. --Chriswaterguy 17:57, 25 April 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Understanding natural systems & choices

I've studied natural systems as a general subject for years. Much of the subject is about why they fool us so much, and how they do so much for us we don't understand. It's a big subject, and not even the sciences of ecology and economics have quite realized the importance in living systems in particular, of their being made of independently responding parts.

The general idea of science is still that systems follow the rules we perceive, though that's also the problem, in that they keep making up their own rules too and catch us off guard. Is there an interest in that here? What aspect of understanding natural complex systems would be appropriate here? I have a things showing my range of interests on my archive site, and on the blog with it where I collect recent letters I liked. It’s possibly just too big a subject with too many differing opinions, but maybe it could be a place where people could try to articulate their opinions with the help of others sharing some of their view. I think many of our solutions of the past are our problems of the present, for example, and that people are not carefully thinking through the present solutions any better.

Would there be others interested in building a page or small area on how the natural behavior of systems alters our choices? Phil Henshaw Apr 14, 2009

Sounds like an interesting area to explore - supporting this kind of understanding of the nature of natural systems would be great.

I don't promise to be actively involved (a finger in too many pies) but I'll certainly watch with interest and contribute where I can.

Btw, the copyright notice on your site is almost the same as saying CC-BY, but from a legal standpoint it's not quite the same, and some people will be hesitant to reuse your content. I'd suggest going to http://creativecommons.org/license/ and setting up the license, with the CC mark to put in your footer. If you need help, let me know. --Chriswaterguy 20:56, 20 April 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

References

I noticed some time ago that wiki-specific things like {{references}} doesn't work, requiring the need of typing it in html (eg </references></references>) Can this be fixed, I find wikiformat more suitable —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 91.182.204.231 (talk • contribs) 14:24, 5 September 2009

We can definitely add templates that you find useful. Which one(s) are you talking about specifically. I looked at Wikipedia:Template:References, but that doesn't seem to be the one you are talking about. Thanks for your suggestion, --Lonny 19:28, 7 September 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Sorry about the mistake, I meant {{reflist}}, it doesn't work here. {{reflist}} ins't set up on Appropedia.

{{subst:notes}} works which substitutes in {{notes}} (though just using {{notes}} would also work. However, I do think it would be useful to set reflist up too KVDP 11:06, 11 October 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Anonymous editing

Perhaps that anonymous editing can be switched off. As the site is becoming more popular, the risk of vandalism increases. Since getting a username isn't that much trouble and it certainly decreases this risk by a great percentage, I think that anonymous editing should be switched off. Another argument to support this is that Appropedia doesn't have the number of moderators like wikipedia and that the data stored here is very important. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 91.182.204.231 (talk • contribs) 15:29, 5 September 2009

Thanks for your input. Vandalism has been a problem many times in the past. We have discussed the options and have, so far, opted for leaving Appropedia open while increasing other forms of security. We have made it more difficult for bulk vandalism and our response times in fixing vandalism seem quite high (anyone want to do a statistical analysis?). I appreciate your concern and feel it myself. At the same time, we want to encourage editing and allow for as many chances for that type of engagement. In addition, we have been very lucky to have a community that watches for vandalism. A couple members only edit when removing inappropriate material. Hopefully we will continue to find even better ways of encouraging editing and soon dwarf the already impressive 73k edits we have so far.

Thanks again, --Lonny 19:36, 7 September 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I also support the vision that only members are to be given permission to edit the appropedia articles. This, as an organisation I recently contacted (Ingenieurs zonder Grenzen) also shared this vision. In addition, appropedia should divert from wikipedia, as more and more appropriate technology organisation (which need to work in difficult situations) shouldn't have to fear that their articles (on which they depend atleast to a certain degree) are corrupted by anonymous users. Perhaps appropedia members can fend off vandalism for now, but as the site grows, this may not be the case in the future. It's better to be safe than sorry.

KVDP 09:42, 20 October 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Site reorganisation

Following Chriswaterguy's suggestion, I placed my proposal for reorganisation/simplification of appropedia here. Following the responses here, perhaps changes can be made.

in the menu, one finds navigations community, topics areas and toolbox. Why not simply make 1 box and simplify it as with howtopedia. For example, About: place this all the way down; merge with Mission-article Recent changes and Categories: remove Help: refer to wikipedia's wiki help ? Article adds weight to site and is still too basic for good understanding Organisations: refer to wikipedia's AT organisations category ? If kept at Wikipedia, the list is kept up to date for free. Discuss: rename to colloquium or discussion? Random: remove Blog: perhaps you could move new items to the main page ? A seperate blog again adds more work and the blog doesn't have such big a function? If it is intented as a place to connect, perhaps instant messaging, twittering, ... could be more useful (would recruit more people too). To combine several messengers, a multi-messenger can be used. Appropriate tech: why is this category needed ? It's appropedia, so everything should be appropriate (eg cheap and eco-friendly) The categories you made at category are perfect to represent all categories (locations can perhaps be changed to AT villages, organisations moved to wikipedia) Green living: change to appropriate living habits (its appropedia, so we should always behave green, no need to mention it) Projects: just list in the corresponding categories, remove "projects" How-to's: remove; i'm guessing that we'll make every article a how-to ? Toolbox: remove all but printable version; guessing no one uses these anyhow (atleast I don't) KVDP 09:55, 9 September 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I think it would be a mistake to have direct links outside of the site in the main menu - so no wikipedia links for content that is only relevant to appropedia e.g. organizations focusing specifically on AT. I agree that the Random link could be removed without hurting anything. The toolbox is useful and I would not cut anything else -- for finding appropedia from the outside we need the keywords. At some point we have to normalize the use of topic areas as either portals or as categories -- either way they need to be taken care of by a user or group of users.

My main question is on the highlighting of new pages, users, and categories - normally puts the least developed content on the first page. This is good for encouraging people to create pages - but bad in terms of capturing users if they visit the front page first and click on an empty or early construction peice. What do people think about putting the category tree up front? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by J.M.Pearce, 19 September 2009

Sorry I missed these comments till now. One thing I see is that what's not important to one is someone else's favorite... E.g. a friend from the OLPC project said Random was his favorite link, and I've started using it too. But I've decided to be very bold and make a bunch of changes.

KVDP: I moved About: down, but made a new section. Separate section makes it easier to scan and find things.

RC & toolbox - these are all important links for some users at least.

"Discuss: rename to colloquium or discussion?" Discuss is more active, but each have their advantages - I changed to discussion.

Blog: serves a role in connecting with a wider audience. The feed (used in aggregated feeds on some other sites and in blog readers) and the familiar way of commenting brings interactions we'd otherwise miss. "Appropriate tech:" and "Green living:" I've had similar thought, but they're phrase and starting points that are familiar to people. I'm also very sensitive to use the kinds of phrases that people search for, whether in search engines or on Appropedia.

"Projects:" - I'm sure that many people love to browse other people's projects, even if it's not something I do much myself. "How-to's:" Agreed this is a theme in most pages here. I'm not sure, but for now the Category:How tos"how to" category]] isn't well organized or presented, so I've removed it.

are the changes - so how does the new sidebar look, up there on the left?

Joshua: Agreed about replacing newpages with a category tree! I wanted to do this long ago but our category tree sucked. It's finally looking better - Appropedia:CategoryTree - so I think we can look at this now. Anyone can try it out at Main Page testsI won't have a chance for a day or two at least. --Chriswaterguy 12:06, 21 January 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The navbar looks a bit better (things are more grouped) but my main comments still remain. As for the blog and twitter, I understand it's important to connect to the greater public (eg regarding getting other responses and ideas) but I don't think twitter and a blog should be used herefore, it simply requires us to spend much more time than what we get in return, this time lost would be better spend on other things. As I suggested, instant messaging could be better used herefore. I'm already working on setting up the Members page so it will facilitate instant messaging. Regarding having a main "meeting place" to go to for Appropedia, I was thinking about having appropedia run a IM account called "Appropedia meeting place". This could then serve as a liaison, ie a client that is not "active" or talks, but rather serves so as to allow others to connect and come into contact with each other.

Finally, regarding facebook, aldough I don't think that this will be a problem regarding extra time loss, I'm not sure whether it is really intented herefore. It's initial purpose was use as a "white pages", and not really as a "yellow pages". Even if it was, I'm not sure whether Appropedia actually has its own office in real life. Regardless, this can be left as is for the time being. KVDP 08:23, 10 February 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

UPDATE: One extra category could perhaps be made: Category:Special. This category can contain all categories that are specific to Appropedia; ie its members, Colloquium, ... A subcategory can be made herein: Category:Getting started; this can contain all articles relevant on how to begin editing pages at wikipedia, ... also appropriate technology and all other terms, ... can be explained. Perhaps the Appropriate Living Manual, terminology, ... can be placed herein aswell. The category should replace ie category:Appropedia administration and expand it (it thus becomes a one-category-fits-all kind of category). This as ... administration was not a very good category name, and its probably easier to have a single category for all appropedia-specific pages (offcourse subcategories are still needed). KVDP 13:20, 15 February 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I actually find Template:Tlc, Template:Tlc and Template:Tlc more clear, and don't wouldn't to get things confused up with the "Special:" pages. --Chriswaterguy 13:53, 15 February 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Comparison of alternative ICE fuels

I placed the article Comparison of alternative ICE fuels here. It was removed from wikipedia but if this article get improved it may be later transformed to later reuploaded at wikipedia. Some info from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline#Energy_content eg, ... can be implemented. KVDP 18:43, 26 September 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Excellent. I just made a few edits. --Lonny 19:16, 26 September 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Attribution and citation templates

I just realized that we have two categories and two terms being used for the same function - attributing content taken from other sources. The categories are:

• Category:Citation templates
• Category:Attribution templates

I think citation should refer to trusted or notable sources of information, whereas attribution refers to crediting material that is reused on Appropedia. So I plan to recategorize/rewrite/rename templates to reflect this. --Chriswaterguy 17:47, 2 October 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

This makes sense to me. --Lonny 02:06, 8 October 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Other templates

I noticed that {{summarize}}, {{mergeto|}}, {{mergefrom|}}, {{improve}}, {{wikify}}, ... work but don't look nearly as good as in wikipedia (no real templates, no image, ...) Perhaps the template designs can be taken from wikipedia and slightly modified for appropedia

KVDP 09:45, 20 October 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Part of the problem is that some Wikipedia templates depend on parser functions for logical or optional parameters... hope to have the relevant extension added here soon. --Chriswaterguy 01:13, 4 March 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Water harvesting

Some time ago, I decided to make a wikibooks article at http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Rainwater_harvesting This as the rainwater harvesting article at Wikipedia kept going into the wrong direction due to other editors. The rainwater harvesting articles at appropedia still need some work (too restrictive on the types that are mentioned, quite long and sometimes confusing eg see the paragraph at http://www.appropedia.org/Original:Rainwater_harvesting#First_flush_systems) Since then, the wikibooks article was evaluated, renamed and included in a book called Georgia water If anyone wishes to improve the articles, I think it is best to start off with looking at this Georgia Water document (see my suggestion at the Georgia water talk page) and modify this book and link to subdivisions in appropedia for extra information on subtopics. The appropedia article too can be improved by adding additional systems and keeping them simple.

Changing another person's project page

One thing we haven't worked out is what limits we have to editing another person's project or organization page. A trivial example is this line from Usui Rice cooker:

This cooker is relevant for any place where rice is a grown and is a staple of the diet (all of Asia, as well as parts of Africa and South America).

I've changed "all of Asia" to "most of Asia," to be more accurate. I don't think the author will mind, though they might think I'm pedantic. My concern is that there will be cases where more controversial changes might be made. Does the project's author have the final say, is it a question of consensus in the same way as any other wiki page, or do we need a different approach. There's a problem if the author has the final say, as the claims may be misled (cars that run on water) or even deliberately misleading (I can sell you a kit to make your car run on water). Perhaps we should go with the "same way as any other wiki page" but be open to letting the policy develop as we go? --Chriswaterguy 05:52, 16 October 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Good pages on Appropedia? Please nominate!

Which are the best pages on Appropedia? Please nominate at Category talk:Good Pages!

This helps us choose pages to package for Appropedia's OLPC content bundle, and to use for promoting Appropedia content. --Chriswaterguy 16:06, 19 October 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Language learning lessons

I noticed a while ago that appropedia is also working on making articles in other languages. Perhaps that instead of doing this, it may be better to simply integrate English leaning lessons and lessons in other languages instead. A big issue in appropriate technology projects is that communication with the locals is often a problem, and employing locals in on-site projects is this aswell, as it relies to a degree that others are capable of speaking english or another language understandable by the project direction.

English learning lessons should certainly be integrated, as locals will need to be able to learn the currently available manuals by appropriate technology organisations, and as its the current lingua franca (understanding this is actually is prequisty for anyone)

Lessons in other languages could then again be used by project engineers to familiarize/communicate to the local population (which often don't speak more than 1 language). I think some main languages as Mandarin, Arabic, Portugese, Spanish, ... could certainly be integrated. The lessons can include text and audio. The audio could then be learned with simple digital audio players (an example of audio lessons is http://www.arabicpod.net/)

The lessons could probably be composed with the lessons given otherwise by the US government, and other governments (eg the lessons given in refugee camps with refugees to be integrated into the US, ...) As these are US government documents, they could be simply copied. Also, they are of a greater level than eg arabicpods

KVDP 09:57, 20 October 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I'm a big fan of language learning, and especially open materials for language learning. I've contributed to Wikibooks:How to Learn a Language as well as the Indonesian Wikibook, and I'd love to see better English lessons freely available.

My suggestion is that:

• we support whichever site is doing the best with materials on English as a foreign language (Wikibooks? Wikiversity?) as well as P2P University, which gets learners together, takes open materials, and structures them into actual courses. As individuals and as a community we can participate, and we can have relevant pages on Appropedia linking to relevant pages on those other projects.
• we continue to work on getting Appropedia into multiple languages - move forward the reach out to language departments at educational institutions and explain the benefits of service learning in language education - see Language education-based translation.

How does that sound? Note that I don't have an actual objection to such material on Appropedia - my aim is to enable this collaboration to grow in the most effective way possible.

(When we have a way to host and edit a page on more than one wiki, so that different communities can edit the same document, then we might choose a slightly different solution. And with the MediaWiki API now working, that mightn't be far off.) --Chriswaterguy 05:42, 22 October 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Outsourcing the work to an other wiki sounds good; however, I am not sure whether wikibooks/wikiversity can already take on this job. Also, I am not aware that they have audio to listen to the lessons (eg on a portable media player) as I described.

Also, there is an underlying reason why I posted this thought. As I described, I am not sure whether the best approach is to translate technical manuals to another language (I personally btw only follow the opposite route; eg translating manuals to english from another language and not the opposite). Instead, I think it is best that if eg a local wishes to learn to construct, ... something from the manuals at appropedia, this should only be made possible in English. This in a way forces someone to learn English first, which is, I believe, one of the first things anyone should do when trying to increase his knowledge/become more educated. Learning English, as it is the lingua franca, and not just the language of some nation, no matter its size, can not be considered wrong (eg unlike when any other heavily spoken language is chosen) and as most literature is available in English, ... (and not just AT literature) anyone will need to learn it anyhow. In addition, when engineers and local learn english, they can communicate better, and have additional benefits aswell. KVDP 14:37, 24 October 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Re: This in a way forces someone to learn English first, which is, I believe, one of the first things anyone should do when trying to increase his knowledge/become more educated. - I'm glad that it's a non-native English speaker saying these things!

My first reaction was to disagree, as there will never be the same degree of understanding or participation if it's in a non-native tongue. We also want to serve everybody, and I think it will be a long time before everyone speaks English. We want our content (online, in printed form or however) to reach and serve people in villages and slums who may not have a great education, but who may be tinkerers.

Btw, English isn't even a good, easy or logical language, so it's unfortunate that it's the global lingua franca. I propose Indonesian :-) - but I don't expect to get much support for that.

But then I thought some more. Translating everything into every language won't happen soon. What I think will happen much sooner is good quality machine translation - Google Translate is already very good for Spanish to English or Indonesian to English, and a number of other languages as well. Perhaps our medium term goal should be to have key navigation pages and critical how-tos in people's native tongues, plus whatever people choose to translate, plus either:

• the full range of pages would be accessible by an integrated translator, whether from Google or somewhere else; or
• machine translation used as a starting point for translated pages, with tweaking done by humans. This would require improving translation tools for MediaWiki to make it really effective.

I certainly agree that assisting people in learning English is a great thing. I'd like to see English-speakers learning other languages as well, but in terms of economic opportunities and access to knowledge, English learning is a top priority. I'd be really interested in doing something with P2PU on this - unlike Wikibooks etc, they focus on putting together courses based on material that already exists, which I believe is the best way forward now. One of the challenges is that the earliest stages would be partly in the learner's own language, so probably the place to start developing courses is where the students are taken from basic English to more advanced English. Btw have you looked up OCW materials on learning English? --Chriswaterguy 04:29, 28 October 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Btw, English isn't even a good, easy or logical language, so it's unfortunate that it's the global lingua franca. I agree to this if basic English is used. However, as some "English-variants" as Globish have shown, allot of confusion and words that are unlogical in English can simply be taken out. Studies have shown that english is one of the most easy languages to learn (unlike my language, aswell as others such as Russian, ...). In most of my writings I btw already try to use more simple words (not because I am myself not capable of a more advanced level, but because I believe more simple words are the way to go), and this is also the reason why I created pages such as Engineering terminology. Finally, regarding the translation programs, I also noted some suggestions found trough my thinkerings about appropriate technology devices in computing. See Linux-OS improvements, used in cooperation with a new type of UMPC. Btw I also don't quite believe the OLPC is truly an appropriate technology, as the OLPC is a device that doesn't really allow to view/study electronic documents aduquatly due to its small screen, ... Perhaps that regarding that latter, the OLPC-bundle tag, may be switched with eg {{Netbook/UMPC-bundle}} (more generic, doesn't advocate a specific product)

KVDP 10:57, 30 October 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I believe we should try to serve as many people as we can now. It is easier to translate articles than it is too teach language, not to mention there is no hubris in translating texts as there is in mandating who should know what language. In addition, not only is China quickly becoming a major world power, but there are more speakers of Mandarin than English... maybe it is time for us all to be learning Mandarin. 谢谢你 --Lonny 08:25, 6 November 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

A good point, Lonny, but (besides being the lingua franca), English is still an easier language to learn. I just finished a map about languages that could be useful, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Main_world_languages.png

KVDP 12:51, 13 December 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

AT organisations presentation, category

At present, there are no categories for documents of specific AT organisations. In addition, AT organisations should probably have a small page at appropedia in which they can present their organisation. Also, I am wondering whether the making of templates or logo's could be useful (eg to mark at the beginning of a document, that it has been taken over from a specific AT organisation. This, simply so as to show which organisation has supplied the information and give them the full credits (which they already have, but it is somewhat more clear this way).

KVDP 14:42, 24 October 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

How does this compare to Template:Tlc? Thanks, --Lonny 18:30, 27 October 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Indeed, this categories may be used, I didn't notice them before. However a small coment dough, if for example you mark an article with eg "Engineers without Borders", this could mean that it's simply an article that might have a specific correlation to this organisation, but doesn't necessairily mean it's an article made by them. In addition, I'm not sure whether all categories here are actually organisations (aren't some of these simply projects by an organisation?), and some organisations aren't described seperatly. Eg referring to Ingénieurs Sans Frontières, 2 organisations exist (eg Ingénieurs Sans Frontières-IAI (Belgian) and the French Ingénieurs Sans Frontières. Oddly however, the organisations work entirely seperate, and this is also (partially?) true eg towards Engineers without Borders (aldough Ingénieurs Sans Frontières is the exact translation of Engineers without Borders). As such, the organisations all need to be listed under the same category.

Also see Category:PATB. There's Category:Beyond dams, which we'd probably swap for institutional categories if we had more material from the orgs that authored Beyond Dams. These categories need much more work, but we certainly do want to see categories like you describe. --Chriswaterguy 04:05, 28 October 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Logo change

Appropedia:Logos

A while ago, I proposed to change the logo to the one used at http://villageearth.org/pages/Projects/AT/ATblog/2007/03/village-earth-joins-appropedia-wiki.html Perhaps that this suggestion can now be executed ? This new logo is (I think) nicer, as the surfaces around the wind harvester are colored in, and as the green-blue coloring is removed. Note that, as the image presented there is is completely black/white, some coloring will need to be included, but the coloring is then best done on the black border lines (eg changing some of these to green), instead of in the image itself. Also, perhaps this new image (which is already available at appropedia at aprologo-final.png) can form the basis for another new image. This new image is probably best a crossover between the transition culture image (http://transitionculture.org/) and the current one (eg zoomed out, more abstract than realistic). Also, perhaps that instead of a house, a dome-like shelter is best drawn as these are generally the most appropriate structures used in AT (examples: Steve Baer's zomes, the design I made at File:Semi-buried_dwellings.JPG, the aluminum can domes from Earthship Biotecture, ...) The plants shown are best also abstract (eg only a few grains). They should however be shown in a plot, rather than on the sides (note that the image now also shows a leaf, which may be removed from the image and a 2 plants (which don't look like grains/rice at all, rather more like Typha). The wind energy harvester can remain, but I wonder whether it's not useful to also include another renewable energy power source (eg waterwheel) or a concentrating solar power structure (the latter may be more appropriate as they generate more power; then again wind isn't hugely present in certain areas (eg tropical belt). However, drawing several energy harvesters do complicate the image. Personnaly, I was thinking about a style resembling the Hagia Sophia; where the windturbine or CSP functions as the "pillars"; eg so as not to come too close to only the Arabian style and keep it generic; fusion-like in appearance, rather then reflecting a single style).

KVDP 08:27, 26 October 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I actually like the colored version, which is newer. I also like it better since I saw Appropedia Logo Animated (short video). I don't think it goes very well with the current skin though - I'm looking forward to getting some expert tech help with re-skinning the site.

In theory I think a simpler logo would be more attention grabbing. But I won't comment on specific suggestions as I have no artistic ability and have no idea how to implement them and make them look good :-). --Chriswaterguy 04:11, 28 October 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Finished my draft logo as can be seen above. Needs still quite some work but already shows the specifics of how I would design the logo. Not sure however about the wind energy harvester; as can be seen in the now updated wind energy page, little energy can be harvested in the tropics/subtropics. Perhaps that high altitude wind harvesters may however generate somewhat more power however; in this case, the tower from the wind energy harvester needs to be removed from logo and swapped with a balloon and wiring. In addition, the text added is also a good indicator to put people on the right track. Revewing the Appropedia:CategoryTree, I however saw that additional subcategories need to be made;

• Category:Energy -->A section needs to be made on energy production (or rather Energy harvesting) and energy storage & use

• Category:Food & agriculture (perhaps rename to "food production"?) -->production of staple crops and production of supplemental crops category needs adding (eg as certain foods as fruit, etc... can't be used to form the core of the system and are only needed to provide additional substances as fibres, certain minerals, and also some vitamins (B,C, ...)

• Category:Construction and materials -->add subcategory on construction of sleeping rooms, construction of communal rooms (eg dining area, ...) Categories need adding so as to make completely clear that if some rooms are made for 1 person, they aren't appropriate technology anyhow (no matter with what material it's made)

• Category:Health and safety -->rename to Category:Healthcare; add subcategory sanitation (which is also a method to stay healthy; also see sanitation in the broader meaning eg as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanitation; hereby including eg personal hygiene) Add subcategory Medication, Vaccination, ...

In addition, I added the note "the appropriate technology cooperative library", in analogy with a preposition made a while ago. Aldough it may be used as a subscript however, I still find that Appropedia itself is best changed to AT CoLib, as appro -pedia actually means appro-encyclopedia; and an encyclopedia (like wikipedia) it is definitly not, its rather a grouping of AT-information.

Perhaps a category "Room heating & cooling" aswell as "Ecosystem repair" can also be added; the second one can be used to contain the original environment rehabilitation manual, for the first I already ported some of my Wikipedia-articles (which have since then been removed)

KVDP 16:24, 4 November 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Categorization

Re the category comments above and User talk:Chriswaterguy #Recategorisation - I was already a bit unhappy with some of the category names - but hadn't thought of better alternatives for many of them. Specific comments:

The thinking about sanitation was probably that it's a subset of water if it's considered to be primarily about sewage management. Probably a sanitation could be made, should probably be moved out of the water cat and relevant subcats only (i.e. sewage or sewerage) would be categorized in water, but sanitation itself should not be. I hadn't done much on categorization here because there weren't many pages to be categorized, but I don't see a problem with a basic structure being created now.

Water harvesting I think is a good name for a subcategory of water. "Water" also covers wastewater and natural waterways.

I think it is not quite clear why I made this change (with allot of my modifications at Wikipedia and Appropedia, there are sometimes underlying reasons which are relevant but difficult and time-consuming to explain; (often it's simply quicker to simply do the change and explain the modification if there are objections); however I think I need to clarify my modification I made here. The reason sanitation is to be placed out of the water category is because, simmply stated, water should not be used in sanitation at all (eg by using composting toilets, ...). Adding water (aldough used in most sanitation systems to eliminate any possible odours) pollutes water, and increases water use (by easily 75% !). As such, black water simply shouldn't be used in AT at all (not only because of the wastage of water, but also because of cleaning costs), and a recategorisation such as the one I did, also immediatelly redirects development workers into a right direction/way of thinking.

Indeed, many blackwater systems still remain, and we could thus best categorise them in the category they will fit if they are converted to a more proper system (eg blackwater piping may eg be converted to route "grey water" or otherwise polluted water (eg water polluted by oil spills, ...) to a cleaning plant. (Note: by greywater I mean water that is "organicly polluted water; eg using organic soaps, ...; water with synthetic soaps are also "otherwise polluted water")

Also I chose "water harvesting" as a name making it clear that we collect, or gather water; it's not used to refer to "rainwater harvesting" (this schould be made instead a subcategory under "water harvesting". The articles about natural waterways (I'm not sure which articles these include) are I'm guessing also made to detail the gathering of water from these waterways (and thus not simply articles about the flow of rivers, ...). As such, these can also be included in the category. Wastewater (as mentioned before) needs to go to the subcategory sanitation (which is a subcategory under Healthcare).

Regarding categories/subcategories, I btw noticed that very few Appropedian's actually label the articles correctly (which in some part may be caused by the categorisation) but also because few people take the time to do it correctly (this is also the case on Wikipedia). For example, many articles are labelled several times (which eg causes single articles to appear in the major categories, and also causes a certain categories to be labelled to several larger categories. It would be best to only label each article once (to the relevant subcategory).

Category:Food and agriculture isn't a very elegant name, but it makes sense to me as a catch-all category, which helps make a minimal number of fundamental topic categories. I see on Appropedia:CategoryTree that you've gone with Category:Food production, processing and storage - my preference is to keep names short unless the longer form is really needed, e.g. Category:Food.

Yes, I thought about this too. "Food" seems more suitable. In this case dough, the subcategories "Food production", "Food processing" and "Food storage" should be added.

Another thought - topics like Soil and Vermiculture don't relate directly to food, and there are Nonfood crops... so perhaps they should go in a Category:Agriculture. I'm still thinking about how to arrange this, since they're very closely connected, and having a minimal number of very broad topics at the base of our category scheme (e.g. Category:Food and agriculture) makes sense to me. It'll be worth a look at Wikipedia does it. --Chriswaterguy 08:56, 13 December 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

"Healthcare" to me sounds more like medical treatment (checking Wikipedia:Health care, it does seem to be about professional health services), whereas "health" is more general. "Health and safety" is even broader, and includes topics which are not about health in the normal usage, e.g. earthquake safety.

Just "Health" is simply incorrect. Healthcare makes it clear that we are actually performing actions to maintain (eg using personal hygiene, sanitation, ...) or improve our health (eg with medication, vaccinations, ...). Note that the meaning is thus broader than medication alone. Simply using health could eg simply refer to our current health, without really doing any action about it (which may also cause incorrect labelling by Appropedians, ...) Adding the ... and safety makes the whole even more unlogical; safety just hasn't have anything in common with health(care). Perhaps that the "Earthquake safety" subsection can be placed under the category "Construction and materials" (I assume that most documents deal around the strengthening of eg houses, ... to withstand earthquakes.

Re Healthcare: "the meaning is thus broader than medication alone" - logically this may seem so, but English is not always logical :-). In practice it refers to treatment. Health and safety are naturally connected, referring to the physical integrity of the body, so I think it makes a nice base-level category. Also in response to Category talk:Health and safety#please put the Health and Safety page back, I'm changing this back for now - however, I agree that there can be some work to recategorize the pages within this category (or even to keep suggesting alternatives to "health and safety" as the base-level category).

I think that the more we stick to the simplest appropriate category names, the less confusion and disagreement there'll be. --Chriswaterguy 07:03, 13 December 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

More general comments to follow... --Chriswaterguy 12:46, 1 December 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Maybe we need some principles at Help:Categories (that page is probably out of date, also). E.g.

My preference is to use Wikipedia categories as a default, and then modify as needed. I have plans to import Wikipedia articles (to be pared down and used as topic stubs) and this will automatically import that structure. This way just seems easier, but also benefits from the thinking that's gone into it on Wikipedia - but that's not to avoid needed changes.

I'm not completely sure about this. At first glance this seems fine, but see the remark at water harvesting, I'm not sure whether Wikipedia articles are also rigged with a similar labelling. For most categories however, I expect little trouble for using this approach.

Short easy to remember category names are preferred.

To help navigation, we balance having A. a narrow multi-tiered category structure (with not too many subcategories) and B. a very broad structure, with less clicks to make going from one category to another, but more confusing profusion of pages and subcategories. But then, maybe this is irrelevant and we should just focus on putting things in the right category. --Chriswaterguy 13:00, 1 December 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

For reference: Appropedia:CategoryTree is a nice-looking page that eventually might be a major navigation tool for Appropedia. Appropedia:Fundamental category tree is intended to give a more thorough look at the category structure, and I see it as an important tool that can be used now in thinking about and maintaining the categories. --Chriswaterguy 13:06, 1 December 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The Fundamental category tree seems useful. However, the category trees doen't appear to be the same than for the regular CategoryTree. Perhaps that the category tree of the CategoryTree can be taken over for the Fundamental CategoryTree, and the extra categories (eg regarding Appropedia:... pages (eg regarding administration, members, ...) can simply be added next to the other regular categories. These extra categories can then simply not be shown in the regular CategoryTree.

Finally, also take a look below for the suggestions regarding the categorisation of Category:Energy

12:34, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Motto

At present, the motto is "sharing knowledge to create rich, sustainable lives". Aldough this is already a good motto, an alternative could be: "the appropriate technology cooperative library (aldough I find that simply changing "appropedia" to "ATCoLib" would be better here, eg differentiates towards wikipedia and makes the site less "popular" in appearance, hereby perhaps increasing our appearance, ... towards the AT organisations.

In the latter case, here is another motto (also noted at wikipedia, but I guess they won't change theirs any time soon):

"providing a way to see the big picture" This relates versus eg what's right in front of us in society. This motto is a bit deeper in meaning, and its meaning is that we can use the site to take a step back and analyse the current society, and our function within it, then take out the design flaws and also correct regarding to our own job/function within this society. KVDP 12:34, 30 December 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hi KVDP. I'm not sure I agree with you on the big picture. I've been hearing about big picture strategy for thirty years. I suspect that we can do more good here by filling the details, one device at a time. Providing practical implementation help on a thousand different measures, leaving people to chose for themselves which to try out but giving them a forum to report back on what worked and what didn't. After we get that feedback we can start thinking about producing handbooks of best practice based on that experience. Joe Raftery 23:31, 30 December 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hey Joe,

Offcourse we should (and we do) work on simply providing solutions that people can integrate themselves. However, I do think we can work a bit on providing overall approaches, manuals are an example on this, and in certain cases, we can work out the entire planning (ie trough the AT CAD team, and the upcoming costeffectiveaid-blog (which also focuses on land planning) KVDP 09:09, 23 February 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

General engineering wiki

Perhaps that it may also be useful to make appropedia easier available to general engineers (not just appropriate technology engineers). This may be useful as there are much more general engineers and very little useful sites exist with engineering information. Making appropedia more easiliy accessible to general engineers will probably allow general engineers to take over some approaches, technologies for use closer to home (eg poor communities within the developed world), and also probably make them more susceptible to the cause of aid projects in general. In practice I propose that:

• images of AT documents of participating organisation showing distinctly 'foreign' engineers are discarded and swapped with versions simply showing a person that does not have any distinct facial charisteristics or skin color (meaning not 'foreign' nor of any other race (eg Caucasian); this may allow the documents to be read only for their technological value and remove some of the obvious correlation with humanitarian aid, ...
• not sure how this is done in a wiki, but improve ranking with search engines (eg on keywords as engineering (without "appropriate"), ... Also, specific attention needs to be made to the ranking at some special search engines as AEoogle (http://www.aeoogle.com/)

KVDP 16:40, 4 November 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Regarding images: I favor as many different examples as possible. I am not sure what foreign means, but I am pretty sure it is easiest and most congruous to use the real images from whatever engagement is being represented.

By "foreign", I meant obvious signs of facial charisteristics or facial color (eg "race"). Dough I am myself completely color blind regarding this matter, I am aware that showing such images depicting the representation of a person of another race may scare away certain general engineers (eg those not coming from AT). In addition, even in areas within the developing world, showing images of people from another race, gender or even from another ethnic group can give problems and can scare them away. I therefore advocate the removal of any such images (or altering them with a person bearing none such facial/body features) so as to provide people the possibility of getting into AT slowly without inmediatelly focusing/making clear that we may work with people of different race, gender, ethnic groups. Regarding the work on the images however, mostly it is enough to simply replace the cover image (the other images often only show the engineering componenents, ... itself)

Regarding search engine ranking: This is very important. We are always doing work (and have made quite a bit of headway, with a Google Pagerank of 6 and similar Moz Rating), but so much more is needed. Links from other sites is a great way to achieve better ranking, e.g. blog articles about Appropedia.

Regarding AEoogle: We can submit reciprocal links at http://www.energyplanet.info/submit.php. Having a link on a topic page like Human power to AEoogle seems appropriate. To do so, add in Human_power#External_links the following code - *[http://www.alternative-energy-news.info/ Alternative Energy News] Then we can submit a link at AEoogle to the Human power page in their Human power category. This should work.

Thank you, --Lonny 08:11, 6 November 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

AAI projects

In order to increase cooperation, I think it would be useful to implement "wikiproject" pages into appropedia ("approprojects" or appropedia article improvement projects). The difference between the "user request" page (aswell as the outdated to do page) would be that with the wikitags noted above ({{improve}}, {{wikify}}, ..., the page can be automatically updated (rather than manual) and "teams" can be made (eg for certain tasks as taking over a certain document or the documents of one AT organisation to Appropedia, ...). At present, this does not happen (everybody can improve Appropedia or make a new article singlehandedly), but in some cases people simply can't improve or add new things as they don't know what new things to add or in some cases they wish to add documents from AT organisations but they simply don't have the required copyright permissions by this organisation (which a specfic user might have) or don't have the skills to take over certain information (eg images imbedded in a PDF-document, text in an other language, ...). Making teams could eliminate these problems, and also convince some users of taking on some articles they wouldn't have commenced on in the first place.

For the creation of the pages, and the set-up in general, wikiprojects at wikipedia may be looked at (using the edit page) and a similar approach/code can be used.

KVDP 17:45, 27 October 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I'd love to see this happen. I feel like there's not enough of an active community here to really get subprojects like this happening just yet, so I'm really most interested in building the community, for now. I plan to tidy up the Contributors homepage and Appropedia:How you can help soon.

I'm also working on engaging with people, plus getting a lot more content on the wiki (and appreciate your work on this, KVDP). I figure that the more good content, the higher our profile will be, and the more people will come. It's also about seeding content, so people see what our scope is, what kinds of pages we have and feel more bold to add their own knowledge.

Getting more learning institutions involved is great too - they produce a lot of great content plus the occasional student remains a part of the community after their course is finished. --Chriswaterguy 04:36, 28 October 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

See also Category:Appropedia Action Groups & Category:Appropedia site collaborations - worthwhile efforts but not much activity there. The main value of pages like this seems to be as reference points & resource pages for people wanting to contribute - and that's what I observed at WikiProject International development also. Looking at it that way, it's a great idea to work on these kinds of pages & collaborations any time, even before there's a community that's constantly interacting.

I think the discussion lists are another great way for people to stay connected. --Chriswaterguy 04:58, 28 October 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

What about using the {{Wikify}} and {{Improve}} templates like we use {{Cleanup}}? Then we can use a category like Template:Tlc and make our appeal for how people can help out more clear. I am sure as KVDP mentions, there are some people that would love to just help wikify some pages, e.g. Joey. This could be a step towards having concerted teams working on general Appropedia pages. --Lonny 05:08, 28 October 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Note that it may be useful to let {{Cleanup}} signify that the headlines/categorisation is off, rather than simply letting it signify that a page needs to be improved (for this the appropriate tags are better used, allowing people wanting to perform a certain task of coming into action). Also, I think it would be useful of using the User:XXX page to add information of what a user job the user is performing at present. If the user get ill, runs out of eager, can no longer receive internet access or is otherwise prevented of performing a job, it will allow the take over of the tasks by other appropedia members. I already done this on my user page.

KVDP 11:59, 30 October 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I really like the idea of more specific templates for cleanup, wikify, etc. I don't have time to work on it right now, but happy for someone else to take a lead. --Chriswaterguy 01:46, 5 November 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Perhaps one more idea; perhaps it may be useful to make a list with the instant messenger contact info of all appropedia/ and WikiProject_International_development members. Especially regarding the voting on the removal of pages (eg at wikipedia), this can be very valuable as it allows to gather votes very quickly (a request at the individual appropedia user pages or at the village pump is indeed also possible, but doesn't allow a quick response time). However, the instant messenger then needs to be used only for requesting specific things (eg help on a specific issue, voting, ...) and not to simply conversate with the members (which asks times from the members and prohibits them of doing something else). Regarding this latter, I'm guessing that the "mood" indicator (which most messengers have) also comes in handy (which would allow to signify others when you do have time to talk; this eg allows others to get to know one's strengths which is useful later in requesting things to the most appropriate person). I think it would be best to use a multifunctional messenger (a few years back I used Gaim; now Pidgin, but others exist aswell.

91.182.170.69 10:11, 5 November 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I like keeping in touch with people via IM. I'm normally careful about sharing my ids publicly, but I'll try it and see how it goes - I've added them to my talk page.

I've used Gaim but I was getting spam through my yahoo account so I stopped using it - now I just use Skype & Gmail chat (Google Talk). Is there another I think about trying?

Mel (User:Mchua) likes the idea of an #appropedia IRC channel, but that needs work, and (again) a larger, more engaged community. If I find an IRC client for Linux that I'm happy to run full time, and that alerts me to any activity on the channel, I'll try staying logged into the channel whenever I'm switched on. I'm willing to work on that if there are a few of us doing it: Appropedia:IRC. --Chriswaterguy 01:35, 15 November 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The IRC-channel is a thought that has also crossed my mind, but this idea isn't useful for a few reasons:

• an IRC-channel, as it is shared, promotes group talk and thus useless chatter, the idea as explained above is to limit idle chatter as much as possible and allow provide a user to communicate more easily/rapidly in order to cooperate better; note that personal messages can however be given, but the main channel keeps open where shared communication persists
• Regarding Skype and Google Talk; don't these require a specific e-mail adress (eg @gmail.com) ?, not sure how Skype works (by making new username or with e-mailadress); I proposed a multifunctional messenger to get around this requirement of a specific emailadress/account, so that people using a different emailadress or use a specific messenger to communicate with others outside Appropedia can simply continue doing so. If Pidgin isn't suitable, one can use other messengers too (people can even choose their own messenger as they're multi-protocol). Adium and Empathy are the other messengers besides Pidgin which seem to be most appropriate here. Finally regarding the phoning, I'm guessing this feature won't be needed for the moment (as Appropedia is still being constructed), but it may be useful for AT engineers in the future (as internet phoning allows to make cheap lon-distance phonecalls to those not connected via the internet while being busy on a project). Even this is a possibility with certain messengers as Empathy (not Adium dough; see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_VoIP_software). In addition however, we can use Jajah aswell so as to avoid needing to use Empathy if we don't like it. If everyone agrees, we can start off by making an Appropedia user database page with the e-mailadresses/usernames for instant messaging.

Regarding this latter dough, it may be useful that anonymous user editing is switched off on the whole of Appropedia, and that all pages can remain to be viewed without (free) account, except for some specific pages such as this database page. Finally, perhaps it's also possible to switch off the showing the full names of page modifiers/creators at the bottom of every article. Instead, the Appropedia user name can be shown. These measures will eliminate the problem of spam we may encounter if we start setting up this new service, ... KVDP 09:27, 16 November 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Development category - name change.

I'd like to move Category:International development to Category:Development. I initially preferred "International development" as this is a more specific term and excludes (say) software development. However, I've come to realize that international development overlaps with other fields, and the broader term is more suitable. As it says on Wikipedia's Development category,

The Development category relates to issues of economic development, development aid and international development. See also Sustainability.

We could add the term sustainable development.

This move will also put us in sync with Wikipedia.

I'll wait a week before moving (till ~22 Nov). Let me know if there are any objections. --Chriswaterguy 01:43, 15 November 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

In some of my articles, I also marked them with "Sustainable engineering"; however I used this category simply as a temporary (still non-existent) category before the categorisation is worked out better (a preposition on this can be some sections more above). Like sustainable development, I don't think this category actually makes it easier to find certain articles, as its mainly too broad (at appropedia only povides sustainable technology, so sustainable development would be applicable to all articles). I think it would be best to implement more specific categories and place them correctly in a tree (subcategories under main categories)

KVDP 08:50, 16 November 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

More specific categories - that appeals in a way, but in many cases it's difficult to choose which category... I guess those articles go in multiple categories. Let me look at the contents of Category:International development and Category:Development again, plus Wikipedia's Development category, and think about it more. --Chriswaterguy 05:23, 21 November 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

How is the rich editor?

How are people finding the rich editor? Is it making things easier for new users?

If it's working well, should we change the default editor to WYSIWYG for new users?

Of course it's possible for each user to change their default (under the Misc tab in Special:Preferences, and deselect "Start with rich editor disabled") but it would be much nicer for new users to just land in a rich text editor that works well.

(As for the "how to do it": I suspect if we just change the default preferences settings (as we did with changing the selected namespaces for search) it will change the default editor for all users who register from now, and for anon editors.) --Chriswaterguy 18:13, 19 November 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Second thoughts: Not ready yet. It's still got some significant problems, changing the formatting, adding line breaks, entering some special characters and capitalizing wikilinks - e.g. see this edit - clearly it made a lot of changes through the whole page, not intended by the editor, who was just adding a single line to the table. --Chriswaterguy 13:02, 5 December 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Maybe we can find code hackers to help identify and fix these issues? Bugs and issues can be reported on the MediaWiki Bugzilla (select FCKeditor as the component): https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=MediaWiki%20extensions so I'll do some of that then add a note on the extension talk page. --Chriswaterguy 03:57, 8 March 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Welcome committee

New idea - streamlining the standard welcome tasks, and freeing up community volunteers/interns to do more individualized work. See Appropedia:Welcoming committee. (I don't know that it's relevant right now, but the page is there when needed. --Chriswaterguy 16:17, 21 November 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Warnings for parabolic solar cookers

We have a few Parabolic solar cookers and I'm concerned about the advice and designs that visitors to Appropedia are receiving.

See the conversation at solarcooking.wikia.com: Are there dangers with parabolic solar cookers?. "Modern parabolic cookers like the SK14 and the BS-M1 Solar Cooker have a very short focal point (inside the dish) actually to make it very difficult for anyone to blind themselves." - which leaves open the possibility of harm from any other kind of parabolic solar cookers.

My own inclination is to advise people to try other kinds of solar cookers and avoid these. Other kinds also cope better with indirect solar energy e.g. warm but slightly cloudy days.

But at least I'd suggest that we make a Parabolic solar cooker safety page and link it from all relevant pages. I'm no solar cooking expert, so I'd welcome perspectives. --Chriswaterguy 14:42, 26 November 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

windpower pages

Hi all, I was a bit surprised to find no Windmill page.. but there is Category:Wind power and Category:Wind Energy. The latter seems to be a single page that would be better as an article than a category description... and it seems like Windmill should at least link to the relevant categories. Advice on how to proceed/how to merge? I'm not 100% sure of house style around here :) best, -- Phoebe 19:30, 30 November 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I boldly went ahead and redirected category:Wind Energy to Category:Wind power, and moved the text from the wind energy cat page to Windmill. Rvv if inappropriate, obviously. -- Phoebe 19:45, 30 November 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Thank you for being bold! That Category:Wind Energy page was from a wiki that merged into Appropedia, and the content wasn't integrated yet. Good to finally have a windmill page! --Chriswaterguy 18:12, 1 December 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Regarding this, I'm wondering whether it' not better to move this category to Category:Wind energy harvesting; indeed it sounds somewhat more long, but I think it would fit better in the subcategory: Category:Energy harvesting, itself a subcategory under Category:Energy production (itself a subcategory under Category:Energy)

KVDP 12:30, 2 December 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I'm not clear how Wind energy harvesting differs from Wind energy...? And if they're the same, I'd favor the simpler one. -Chriswaterguy 13:18, 2 December 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The reason why this ...harvesting needs to be added is simple: the main term (also popularly used) is energy harvesting (="energy production", see below). This also inmediatelly gives a general idea on where the categories are placed in the category tree. Using simply wind energy I think complicates matters in the end, and the term is generally incorrect as Wind energy harvesting refers to the harvesting of wind energy, and not simply the presence thereof.

Regarding the energy recategorisation however, perhaps that "energy production" is best swapped entirely by "energy harvesting". Currently, energy harvesting usually refers to the gathering (or "producing") of energy on a "green" way (eg wind, thermal, solar, ...). However the term can perhaps be used for other methods as well (eg nuclear energy: fission, fusion, ...). If this isn't the case, even then the simplification can be done as I don't think we'll need to make articles about these other energy sources anyhow (aldough nuclear power plants exist in some developing countries; eg Southern Africa, Central/South America, generally their maintenance and repair won't need to be done by any organisation engaged in development/humanitarian projects).

KVDP 09:05, 7 December 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

So if there's a more basic page which somehow relates to wind energy but not directly to its harvesting, that then needs a separate category, and we have another level of categories?

Well, .... yeah, basicaly. Perhaps that it sounds a bit silly at first (the article "Wind energy" doesn't exist here yet, but one could make it and make it include whatever we want, thus including wind energy harvesting aswell). However, if this is done, it wouldn't be "wind energy harvesting", and if we want full coherence of the categories, it might brings us in trouble with other categories. For example with water, and water harvesting; some articles could then be easily mislabeled. We thus need to be really narrow in our categorisation.

I still don't see the need for harvesting, and I'm inclined towards the simpler style of naming, which also makes it easier for readers to guess the name and add a category to a page. I'd like to hear other opinions though. --Chriswaterguy 09:38, 7 December 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Feedback please! Suggest moving from manual to topic pages

Please see the discussion at Talk:AT villager recruitment. This is an important discussion, and it would be great to get input from others in the community.

See also Talk:Appropriate health care manual 2#Eugenics_and_sterilization - some of the content that sparked this conversation. --Chriswaterguy 08:30, 2 December 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Anybody? --Chriswaterguy 13:24, 5 December 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Yes. I think it would be a great idea to collect pages into manuals however I don't think these pages are ready yet. I have started work on movig Appropriate health care manual 4 to Vaccination (just need the redirect on Vaccination to be deleted.)Joe Raftery 08:35, 20 December 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

You may start the splitting up of the manual, vaccination and phytotherapy, and perhaps others will make new useful articles indeed. However, I would like to see Appropriate health care manual TOC and Appropriate health care manual 1 kept (eg with a banner explaining the current controversy, and that the manual is not yet ready). This, simply to keep my ideas (which could be adjusted later-on) and some specific guidelines I added (eg regarding to use of Köppen climate regions, ...)

KVDP 08:57, 21 December 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Imported pages

We have a lot of imported pages from a variety of institutions but there is nowhere on these pages, that I could see, where it spells out under what permission these pages have been copied. This could be a problem later where our right to copy is disputed and no one can remember who said it was ok.

Can I suggest that there should be an organisation page for every organisation whose content we reuse and that page should have a paragraph detailing how we got permission and what the limits of that permission are. Where permission is for certain documents only the organisation pages should state that and, if neccessary, refer to to pages for each document for more details.

The Appropedia:Porting pages should talk more about permission.

Joe Raftery 08:53, 20 December 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I have rewritten Appropedia:Porting pages and Appropedia:How to port pages as I think they should be with much more on getting permission and providing attribution. Can someone review and tell me what they think? Joe Raftery 16:31, 20 December 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Thanks Joe - this is important! I saw some of your rewrite and it looks good so far.

I think you're on the right track with the organisation pages. Agroblogger/license is one example of how we can do it, when there's nowhere external to point to, to verify the open license. Attribution templates can point to that.

Do we have a page somewhere listing the cases where permission is unclear? If not, we need one. I'm thinking of e.g. the Practical Action pages (who definitely said they were okay with our license, but we need to have things in writing) and the Beyond Dams pages (who apparently said it was okay to share, but I'm not clear if they gave clear informed consent to our license). --Chriswaterguy 08:53, 22 December 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I've created a template {{License information missing}}. I haven't figured out how to get it to add the page to a category. Can someone help with that?Joe Raftery 00:28, 28 December 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I have made the following changes:

• added the {{{1}}} so that a date would be visible based on user input into the template... feel free to remove this from the template and/or augment the few pages with the template to have a |date in the template call (e.g. {{License information missing|December 2009}}).
• Added Template:Tlc in a way that is transcluded into any page this template is placed on. Feel free to change its name or whatever else is needed.
• I added that new category to the more general Template:Tlc.
• Added two categories that categorize the template itself (not the pages the template is included on).

You can see these changes at http://www.appropedia.org/index.php?title=Template%3ALicense_information_missing&diff=100174&oldid=99938. Please let me know if anything doesn't work or needs attention.

Thank you for your awesome work. --Lonny 01:45, 31 December 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Target audience Appropedia + data extrapolations

At the moment, Appropedia does not yet have any clear target audience. Aldough Appropedia states that it targets "the poor", it is not clearly described what is meant by this. For example, there are people that live at 2 $/day, but there are also "poor" that live on 0,5$/day, this is still a difference of about 400%, and this could certainly matter regarding the people that could be helped by Appropedia (some will fall out of the target audience, unless eg their income can be raised at some way). This because the material eg to generate power, ... have a certain cost, regardless of whether it is AT or not.

I think that it is best to make a chart on this. In the chart, perhaps we could include a comparison of helping via individual way, and via a communal approach (I believe the latter would be less expensive and thus allow to help more people on a same budget, however don't have any hard data as of yet).

Perhaps we could also include a comparison between a regular village, a regular village helped wy simple development aid and a village helped by AT.

Also, it would be useful to have a comparison table between the AT-villages, some (such as the UN millenium villages), aldough well intented, have far less great efficiencies than other villages (eg Ekwendeni) (wrote a little something at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Villages_Project#Critics a while ago). It is vital that we come up with the most efficient way so as to inform how to help as cost/effective as possible. KVDP 08:48, 21 December 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Actually our target audience is "everyone" - the person who wants to choose the greenest car as well as the person who is too poor to easily access the site directly (but who may benefit through a neighbor, relative, NGO representative or government body sharing or applying the knowledge.

However, I can see that sometimes we would want to distinguish between solutions for particular socio-economic groups, and even have ways of navigating particular content. I can imagine a BOP (Bottom of the Pyramid) navigation template for example. As for distinguishing the levels, I'll be interested to see what you have in mind.

I'd love to see comparison tables for many things, and definitely for Appropriate technology villages and other approaches to community and intentional community. There are some very bad ideas around (the book Walden Two springs to mind, and I'm sure there are more recent examples) but my opinion that something is bad isn't of great value. An unbiased factual look at how such communities have fared in practice would be extremely valuable. --Chriswaterguy 08:35, 22 December 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

CC-BY-SA page changed

I've rewritten the CC-BY-SA page. Can someone go over there and check it matches what you think? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 16:28, 27 December 2009, Joe Raftery

Thanks. I made a couple small changes there... mostly to remove the gender specific pronouns (e.g. his, he's, etc.). Thanks again, --Lonny 08:57, 6 January 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

electric circuit designs for AT

I was thinking of making a seperate page called Electric circuit designs for AT in which there is a link to a subpage "Elektor circuit designs. Elektor is a [Science and technology magazine] that has published some useful schematics/devices for AT purposes. Other magazines may also have additional useful schematics, ... as time progresses, these too can be linked from Electric circuit designs for AT. Aldough the designs could be linked from the technology in question (eg a schematic for LED-lighting could eg be placed simply at the Lighting page at Appropedia, these extra pages would be needed so as to allow to communicate with the magazine better, and eg relay them the information of what designs need to be open-sourced or atleast better available (the designs are btw not all from the magazine themself, but from seperate writer/engineers).

at present, the designs are selected and which could be useful (eg regarding our AT villages idea) are:

• first and foremost the designs I mentioned in my subpages (linked from Appropedia:User requests#Suggestions_for_content_to_be_ported_to_Appropedia; eg at the bottom of the http://docs.google.com/View?id=dcwtr665_253f6k9f3d5 page,
• the Desulphater for Car Batteries
• the Simple Temperature Measurement and Control
• the Elektor Wheelie can be altered to a automated (non-transport) variant, see Talk:Wheelbarrow construction manual
• the LEDify It!, mobile 3-watt LED Lamp (needs to be generalised for any LED-setup, not just 3-watt LED-lamps, eg stationary houselamps too)
• the time switch (should be made more easily controllable dough, a bit too "minimalistic" (only 1 button)

See all designs at: http://www.elektor.com/magazines.46742.lynkx?filterGuid=a304c412-9a5d-433e-b92a-a58dc1744964

In addition, if they deem it would make a good project/article for their magazine, perhaps they could also help us with some ideas at eg http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Topic:Self-sufficiency and http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Appropriate_technology_designs#Electronics ,...

I'll sent them a mail regarding the ideas KVDP 10:51, 5 January 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Looks like great content. --Lonny 08:14, 6 January 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

but not free. The General Terms and Conditions page says Use of this site and its content is permitted for personal, non-commercial purposes only. so we should probably link to their pages but not copy them. I suggest we create a page for the web site describing what resources it has and the license terms. Then we can link to that page whenever we mention a project from there.Joe Raftery 09:13, 10 January 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Sounds like a good plan. Ultimately I'd like to see comprehensive info on topics like this developed here, as free content (aka open content). But clear relevant links to high-quality info is the next best thing. --Chriswaterguy 16:01, 11 January 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Appropedia page name change assistance for Haiti Relief Project

How can the name of the page entitled Haiti Earthquake Assistance Project be changed to HAITI EARTHQUAKE APPROPRIATE TECHNOLOGY PROJECT FOR HSU ENGINEERING 305 STUDENTS  ? You can email me at bart6591 Thank you, Bart Orlando

The HSU page wasn't moved - it was created there. I notice there are two pages on the same subject (search), so I've emailed to clarify with you. --Chriswaterguy 02:04, 16 January 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Changes to the navigation sidebar

On the right hand navigation side-bar there is a section labelled topics-areas with 11 links.

2 of these links go to Portals' the others go to Category pages. I think all of these should all go to Portal pages. though some of the pages should, perhaps, have some work done on them first.

I think the Heading could be changed to Portals. We could look again at what gets included in this box too. 

Anyone agree? Anyone know how to change this? Joe Raftery 00:26, 21 January 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hey Joe, already proposed something similar, see Site reorganisation above, and menu update is also explained in detail on one of my published google docs. Perhaps that this could be useful to get some ideas. I placed the link on an appropedia page here somewhere (user requests or something, link now seems vanished from village pump)

KVDP 10:24, 21 January 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Good thinking. I agree all should go to portals, but we need to make more portals. (Deciding on a format is one step - what do you think of Portal:Green living?)

An admin (incl me) can change this at MediaWiki:Sidebar. --Chriswaterguy 01:09, 21 January 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I made changes as described at # Site reorganisation above.

We still need to work on making more good portals. --Chriswaterguy 12:30, 21 January 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Composting

Having been thinking about how to use compost from composting toilets, I found that most composting toilet systems aren't well suited at all to facilitate the use of the compost in agriculture. For example (as what I found some time ago when I made the Agriculture Manual), compost (atleast in temperate climates, not sure about (sub)tropical ones), the compost can only be applied once a year. This means we'll need to store the compost for a year, meaning that we'll also need to have a system that A: is large enough to store the compost for the intented population B: facilitates fast and easy emptying into a vehicle, wheelbarrow, ... (as we thus have a very limited amount of time to implement it into the soil) I made some 3 images at wikipedia and I uploaded it here aswell. The "system" i've come up with to adress the issues is the Composting toilet tower concept (see:Composting toilets here at appropedia)

Note that we'll probably need to clarify at some articles that we will also still need to have a seperate compost pile (for the organic waste from kitchen refuse, ...). Both types are best not mixed.

KVDP 14:52, 22 January 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Organic buildings

Some time ago, I have also been thinking about making some organic buildings (eg trough growing trees and budding them into a building frame. I now saw this actually being done; see http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601130&sid=a.hwYnFfAoDE

The initial thought was that it would allow to make cheap buildings. However, I didn't immediatly make an image about the idea as I thought problems could arise with the supply of water at the "building's" roots (eg consolidation of soil, simply the annoyancy of water on the entrance, and added problems eg growth time of durable trees (that last some time), and the need of good mineral/fertiliser supply, ... for the trees (to prevent the danger of the dying of a tree; aldough that trough budding, we actually attain a single tree from eg the 4 trees on the corners, meaning that even if a root dies, the other 3 simply feed the rest of the trunk. I'll sent a mail to request info on these issues, and will make wiki entries, and entries here (depending on what buildings can be made, as in AT we can only create a few building types appropriately; see the "logo" I made above)

UPDATE --> Here's another idea; having been thinking about the fact that many very small-scale windturbines require (comparitively) allot of material for the mounting tower/pole, I was thinking that something should be found herefore. Wood, ... wasn't a good choice as it deteriorates quite quickly. However, using living trees (living wood) would adress this issue. The bladed rotors can simply be mounted into trees (foliage needs to be removed near the rotor). The trees will then grow into the rotor and keep it solid. The issue that the wind turbines are small (yielding little energy) can be resolved by using several windturbines, and since the metal tower is removed, the ratio of yield/material requirements&costs keeps within a good limit. Also, when all domestic systems are well set up, they actually require little energy at all. Finally, the method would only be used in special situations (otherwise, we'll still use regular larger-scale windturbines, or array-based windturbines ie Motorwave)

KVDP 10:58, 11 February 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

KVDP 09:55, 24 January 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Re the wind turbines - mounting on a tree makes sense on a small scale, perhaps. For larger turbines, as you said, regular designs make more sense. Mass production and standard implementation are easiest. But for microturbines on trees, it would make a good student project, I think. --Chriswaterguy 11:21, 11 February 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Refridgeration

Just finished up some edits at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refrigerator One particularly intresting issue I found was a new refridgeration technique called magnetic refridgeration; see Refrigerator#Types_of_domestic_refrigerators .Unlike the solar refridgeration article I made at Wikipedia some time ago, this technique uses plain electricity (and not large mirrors), and is thus much easier to implement in regular urban environments. This means its much more polyvalent. Unlike conventional and fossil oil fridges, it also doesn't use gases as freon and is thus much more environmentally friendly. I thus would like to propose altering the:

• Solar (PV) Refrigeration of Vaccines
• Photovoltaic vaccine refrigeration at Centro De Salud articles

Also, we'll need to update the article Refridgeration and we also need to make a Food preservation techniques article at wiki (can be taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_preservation for the time being); this article will also be vital for the Agriculture manual (another main issue for the manual is the map I proposed at the talk page thereof) 13:08, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

It seems that Wikipedia:Magnetic cooling is not in current use. It's good to have info on it here, but it can't be recommended until it's very well demonstrated in various settings, which is probably some years away.

But yes, Refrigeration & Food preservation are important, and it will be good to expand them. --Chriswaterguy 13:32, 28 January 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Updated my Underground food store design

91.182.166.5 13:01, 3 February 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Carbon for water/methanol filtering?

Some time ago I have been thinking of the idea of using carbon for filtering water. An idea was that organic materials (eg wood, ...) could be transformed into carbon which could then be used for filtering polluted water (eg river/seawater), and also ethanol (from moonstills); eg activated carbon is also used to clean out methanol, which is sometimes present to a (very minor) percentage, however even in minor quantities it may still pose a health risk). Note that I also made 2 images a while ago regarding this (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Distillation#DIY_Worm_still ) These still need to be moved over I think; the stills were drawn as they allow the production of very high grade ethanol (94%) eg for use in the production of herbal medicine (tinctures); not as a fuel nor as a beverage. It then needs to be linked in the appropriate healthcare manual.

Regarding the production of the biochar/charcoal I made this image: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Emissionless_biochar_production.JPG ; this focused on making the charcoal production emissionless, unlike the method of production that is now in use; especially problematic in some areas as Haiti, DR Congo, ... and focused on making it only from organic material that needs to be removed/burned anyhow

Now the question I had was whether the charcoal, as is, thus not in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activated_carbon -form is actually usable for purifying water and ethanol/methanol mixtures. This as I'm not sure whether we'll be able to make activated carbon. Having seen its use as is in homemade filters (see the image I made at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_filter#Homemade_water_filters ), I would think this is possible (it's noted that potable water can't be produced, but I'm guessing if we filter we get out almost everything except the pathogens; which is perfect as ethanol/methanol is already sterile, and the river/seawater would be filtered to clean up the environment, not for drinking). If it can't be cleaned enough, we could perhaps make it loop trough the carbon several times, and in case we also want to make potable water, we could also add simply heating of the water.

Perhaps someone can answer the question, would allow us to make some new articles regarding water purification, distilling, ...

Regarding the seawater/river water purification, I also had the question of whether the salt (seawater) is also filtered out (could pose a problem). Especially eg for large scale projects (I was thinking along the line of problematic areas as Nigeria-eg Lagos; aldough we probably won't start up any project here anytime soon; given other problems aswell) the technique could possibly be used. (Note: another idea I had specificly for Lagos was simply using a sand filter and burning the sand eg for the production of glass, we btw also need a manual on glass production at appropedia. Seawater in Lagos has a high concentration of fossil oil, burning it will destroy it. Also a possibility is simply burning it on the water (it forms a layer untop of the water).)

KVDP 14:09, 28 January 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I can only answer a little: a filter cannot remove salts from water, even a carbon filter. Only distillation or reverse osmosis does this, Edit: I meant to add here "Re methanol, believe carbon will work, but you'll need to do some research..." but it came out jumbled. I shouldn't answer while falling asleep.

Having some designs here for carbon filters would be great! --Chriswaterguy 14:24, 28 January 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Feel free to take over the images I mentioned, I made them all under the public domain

87.64.41.19 13:25, 30 January 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I'm not sure what you have in mind with the glassified sand. Also the oil - it definitely shouldn't be mixed with the water. Even a very tiny amount would affect the taste of the water. --Chriswaterguy 14:28, 28 January 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Re the glass; the idea is the purify the water using a sand filter --> this creates dirty sand as waste poduct --> this sand is then converted to glass, and in the process the fossil oil is burned with it. Thus, we are actually simply putting up a glass-production facility, but we use the polluted sand for this (as opposed to good quality sand). The glass we could make can be used for a variety of products; eg windows for resale, aswell as personal items we could use in AT villages (we mostly wouldn't use regular (glass) windows due to the AT building designs; which are more durable/polyvalent if no (glass) windows are used); eg ideas are: glass for use in solar collectors, glass for use in greenhouses, glass for lenses (eg used to focus electric lights; a technique used in too by the Victorians in the past, ...)

Re the water purifying; note that I don't intent to use it eg as drinking or washing water (well, perhaps only washing water for the washing of waste plastics and even this only in specific circumstances, ...). Instead, the purification would simply be done in rivers/seas to clean up the oil there. The would be no actual purpose, other than to make sure the ecosystem/marine life is repaired.

KVDP

Re glass: interesting. Does the cleanliness of the sand matter for glass production? (My guess is that it does matter.)

Well, I don't think so (thus the idea); the sand needs to be heated allot (eg 1000°C or more); my guess is that any oil remains have long been incinerated before the sands starts to transform to glass. Any pollution (the oil won't disappear completely but break apart into molecules which partly remain in the mixture) that is left can simply be accepted, it won't probably be big enough to actually discolor the glass, ... and some pollution is present anyhow even in commercial glass. Finally, the glass will break after some time anyhow when in use for a while, and then the glass can be remelted and (very minor) pollution can be taken out. Well, atleast that's my thought on this, but I'm no glass manufacturer.

Re water: that sounds acceptable - it's much easier to meet the standards you'd need for non-domestic use. I assume some kind of device would concentrate the surface oil before burning it? Otherwise it would only work when pollution levels are extreme. --Chriswaterguy 14:01, 30 January 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Intresting, indeed concentrating it using a crude filter (eg made from a local organic material as wood (eg rotan, ...) could be quite useful to improve efficiency. My first idea was simply burning as is (indeed very extreme in Lagos, see Ross Kemps ISOP episode 2) Also, I guess that it would also allow a more complete burning (some of the oil or oil particles may go under during the burning, causing incomplete burning and some remainder pollution).

The traditional way to remove organic wastes, like Methanol, from water is by aerobic digestion - make sure the water is oxygenated and wait for a suitable set of bugs to break it down into CO2 and water then let the bugs settle to the bottom or use a trickle filter like this where the bugs sit on the stones and the water trickles over. Joe Raftery 14:38, 30 January 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Intresting, didn't know this. However, the methanol would only be present in the ethanol not in water. As the almost pure ethanol is very toxic to bacteria, the method can't be used here.

KVDP 10:15, 1 February 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Are we still talking about river water here? Ethanol & methanol dissolve completely & easily in water. It would take fairly high concentrations (a few percent - that's very polluted) to really inhibit bacteria. --Chriswaterguy 05:11, 2 February 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

No, this would be relative to moonshining (the making of ethanol), I think this may not have been completely clear; reread the very first paragraphs, I mention the making of ethanol for use eg in tinctures (herbal medicines made using ethanol). The worm still image I made was btw also made herefore. The methanol would be a side product with the making of ethanol (presence depends on what organic produce it's made, I guess the problem doesn't occur with fermentations of simple sugar+water, but it may occur eg if distilled from (bad) wine)

91.182.166.5 13:11, 3 February 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Okay, with you now. Methanol is normally removed by distillation, of course, and cheaper liquors can give nastier hangovers partly because of less complete distillation, meaning more methanol and other impurities left over. (I think there are still impurity problems even with sugar+water.) If there is another effective way to remove undesired components, without the high energy use of distillation, that would be very useful.

Yes - oils are harder to break down (esp petroleum products) but a fixed film device, with a biofilm growing over media, allows the impurities to be pulled out of the flowing water, and slowly broken down within the biofilm. --Chriswaterguy 15:00, 30 January 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

New front page - please help with images & portals

Main Page tests.

1. We need suitable square images for every portal's icon. (They can also be used on Appropedia:CategoryTree where the same topic is shown). Colorful & engaging images with a clear simple theme work best, IMO.
2. "Default.png" (the low-res Appropedia logo) marks where a new open-licensed image is needed. Can be from here, elsewhere (e.g. Flickr, uploaded and attributed) or from you if you have one. The "Appropedia community" one I chose because of the idea of many hands working together, but would prefer an alternative (less muddy at least).
3. We also need portals for each redlink. Which format do we use? (I like Portal:Green living as it requires so little maintenance thanks to the category tree which is always up to date, and it's easy to add sample pages.)

I'll work on some other details, and I'll try out converting the images to imagemaps, so that clicking anywhere on the image will take you to the portal. --Chriswaterguy 03:21, 31 January 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I recently saw a useful hands-image (from a commercial company); I'll upload it after some tweaking; adding some other hands to the image could allow us to make it more "international"; eg hands in several colors, and in a circle, a bit like the Ubuntu promotion video

KVDP 15:02, 31 January 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

First image uploaded, did not yet fully implement modifications (only small clean-up); image to the right. The commercial company had as a slogan: U hebt goed gekozen (You have chosen well). Indeed we have ... ;)

KVDP 07:47, 1 February 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Thanks - it's different to what I'd imagined (most of them are photos), but it's nice and clear. Happy to try it out. Is this your own version, which is open licensed (PD or CC-BY-SA)? Or is it still based on the commercial (copyright) image? --Chriswaterguy 09:50, 1 February 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Not sure, it's only slightly modified (cropped, color changed); if you think the mods stated above would improve the image, it will soon be changed beyond recognisability, so that it's probably my own image (and i'll release it under public domain)

KVDP 10:18, 1 February 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Chris, perhaps the proposed alternative category names can be implemented into the Main page test page? ie Food and agriculture, Health and safety were given other names. Safety btw was proposed to be placed under construction, this is much more logical.

KVDP 09:30, 1 February 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

We didn't have consensus on all those changes, but I think one or two minor changes came out of those conversations, IIRC. I'm certainly happy if we keep talking about it and to keep tweaking the category names. --Chriswaterguy 09:50, 1 February 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

ARC pendant

Not sure whether it is entirely suited for Appropedia, but here goes: Alliance of Religions and Conservation (ARC), aswell as some other religious organisations (eg IFEES, some Buddhist organisations) are heavily pushing for sustainability/ecologism. Now the idea of mine was to propose a design (that eg could be promoted by ARC and/or these other organisations; but not made by -as the pendant could be perceived as a entirely new religion; something we must avoid. Perhaps that -as the target audience is to a large degree artisans (blacksmiths, ...), the pendant can also be immediatly made (again if we are capable of gaining some support).

I got reminded again to this idea by the Hands-image idea above (which I too had some time ago, but forgot about). The pendant (or bracelet, ...) would be made of the symbols of the most prominent religions (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion#Specific_religious_movements ) Aldough I personally would prefer a UU pendant (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitarian_Universalism), I think that a "composed" pendant would allow us to integrate it into the existing campaigns of organisations as ARC and it would possibly also be better as an intermediate step (to align more people together). This as UU can be again perceived as a "seperate religion" (it's actually not, but people may perceive it that way at first and not take the time to look into it).

Finally, as the followers of these religions would compose a very large percentage of the population, aldough ofcourse not everyone is a supporter of the religion+ecology idea, the idea may enable us to gain more members in humanitarian/ecology projects, and perhaps even in Appropedia (if we are capable of handling things just right).

To make the pendant, I was thinking of placing the oldest symbol relatively on top (sligthly to the right, as it's a circle, and adding the other symbols in chronological order, clockwise. This relatively mixes the religions up so that eg the religion groups (eg Abrahamic religions, ...) are not placed in their own quadrant or "section". Also, it would place the catholic symbol no longer on top for a change.

As for buyers, I think that we'll actually could have a large audience, even targeting the low-income population. This, as many people with low incomes actually buy jewelry, simply as a investment (gold being a valuable and more importantly -relative stable- commodity. In this regard, we'll also not put people on the wrong track (eg that they spend their money on the wrong things) and still gain something out of it (possibly followers which is good for us aswell as themselves, and simply the fact that we provide them an idea (ie that every religion encompasses the same core values) that will make them friendlier towards each other (as religions usually drive a wedge between populations).

If you guys think it's a good idea, perhaps we can make the design and mail it to ARC KVDP 09:24, 1 February 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I'd be hesitant about wanting Appropedia to get directly involved - I think the Appropedia Foundation should be neutral on religion, where that doesn't conflict with our other principles.

However I personally see value in your proposal - perhaps you and some (other) people of a spiritual leaning could get together and discuss this.

Note that I mentioned that the pendant would be made so as not to comply not with any single religion; it's non-religion-specific. The pendant would simply signify the acceptance of simultanuous existance with other religions, and acknowledge that these different religions too contain some form of truth. As such, it can't be considered as any religion (or spritual leaning) on itself (unlike eg the mentioned UU pendant).

Even if it's not a single religion, there is a religious aspect - someone with a naturalistic view of the world, who doesn't subscribe to any of these religions (whether Richard Dawkins or some of my personal friends) would not want to wear or endorse it. And some religious people would object, while many others of a moderate perspective would embrace it. I don't see it as something for Appropedia to be involved with, but individuals within the community might want to. --Chriswaterguy 09:31, 2 February 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Another thought: I have spent a lot of time living and traveling in Muslim societies (mainly Indonesia) and I find that when there are personal relationships and decent people, religious differences start to look academic. --Chriswaterguy 00:10, 2 February 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Well, I'm not sure about this, there are still significant differences between them, eg not within the abrahamic religions (Christianity and its derivates, Judaism and Islam), these are pretty much equal, but eg compared to Hinduism, Buddhism, and animistic religions there certainly are quite some differences. However, the core values (eg doing no harm to anyone, or atleast not to the same extent as what has been done to you, ...) remain the same.

Personally, I have some additional thoughts on religion, placing me better in the UU-religion (which btw hasn't have a strict religious belief), but I'm positive that anyone can atleast aknowledge that the core values are the same, the reason I had the pendant idea.

How to create notices - new template

I made the {{notice}} to make it easier to create notices. See Help:Notices for instructions.

Once we get parser functions we can maybe make it even more clever, e.g. adding an option for round corners. For now, you can vary colors and width, but for anything you'll need to make a new version.

So we can put some effort into making the notices better looking, rather than just getting them to work. (I confess I've made some very ugly ones.)

Dietary reference values image

As I mentioned previously in my writings, the current energy requirements are at around 2000 kcal/day for adults, and this would remain the main baseline for eg agriculture manual, writings about nutrition, ... However, I realised a while ago that this isn't quite sufficient information as eg children and infants need much less energy; as such it is useful to include info for these aswell. At the moment, there already exists a "Human energy requirements" document which discusses these. However, the document is much too cumbersome/extensive to read and for a quick reference that can be included to documents already made here, and also for the wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_balance_(biology), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietary_Reference_Values articles), we best make a bar chart (or a graph)image with the basic food requirements (no distinction boys/girls, 3 month hop until the first lifeyear, then hops as accordingly (depending on where the major differences lie), upto adults (the 2000 kcal mark). This will result in a image which will be rudimantary at first glance, but which is actually not (the food requirements are actually very little between gender, and energy requirement differences between a few months are quite minor too; adding the easy of implementation to existing articles it will make a very useful tool.

I first still need to make another image but will start on it soon, perhaps someone can already take a look at the tables and present the exact hops and data to integrate. (Refer to the wiki-articles above for the UN manual on food energy requirements)

KVDP 08:48, 2 February 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Update, I checked out the tables, but it seems that it doesn't quite work well with the 2000 kcal treshold I use (the UN figures are far too high). Current data from UN:

Age in years -- kcal/d: 1-2e -- 865 2-3 -- 1047 3-4 -- 1156 4-5 -- 1241 5-6 -- 1330 6-7 -- 1428 7-8 -- 1554 8-9 -- 1698 9-10 -- 1854 10-11 -- 2006 11-12 -- 2149 12-13 -- 2276 13-14 -- 2379 14-15 -- 2449 15-16 -- 2491 16-17 -- 2503 17-18 -- 2503

I think his is probably because they integrate too much physical activity. Another possibility could be that one requires more kcal in the early adulthood, and that this drops to 2000 after, but I don't think this is the case (difference is a bit high). Also the UN document uses kcal/kg and PAR/BMR. This means the other tables can't be used neither, unless we calculate it manually. PAR/BMR is something I didn't work with in my previous writings as it makes things quite complex, and I'm not sure whether people in the developing world (or even here for that matter) will take the time to do such extensive calculations simply to even start knowing what amounts they need to consume (one also needs to calculate/keep track of the foods consumed during the day). An example of the calculation can be found here

Regardless, in some cases it may be more useful (ie for some jobs that require extensive physical work, and/or people that are much larger or smaller than normal, ie 2,1m, 1,5m, ... rather than the more conventional 1,8m. As such it would be useful to integrate it, but then combined with our current (still incomplete) system.

It was also described that the UK dietary guidelines booklet had 2500kcal for men, and 2000 for women (adults). Again, as I'm not a supporter of such mixed calory guidelines, I would'nt opt to use this one either (would make things also more difficult, ...). Perhaps we could use the female guidelines and extend it to be applicable to all ? Another fast(er) solution would be using the UN data above and simply dividing 2503 with 2000, this gains a multiplier, and this number can then be used to divide the other numbers. Offcourse, again this will only make a "about right" graph, and its probably not relyable enough as a reference. The third option (as noted before) is then to take the plunge into the PAR/BMR system, and use it to recalculate the UN data manually; ie using the PAL/... data of the UN manual, ...

I'd like to know your opinions. KVDP 09:19, 4 February 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

AT elevator design

Atleast for some (more advanced AT) designs I made, elevators are much more useful than stairs or ladders (stairs consume allot of space, and ladders are simply not very useful if loads (eg supplies) need to be transported into a walkway, and also require some flexibility (which may be a problem for older people). Therefore, I was wondering whether we couldn't design a AT elevator (this could be done quite quickly if we find a usable older elevator design).

I think that the best design would be a light (comprised of only a platform, no doors, lightweight material) design that is made using cables or chains (chains are more durable, more efficient). At the wikipedia article about elevators (History), there are some designs which could be useful (Elisha Otis design ?), also aldough I'm not sure, perhaps we could combine it with the Kone pulley-system (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elevator#Machine_Room-less )

I think that such a design would be cheap and efficient enough to accomply to AT (unlike the present-day elevators). Offcourse there could be some minor increased safety risk (can be reduced with a automated stop introduced after every few meters altitude change), but the many advantages would outweigh these.

KVDP 13:47, 3 February 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Initial thoughts. With the kind of design you describe, safety is partly a matter of:

• How much force would be applied to a person if they got caught (whole body, or finger). Keeping speed and weight low would be important.

Not sure I understand the question; as I mentioned before it would be door-less; meaning trapping of finger or body in the door is impossible.

I mean if a body part is in the doorway when passing a floor - it could be trapped between the ceiling of the building level and the floor of the elevator, or vice versa. --Chriswaterguy 10:32, 4 February 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Yes, that's possible, but you'll really need to be clumsy to have such an accident; ie you normally step into the elevator far enough from the edge, and also the time you have to place a body part in a floor doorway opening is limited, there are only openings every new floor. That said, perhaps that if a low-power electrical engine (or accuratly powered one), or a manual pulley system is used, the system won't be powerful enough to inflict major damage, in case something like this is encountered.

Design for safety is about realizing that people can indeed be clumsy, and trip or stagger into harm's way, especially if old/weak/ill/drunk. --Chriswaterguy 01:55, 15 February 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• Structural strength. Capacity will be less, because it's lighter. How do you prevent it from being overloaded? (I'm not sure you can.)

Capacity would not necessairily be less because it's lighter I think, this depends on the type of material we use to construct it. As for being overloaded, again it depends on the type of material, aswell as how large we make the cabin (hard to overload if the cabin/platform is made smaller)

A small platform certainly seems like a good idea.--Chriswaterguy 10:32, 4 February 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• How well it's implemented. We'd be talking about countries without effective safety standards, meaning that builders are not accustomed to taking a lot of care with safety. I'd be concerned about how this was implemented, even if the design was safe. So it's important to find ways to make it more fundamentally safe - i.e. more margin for error.. --Chriswaterguy 23:34, 3 February 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I'd opt to use the safety system described above; ie if the chain or cable snaps, a second cable (which automatically locks after rising/lowering a few meters) would take over the job. Offcourse, we can expect the passenger to still get a shock (only locks every few meters), but this shock wouldn't be too great to be harmful, also we can use some shock-absorbing material (ie rubber) eg for the floor.

Note by the way that I'm not envisaging to make it a allround implementable system, it would be used just for our own AT-designs, this means that aldough it needs to be fundamentally safe, we don't need to design it to comply with everything (I'm guessing that otherwise, the absence of doors would form a problem, ie legally). KVDP 08:38, 4 February 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

There is a danger of trying to reinvent the wheel here. First let's look at existing methods of vertical transportation - stairs, ramps, ladders, lifts/elevators, moving staircases/escalators. What are the advantages/disadvantages of each. What technologies have already been invented. Current building regulations in most countries ban the use of lifts for evacuation during a fire (except for special wheelchair evacuation lifts with special requirements) and insist adequate stairs are provided to evacuate all the people from the building safely. If sufficient stairs are provided to evacuate all the people in the building at the same time then you are not going to save any space by providing lifts as well. The standard safety measure for lifts is an automatic brake which grips the lift guide rail unless it is held off electrically. Lifts are safe even if all the ropes break. Lift manufacturers are working all the time to improve their lifts. In recent years this has mostly been related to improving the controls - putting more intelligence into the system, replacing contactors with variable speed drives. The mechanical components haven't changed much. I would suggest that the modern lift is already appropriate technology and we are not likely to improve on it here. We should rather be thinking of alternatives to the lift; low rise buildings? Paternoster lifts, scissor lifts for wheelchair access to an upper level (these are already on sale), rack-and-pinion lifts for multi level buildings (used for man access on building sites. Noisy and slow but simpler tech) Installing a lift is not a job for an amateur - if it is done wrong then people could die. Rather than trying to reinvent the lift we should start with a page on the tech available now and who you can buy it from - at least that's what I think. Joe Raftery 15:27, 4 February 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Good idea Joe, indeed we could make a first article comparing the existing lift systems. As you mentioned before, the traditional lifts use rail safety systems, aswell as heavy/expensive materials, ... which increase the cost heavily. However, the other systems you propose (scissor lifts and rack & pinion lifts (dough not sure about the safety systems here; is a block (similar to the one proposed with the ropes) also integrated in the gears ?) seem much cheaper. Offcourse the installation of it requires more skilled people; however my first idea was to only use it in the more advanced concepts I made (which probably require more advanced builders). As for only listing suppliers, I think we should certainly keep the option open of building the system ourselves (not that this is also useful to ensure proper maintenance), this especially when we pick systems that are more low-tech. Regarding the requirement of the installation of stairs anyhow, I stated that I don't intent to make it completely nation-legal (with all nations); this too is done eg with some systems used in Earthships, and atleast in some developing countries safety rules are much laxer, and some builders I think don't even follow them as it should. As it's only for our own systems, as we implement proper maintenance, and as the systems will be designed inheritly safe, we don't need to also integrate stairs. In addition, regarding the fire aspect, I think that the integration of a ladder (in the side of the wall unto which the lift hangs) could be used. Regarding the danger of falling down, perhaps a safety harness can be foreseen per person, fitted to a seperate cable (see also: my idea at [3]regarding a safety harness to be worn all the time) Small update: using this idea, I think it will also allow us to only activate the elevator when loads need to be moved up or down; if a single person wishes to move up/down, we can simply use the cable on the harness, this will reduce pulling wear and thus increase lifetime of rope or chain aswell as the engines, ... I'm not sure however how exactly the person would move towards the shaft exit/entrance (swinging would work buts that isn't too safe; perhaps using 2 seperate cables; the 2nd one being attached when the person arrives near the exit/entrance floor.

KVDP 07:52, 5 February 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Transformers

I had a question about transformers; I noticed in a recent Elektor magazine article that (some or all?) transformers don't really convert power (ie to a lower/higher voltage but with a respectively higher/lower amperage), but simply dissapate the "excess energy". It seems that it matters whether a "iron core" or a "electronic" transformer is used regarding this. Perhaps that some of you can shed some light on this matter, as I myself didn't have eny engineering nor electrical engineering education. Also, I have asked ISF about possible documentation regarding the construction of transformers, perhaps a manual can follow, this would then detail the required windings, ... for any given transformation of voltage. Also, I'm guessing that the manual could then possibly be used for to supply work to AT villagers (artisans); especially as besides that more transformers are still needed for the electricity grid (and as these are also required for the AT village; ie for the connection to the grid; grid metering), the transformers in practically all neighbourhoods (even in the developed countries) are not equipped to handle the large extra loads when people start using electric vehicles instead of IC-engine powered ones. Note: If the voltage conversion simply burns off excess energy, we'll also need to relook our current set-up for AT-villages; ie whether we would use high voltage or low voltage for the regular power supply around the village (which is then converted to LV/HV to the electricity grid; if there is one)

Note 2 perhaps we can start a new article regarding the jobs we could provide to AT villagers; it could be useful to think already about this (dough its stull quite hypothetical), as it may allow us to think further to eg the types of tools we'll require for workshops, ... KVDP 08:23, 5 February 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Wire wrap, strip/perfboard and tubes

As mentioned before at this concept, there are several methods we can use for making AT electric circuit designs. However, it would be useful to make an article comparing the assembly techniques and components early-on, so we have a general approach by the time we actually start designing/publishing circuit designs.

Several techniques are available: ie Stripboard/perfboard, wire wrap, ... However, I'm not quite sure whether all electric components can actually be used to solder them (nor whether it works more or less, but that it wasn't really intented for it). Reason for using these techniques is the possibility of easier repair (parts can be assembled/disassembled more easily). I'm guessing that using stripboard, we could also resolder on metal extensions if the parts have been soldered on/off allot (meaning they lost some of the metal "rods" their connected to. I'm also wondering whether a system exists/can be made using thicker rods (pins) and plugs, so the components can be plugged in rather than soldered (ie perhaps by soldering the rods to the pins).

Also, I was thinking about older components as tubes; these components were used in older circuitry such as older computers, ... I'm not sure about how well the components work (some have been discarded, others are still in use today; ie in retrotronics -->(still availble eg via webshops as www.tubesandmore.com). I think that these components (mostly because they're much larger) are much more durable than present-day components (ie the Harwell or WITCH computer still works today, after 48 years). Aldough we probably won't be able to build entire circuits off of them, we could possible integrate them to replace more fragile components; a bit similar to retrotronics, but performed for durability purposes, not beauty.

I'm also getting started on making a short webshops-list for obtaining components.

Finally, as mentioned in te linked idea above, I was wondering whether that eg instead of domotics systems, an alternative could be clap-light type switches (ie sound-activated). Offcourse we don't really need neither of them, but as we're already exploring circuit design, and as It think sound-activated switches don't really cost allot to build, perhaps it's something extra we could do. Unlike a central system like a domotics system, switches are easy and cheap to set-up, and I think if we program them to respond to a specific sound, it would even provide a quite futuristic feel (it would be like it knows how to respond to the command, aldough it offcourse doesn't know how to interprate speech). For example, lights (which we'll need anyhow) can be triggered by a sound-activated command such as "illuminate" aswell as "deluminate", switching it on/off. Other system switches can be set to activate/deactivate the switch on other commands.

KVDP 10:00, 5 February 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

UPDATE besides older components such as tubes, it appears that some components also come in "mil. spec" . It seems that the connectors thereof have a thicker goldlayer, soldering pens are better, ... Also, I also had the idea that for example with transistors and some other components, simply enlarging their size would also make them stronger (while the same new techniques are still preserved). They will offcourse be a bit more energy-inefficient (as there is more metal) but as the lifetime is longer this might not be a problem (especially as we intent to use "green energy" anyway.

87.66.58.101 13:29, 18 February 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

FTP server/free file hosting service ?

One particular problem at appropedia is that someimes, we need to have files available to the community in order to modify them (eg extracting photos from pdf files, modifying images, ...). At present, this could be more or less solved using the upload files in the navigation bar, but this isn't really handy (filenames then need to be mentioned/linked in eg village pump, ...). Perhaps we could introduce a FTP-server or alternatively we could do it using a file hosting service. Perhaps that we could also immediatelly implement shielding of files; eg for file transfers to certain people or a restricted set thereof.

In addition, I was also thinking about the servers used therefore. At present, appropedia uses a host for the publication of the wiki. This is perfect for the wiki, but perhaps the ftp server (not needed if we use a file hosting service) can use its own simple server. A test project or a quick analysis could be made/done with/to purpose-build (low-cost) servers as the ECB AT91/ATmega32/644 (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open_source_hardware_projects#Computer_systems) or more recently the R32C server. I was thinking that perhaps experience with these would also be beneficial eg with the possible set-up of future AT village systems (if these would indeed require a central system). Offcourse it's only a thought.

KVDP 10:34, 5 February 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Cost/effective development aid projects

Having been thinking about some water problems, aswell as the problem that most of the money we (nationally) spend on aid is always focused around cost-inefficient disaster relief projects (eg 2004 tsunami, hurricane disaster relief, Bam, Haiti 2009, ...) , I have been thinking about the possibility of setting up a seperate site/blog alongside appropedia and use it to list the most cost-efficient projects. This blog could then possibly take over some articles from appropedia that really are'nt well suited for use here (eg: International Rivers, Arcata Marsh...). They are not suited here because appropriate technology is mostly about AT-related projects, not large-scale (expensive) ones that do not use especially engineered technology or approaches (eg the laying of canals, ...).

Aldough offcourse development aid is a national engagement, and we really don't have much to do with it, I do think that it would be useful to direct them towards the more cost-efficient projects, so that as much as possible gain/human lives can be had/spared (eg most people are killed from "banal" problems as drinking polluted water, easily-treatable diseases, ...). I am guessing that, aldough offcourse people will still only spend money on the more "visual" projects (such as Haiti, ...), this money could possibly be relayed to a central development aid bank account, and the money to the more cost-inefficient project can then simply be qeued up more to the back of the qeue (allowing more money to come available to more cost-effective ones).

For the seperate blog, I already made a list for the most cost-efficient river-related projects (offcourse priority must first be given to eg (some) energy related projects such as regarding the (oxy)hydrogen/liquid nitrogen internal combustion, ...)

Water-projects list:

• Murray river disconnection

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Freshwater_river_redirection.png The plan to divert the murray river inland and break the connection with the sea must be continued. This could halt the salination which is now on the rise and increases water availability for Adelaide. Some research to the consequences for Encounter Bay should also be done. See http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2009/04/murray-darling/draper-text/9

• Jonglei diversion canal and Wadi connection

In the intrest of reducing the problems in Darfur, aswell as other area's in Sudan, a better economic system might be beneficial. This could be done by completing the Jonglei diversion canal. In addition, I also noted 2 other suggestions to increase trade using Sudan's hydrology. Please take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Sudan#Hydrology_and_History . -->section follows: Hydrology and History The hydrology section could perhaps mention that one of the main reasons for its low wealth is the need of water for irrigation of crops and to sustain life in the surroundings.

As such, it should be mentioned that the incompletion of the Jonglei diversion canal has contributed to not being able to move forward. And perhaps a suggestion on the connecting of the 2 Wadi's in Darfur (near Malha; notably Wadi Howar and Wadi El Milk could increase economic prosperity and decrease of desertification. This would have much more effect than what the humanitarian organisations are doing.

The egyptians could help in the financial continuation of the projects as they reduce nile evaporation (good for them too). Also, together with digging wells and a connection channel east of Malha, population control should be placed, to prevent the population of growing even further.

• Red sea canal

Jordan National Red Sea Development Project: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_sea#Recession_and_environmental_concerns

• Farakka dam & Indian logging

http://search.com.bd/articles/india-and-farakka-dam-washingtonpost-report.html The construction of (a) certain Indian dam(s) has led to desertification of Bangladesh. This effect is very great especially in the dry season. A solution could probably be found; eg using a temporary water store, by allowing some water flow in the dry season, ...

It seems that the Tipaimukh is also having similar protest, not sure whether the effect of this is so great however (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=80353867687, http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/uncategorized/india-bangladesh-discuss-dam-row-hasina-visit_100215824.html)

In addition, the logging of trees in the indian part of the Himalaya is causing a large buildup of silt; this prohibits (or makes it harder) for the water to pass to Bangladesh.

• Lake Chad

Has been reduced by 95% since 75. As such, it needs to be replenished with this amount very soon, to prevent desertification, ... of the area. Note: image too needs to be made for wikipedia, based on satellite images at http://blogs.nationalgeographic.com/blogs/news/chiefeditor/2010/02/lake-chad-ramsar-convention.html

^[1][2][3]

Note: possibly some http://www.larouchepub.com/eiw/public/2009/2009_10-19/2009_10-19/2009-17/pdf/45-55_3617.pdf Bonifica Transaqua ideas too could be useful; Bonifica and some other organisations as IIDS could possibly be of assistance --—The preceding unsigned comment was added by KVDP, 8 February 2010

Notes

Quick comment - changing a watercourse (such as the Murray) is likely to have huge consequences. Of course current actions (removing so much of the water for irrigation) have done enormous damage as well, so I'd suggest a proper analysis and EIS be performed - which of course it would be, before anything like this was attempted.

What Appropedia can offer here is a place for analysis of all the different options (including reducing the water taken out for irrigation, and the impact and alternatives for farmers). This would be a great contribution to public debate.

Indeed, these matters are good aaproaches for Appropedia itself. However, as I noted at the beginning of the post, the idea is to have a blog (ie under another name) alongside appropedia. Thus, it would be set up seperate of Appropedia. This as I mentioned before, because it falls outside of Appropedia's scope.

Regarding the Laroucheweb link - any idea is fit to be examined, of course, and may have value. I have more skepticism for ideas when they come from a source with a very strong POV such as Larouche, but where there is something interesting or popular there, then it deserves to be analyzed. --Chriswaterguy 01:39, 11 February 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I'm not familiar with the company/website, however the Tranqacqua idea has been noted by several other sources (including Wikipedia). The idea is not to take over the entire project (see also the entries at wikipedia: Lake Chad; the initial Transacqua idea was even the divert the entire Congo river ...), but rather to look into it and take out what's useful.

UPDATE: I was thinking that the blog could also include a Transport section detailing cost-effective transport projects. For example, road/rail ; a personal idea regarding this is eg trainrail/tramrail connection eg for freight. See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CarGoTram . Improving eg the rail-system with this approach would allow electric transport of freight (emissionless) at a low cost. It's also easy to set up nationally (transport using private vehicles, eg trucks is not). I was btw also thinking that the design of a special freighttram could also be useful: this special freightram could eg run on regular trainrails that are imbedded into concrete paving/roads. This could then allow the same rails to be used within a city as for the lines between railway stations. As the rails are placed within the concrete (only a small opening is made to allow the undercarriage to slide over the rails) the (larger?) size of the rails is then no longer of importance. The vehicle itself would still have the width of a conventional train (length can be offcourse allot shorter), but this too is probably not a problem for most roads/urban alleys.

UPDATE: Motto could be: "Cost-effective aid & appropriate land planning"

KVDP 10:24, 12 February 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

UPDATE -->Blog made, main issues noted here added, looking for Appropedia members to manage the blog in the future

KVDP 10:25, 20 February 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

FM radio broadcasts

Following an idea I had regarding communication via regular radiowaves, I found 2 projects that lie along the line of this (GNY Radio and Universal Software Radio Peripheral ). These projects (if hooked up to the internet via IRLP - internet radio linking project, and perhaps packet radio broadcasting) could then allow broadcasting of about any radio broadcast on any place in the world (broadcast is first sent via internet, and is then locally transmit (wirelessly). I thus sent them a mail. However I was thinking that besides merely suggesting these improvements to their device, perhaps we could also make use of it. Eg by making Appropedia broacasts that can be sent to rural stations. This would give us another communication method, increase popularity of us greatly (internet access is still something most people in the developing world lack but a FM/AM radio is something they do have), ... Regarding the packet radio, it seems that it may also be used to transfer documents (eg manuals) which is useful eg for making a show about a topic and immediatly relaying a document to it. The first idea however was simply to improve the audio quality/range (as the broadcasts could be sent digitally rather than analog) with this.

KVDP 08:39, 9 February 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

IC engine efficiency improvements

Having been thinking about the SAE Supermileage compretition, I was thinking that something could be done with the switching off of the engine while driving (this is done to save fuel, see http://www.theaa.com/motoring_advice/fuels-and-environment/drive-smart.html , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypermiling . I came up with the following idea we could put into practice:

• For the largest part, the switching off of the engine can't be automated (moments that this has to be done are too unpredictable, it depends on the traffic situation). However, if the driver takes his foot of the pedal (or he reduces speed to 0 using another control device), we can assume that this is a moment where the engine may be turned off completely. The engine can then be started and immediatelly increased to the speed as indicated by the pressing of the pedal, upon the moment that the pedal is pressed.

For this method, I am sure that we could create a electronic system (which can be implemented on any car) so that the fuel efficiency is increased.

In addition, I was thinking that perhaps the fuel-efficiency upgrade from UBC (originally developed to upgrade a lawnmower engine; see http://www.engineering.ubc.ca/news-events/article.php?page=/2006/09/students-vehicle-makes-time-magazines.html) could perhaps be used for use with conventional IC car engines. This can perhaps be done using programmable software (to adapt for the varying cilinder capacities)

KVDP 09:05, 12 February 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Images from academic classes - marking as CC-BY-SA?

We have a lot of images which are not marked with an open license.

Partial solution: If academics or students recognize images that are original, i.e. taken by the students or academics, then we can assume the owner uploaded them and understood the license terms. So, please help identify these images, and add their names to a list at: Appropedia:Images to be marked as CC-BY-SA.

Then I can run a bot and add the CC-BY-SA license notice to each one.

Where license is uncertain, add {{clarify license}] to the image description page.

Does that sound reasonable? -Chriswaterguy 06:13, 4 February 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

We need an easier way to encourage people to identify their images with CC-BY-SA when it is uploaded - perhaps a check box to signify that all uploads are under the license... --Joshua 02:40, 18 February 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Agreed - a new tech request. (I'll add it to Appropedia:Site_development/Desired_features). --Chriswaterguy 14:40, 20 February 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Converting formatted content to wiki markup

New, easy method:

• Copy and paste the formatted text into the box at Wikedbox
• Click the wikify button, which looks like:

You now have wiki markup, which you can cut and paste to a suitable place on Appropedia. More instructions: Appropedia:WikEd#Using wikEd to convert formatted text to wiki markup.

Works best with HTML formatted text content. --Chriswaterguy 12:32, 11 February 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Consensus on Appropedia issues

Following Chriswaterguy's suggestion, I would like to request to all of the here residing (active) Appropedia members their standpoint on the implementation of a few Appropedia issues. It seems to me that we need these issues approved by the community soon in order to increase the collaboration at Appropedia. All issues need to be approved in order to set up a viable system. In case the issues are not approved (or if someone has another way on how to improve the collaboration aduquatly using a comparitive system), a alternative approach can be suggested here. An in-depth decription of the problems sparking this request for consensus can be found here.

The issues are:

• Anonymous user page viewing :Switch on for most pages, but off for pages that contain user details, and other sensitive information (-->issue 1)
• Anonymous user page editing :Switch off, only allow members to edit (alternatively, only allow members to edit the more important pages) (--> issue 2)
• request more user information at user:Preferences (--> issue 3)
• implement extension:CurrentUsers (--> issue 4)
• implement link to either Members or to Special:ListUsers&limit=500 in the navigation bar (see User talk;Chriswaterguy for these 2 options)

Please add your vote to the list below:

• issue 1 -->
  • approved: User:KVDP, User:?
  • disapproved: User:Lonny, User:Chriswaterguy, User:?
• issue 2 -->
  • approved: User:KVDP, User:?
  • disapproved: User:Lonny, User:Chriswaterguy, User:?
• issue 3 -->
  • approved: User:KVDP, User:Lonny, User:Chriswaterguy, User:?
  • disapproved: User: ?
• issue 4 -->
  • approved: User:KVDP, User:Lonny, User:Chriswaterguy, User:?
  • disapproved: User: ?
• issue 5 -->
  • approved: User:KVDP, User:Lonny, User:?
  • disapproved: User:Chriswaterguy (agree in principle, want a different execution), User: ?

Note: issue 4 is already being looked at, it is mentioned here mostly for reference. KVDP 14:45, 18 February 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Some notes:

• Issue 1 - For now this template is a way to help protect your email - Lonny. An even better way is to use Special:EmailUser/KVDP... only logged in members of Appropedia can use that link.
• Issue 2 - Anonymous editing has been working out for us so far. Spam is removed very quickly. There have been times that Chris and I were not able to log in due to the way that some satellite based ISP provide access (something about transparent proxies I believe). It was really nice being able to edit. Maybe we should wait until problems arise... then address them.
• Issue 3 - I really like the idea of automatically creating a user page based upon registration questions. We still need to keep the registration process very fast, easy and multilingual.
• Issue 4 - Something like this would be very cool.
• Issue 5 - Increasing community interaction is very important. We also need a way for these tables to be kept maintained automatically, I think.

--Lonny 18:40, 3 March 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I mostly agree with Lonny.

• Issue 2 - I'd like Flagged Revisions or similar as a way to improve the way we handle anon contributions on important or active pages. We need tech help to trial this.
• Issue 3 - I'd like an easier way to create userpages. Some MediaWiki extensions do this, but nothing quite good enough yet. With tech help we could adapt one.
• Issue 5 - I also want much more community interaction, and I'd love a members page, like on a Ning site. But the members link in MediaWiki just doesn't do it.

So... I see technical challenges as the biggest issue in implementing improvements. Let's find some more MediaWiki wizards to help us :-). --Chriswaterguy 03:36, 4 March 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

AT CAD team

In line with some suggestions I made at the village pump, we will be setting up a Template:AT CAD team (Note: we'll be going with this name now; after some contemplation, "Appropedia CAD team" seems wrong, as its a CAD team for appropriate technology and not for an organisation, the name change also allows expantion later-on)

For the set-up of the CAD-team, any members here at Appropedia can already place their candidacy at this post. Once the AT CAD team-article has been set-up, we can then already get started. Several ideas have already been suggested to convert into a 3D model, so CAD team members can freely choose from these.

Candidates

• User:? (add name here)

KVDP 10:09, 19 February 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

AT loom

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weaving and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loom

Since quite some time, I have been wondering whether or not it would be useful to include a design for a AT loom. The idea behind this is that we could improve the durability/repairability of the device and decrease its costs. However, the looms are best automated (to reduce manual labour), and I'm not sure whether we can accomplish this. Also, I'm guessing that most looms are already electrically powered, so ecologically seen little advantage can be obtained here. Keeping in mind that in factories, there is mass production, I'm also not sure whether (even with simplifying the device, local construction, ...) we can reduce the costs allot.

That said, it still seems that manual looms are still widely used in the developing world, so either this is a organisational problem (ie too little weaving corporations in the developing world) or costs of the device are still too high (even with eliminated costs for man-hours).

After seeing a documentary detailing the industrial-era looms of Michio Susuki, I'm thinking that a AT design could probably be made based on these machines. I'm guessing that building instructions can simply be obtained from them, and probably even open-sourced, seeing that they no longer build looms?, and that the designs are already pretty "outdated". Benefits of these looms were easy construction (looms were even build by hand, thus not mass-production), the fact that they didn't seem to require to be manually manipulated (from the movie "Daens", I remember that the looms needed to be opened frequently, see http://www.zum.de/whkmla/sp/1112/chrix/chrix1.html#Iv1211 , not sure about this dough). The loom would be used with "templates", ie complete weaving instructions that can be imputted to the machine, which then automatically makes the garment.

The reason why manual looms are best not used for the AT design, is that, as mentioned in the ALM, machines are much more energy-efficient in performing a task than humans. This thus relates to lower costs when using a machine rather than a person. Secundary reason is offcourse that we should'nt annoy people with these tasks at all, offcourse it provides an employment for the person, but the work is hard (especially for most people in developing countries; as large amount of them are undernourished and/or lack the physical strength). Instead, they best perform the engineering/maintaining of the machines (this being less physical tiresome work).

However, if the Michio Suzuki designs are still too costly, perhaps that we could design something of a hybrid between a manual loom and those produced today. This by automating the work by adding a engine to a traditional loom. I'm not sure however whether the automation by using templates is then still an option.

Note: we also need to take a look at the textile production techniques; ie is weaving the most efficient method ? I think so, but we need to verify this first.

UPDATE --> We'll definitly need to take a look at the Canadian weaving technique, as performed for the creation of the Hudson Bay point blankets ; I saw it in the documentary "Ray Mears' Northern Wilderness: The Company that Built a Country". Appearantly, both the method of weaving (in a straight pattern, redirected once and while, hereby creating "rhombuses") and the twisting of the wool (perhaps this technique can also be used in regular looms) make the cloth allot stronger. Not sure dough whether electric/automated looms already exist that allow this method of weaving.

KVDP 10:06, 23 February 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Start with some research - what has been published, what does Wikipedia have photos of, which countries have local weaving industries. Handwoven will have problems competing with factory produced on price so producing a premium product may make more sense, if you can find a way to market it. Joe Raftery 15:23, 3 March 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Canadian Canoe Museum's 36' Canot du Maitre

Having recently seen the documentary Ray Mears' Northern Wilderness: The Company that Built a Country, I was suprised by a particular boat called the "Canadian Canoe Museum's 36' Canot du Maitre ". Appearantly such a vessel allows to carry upto 4 tons of load (hereby allowing use in trade, ...). Another key advantage is that it is made from a single treebark; thus besides the growing of trees, it also makes for a sturdy construction (normally boats are made from a number of wooden boards). It can also be easily repaired using birch resin (not sure dough whether birch resin, when solidified is as strong as the wood; ie could an entire canoe for example be made with it, and/or does the canoe becomes weaker if repaired with resin as opposed to the canoe before the damage occured ?) Using a single tree also saves time, and energy as no seperate boards need to be made. The only disadvantage of this technique is the limitation in size (dependant on the tree), but 4000 kg of cargo is probably already enough to any standard. In addition, the Canot du Maitre, like any canoe, is also flatbottomed (meaning it can boat on shallow waters) and it is still light enough to be carried between rivers (aldough the AT-version I intent to make would probably not be carried at all due the lack of a large crew, see below).

A vessel like this (which can be made anywhere, aldough offcourse the size may differ slightly, in part as some tree species (native to the region in question) don't grow as thick or as high as the birch), can promote trade/economy in developing countries, and would also do its part to protect forests and the continued care towards (even shallow) rivers. It might also decrease rapid road development. This, as the vessel can be made locally and at a low expense by artisans. That said, I would be inclined to use some level of automation, if this is possible. For example I would think that the hollowing-out of the canoe can be done using either some type of drill or using a automated woodsaw.

I'm guessing that the first step would be the making of a CAD-model of the original vessel, for this we could perhaps work together with the Canada Museum/Jeremy Ward (if not already done so). A second step would be the creation of the AT-version (which differs on a few areas). Finally, when this is done, perhaps that the information regarding the making of the vessel in practice can be bundled into a manual. Note that perhaps Mr. Kevin Callan might also help us for this.

For the AT-version, I would use 2 (4-stroke) outboard engines (or 1 engine connected to a rod powering 2 small marine propellers). The use of a 4-stroke engine would allow later conversion to oxyhydrogen; alternatively a electric engine can be used, and perhaps a fuel cell could be attached later-on (electrochemical battery + solar recharging, ... is probably simply not powerful enough; due to its weight when fully loaded). The engines would be placed in the exact middle (connected to the bottom rather than sides, ie via the the boom of the removable sail) and the propellers would be submerged only just enough to propell the vessel efficiently (the vessel should be able to propell itself in shallow waters). As an extra, I'm thinking of adding bearings (sidewards rotation) to allow the engines of pulling themselves out of the water (ie when entering truly shallow waters; ie 0,5m). The use of an outboard engine is more efficient than using peddles and the like, reduces physical labour for man, increases speed and perhaps even more importantly, can reduce the crew to 1 or 2 people (perhaps none if its automated, but this wouldn't be implemented any time soon). This however also means that the carrying of the boat between the rivers will no longer be possible by hand. To solve this problem, perhaps a simply rail with winch system can be designed (the winch would be mounted on rails, winches the boat out of the water, and is then unlocked and transported to the other river. The system can be placed on the shortest routes between rivers.

Finally, I was thinking about another boat, called the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_ship ;aldough I'm guessing that this vessel is not made from a single bark (meaning it wouldn't be useful at all), it might be useful to look into some specifics of the boat. For example, in a documentary I saw about it, the hull appeared to have some charisteristics of a hovercraft; due to inflowing air and due to the water underneath; not sure how it worked dough, and not sure on whether this was exclusively possible by the use of boards or not (might of been the wood aswell). Some other techniques could be looked at; eg the splitting of wood (rather than cutting it). Not sure dough how much stronger it made it compared to cutting, and not sure about duration neither (it was originally done using an axe I believe, and the splicing was done next to the grain of the wood). Perhaps that some of such techniques, ... can be taken over.

The model + construction manual can be made based on the book "Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America”, by E.T. Adney, compiled and edited by Howard Chapelle, Smithsonian, 1983"; page 134 See also: http://paddlemaking.blogspot.com/2008/10/ray-mears-canoeing-in-canada.html , http://blog.rom.on.ca/?p=737 KVDP 08:13, 12 March 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Muscle enhancers

I was wondering about the use of muscle enhancers in development projects. Aldough the simple use of an optimal nutrition/diet (ie protein-rich, ...) will be sufficient to keep the health/strength up of inhabitants/people working on development projects, I was thinking that in some situations (ie at the start of new development projects in regions where such nutrition wasn't available), the use of muscle enhancers could be useful. This, especially as in such area's the first concern is probably the setting-up of a food system, and for certain agricultural tasks, things can't be automated (+ mechanized). As (some) agricultural work can be pretty exhausting/tiresome aswell, and as tools may in some cases be quite basic, it requires some amount of musculature. As mentioned before, without having had the possibility of buildings this musculature trough aduquate nutrition, muscle enhancers may be required to speed this process up.

I was thus wondering whether there are any muscle enhancers we could use (ie enhancers that are not hazardous to the health; some types can damage certain organs, and which are cheap and possibly self-producable). See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performance-enhancing_drugs --> ... This class of drugs includes anabolic steroids, beta-2 agonists, selective androgen receptor modulator SARMs and various human hormones, most notably human growth hormone, as well as some of their precursors. Note: stimulants are also useful, but do not speed up muscle buildup. KVDP 13:38, 8 March 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I've wondered whether there are safe muscle enhancers, but I haven't researched it. I hope someone can answer.

I suspect it may be cheaper, more practical and more helpful to the Cultural exchange process to just have an extra dose of local protein food each day, e.g. a handful of peanuts, some yoghurt or a couple of pieces of tempeh, depending on context. Interesting case to analyze.

PS: Cultural exchange : You seem to use this as an analogy to aid; volunteering refers to doing something voluntarily (thus without expecting recompensation). Perhaps change the article a bit.

KVDP 09:14, 11 March 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Having an "extra" portion of food is appropriate if the person is already capable of doing more tiresome work (work on the field); however the exact moment of the use of the muscle enhancers would be offcourse slighly ahead of the work itself (1-2 months, to ensure that the person gradually becomes fit before he actually needs to do more tiresome work). In this sense, I'm not at all certain on whether simply providing "extra" food will thus ensure buildup of muscle, as we don't intent to increase physical exercise at that moment. In the second part of the muscle strenghtening period, it may be however best to include some (minor) extra exercice, meaning that we'll need to increase the caloric intake aswell, but only slightly (ie 150-300 kcal or about 1,5 to 3 glasses of milk or about the same in yoghurt).

I also don't know if the enhancers work without additional protein in the diet. --Chriswaterguy 13:49, 8 March 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

No, I don't think they do. The muscle strengtheners simply tell the body to "scale up", but offcourse the building blocks (primarily protein) still need to be supplied. In this sence, it is thus appropriate to only supply just enough enhancers so as to scale up the body "just enough" for the task at hand. This as enlarging the musculature too much will require more food (both in the buildup-period and after it) than what is needed. This would offourse drain too much resources (atleast seen from a AT-perspective) from the town.

Nitrous oxide as a fuel ?

Having seen recently an episode of Mythbusters (episode 40:Confederate rocket), I was amazed of the easy manufacturing of nitrous oxide. The manufacturing can not only be done with simple materials, ... but it can also be made at the cost of less energy, and it has no requirements regarding the ambient temperature. Having seen that the final propulsion they used for their "Confederate rocket" used this as a fuel (or rather "oxidizer"; the fuel was actually paraffin wax with carbon), I did some more digging. At wikipedia, I found initially that nitrous oxide is a "non-flammable gas", but this claim seems weird as somewhat furtherup at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrous_oxide#Rocket_motors ,it is described that it can indeed be used on its own, and it can be detonated (or rather "deflagrated"). This by simply using a heated catalyst. Also, I found that it may be rather simply implemented to a vehicle engine using a "[4]". Seeing that this WCH is also used in model rocketry, I'm thinking that this device may allow nitrous oxide-only use (monopropellant rocket rather than hybrid rocket use).

The end idea is thus simple: would it be possible to simply burn nitrogen oxide in a conventional internal combustion (IC) engine (using eg the whipped cream charger), reducing the supply of this nitrous oxide to the engine (to reduce the heat).

As I'm quite positive that nitrous oxide (even when burnt) is emissionless as it is composed of only N and 0 (N₂0)(note atleast in the sense when the nitrogen is first extracted from the atmosphere and not from resources as coal, ... this thus being similar to the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_nitrogen_economy). As such, this idea could be very valuable as appropriate technology (if it works).

Depending on the outcome, we can start looking into the production (as mentioned before this needs to be done by extracting it from the air, in order to be emissionless). The Mythbuster-solution was identical to the one mentioned in a poluar mechanics article: http://edge.i-hacked.com/make-your-own-nitrous-oxide

Note: I was wondering whether liquid oxigen could also be used as a monopropellant but I'm inclined to think otherwise; put down an entry in one of my wikipedia spin-off articles dough (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Zero-emission_rocket_propulsion#Nitrous_oxide_monopropellant_rocket )

Note 2: depending on whether or not its possible, we'll need to change entries at the Comparison of ICE fuels, Alternative ICE fuel generator, ... articles. I'll also perhaps need to update some of my own writings.

KVDP 09:56, 17 March 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Having thought about the idea some more, I think it's useful to contact some manufacturers of autogas systems. Some key (European) manufacturers are: BRC, TeleflexGFI, Vialle AFS, ...

I'll also request some images of the different systems for relevant wikipedia articles. KVDP 08:33, 23 March 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Nitrous oxide steam engine

Having recently been working on AT freight tram (which resulted in schematics of a variety of trains; ie ICE-powered, ICE-EE hybrid, and (very soon) a steam train), I came up with the idea of using nitrous oxide as the thermal energy source in regular steam engines. I think that besides being emissionless, this will create a very useful AT. Steam engines are very easy to make, and nitrous oxide generates allot of heat when it's burned. More info will be added, aswell as schematics (ie firebox-steam engine lay-out, ...) soon. Some schematics of trains are already uploaded; filenames at AT freight tram article. KVDP 12:12, 4 May 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

First draft of steam locomotive: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Steam_powered_locomotive.png

KVDP 16:59, 4 May 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Update --> Working on the firebox-portion of the steam locomotive image, I noticed that the design for this part is far from optimal. The reason for this is that the exhaust gases are immediatly vented to the outside (or atleast very fast, in case a valve is present on the chimney). This means that allot of thermal energy can not be absorbed by the water, and the gases themselves (which would otherwise increase the pressure) can not be used neither. I thus came up with the idea of modifying the firebox so that these exhaust gases are recycled. The reason why this hasn't been done in the past is probably that wood, or coal was used as the fuel. The use of nitroux oxide (NOX) would not pose these problems (emissions= nitrogen, oxide, both do not carry clogging substances). Thus, it would be best to have two new designs; the second of which can be designed at the AT CAD Team.

The first design would be: the "NOX Firebox v1", the second would be called the "NOX Firebox v2". An alternative name is "chimneyless firebox v1/v2". The v1 would have the heated pipes (or "flues") connected immediatly to the steam pipe. Also, a-NOX heater would be placed at the location of the "fireplace". As this is a gas, some minor modifications are needed here aswell. Since it is basically a modification, we could possibly test it out in some older locomotives; ie tourist-locomotives; these are still used in some developing countries.

The v2 would be completely new in design; this means older fireboxes can't simply be upgraded. As such, we would first need to be certain that nitrous oxide is indeed well producable (meaning we'll need to look at production first). The v2 would no longer have a seperate fireplace, yet would have the NOX-burner placed inside the "water tank" of the firebox. As such, efficiency is increased even more, and material costs can be lowered (especially as the vessel itself doesn't need to be made as sturdy; this as the plating will get allot less hot (the water immediatly absorbes most of the heat). The v2 is inspired by Earthship Biotecture's "Nautilus" gas tank hot water heater. We can borrow some design elements from that gas tank heater for this version of our firebox. In addition, we could also design the heater itself as part of another project; the open design water heater; see specifics at a wikipedia page

KVDP 07:12, 5 May 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Funding for coral reef preservation

Since quite some time, I've been thinking about how funding can be raised by people living near coral reefs for the preservation of these coral reefs. The most valuable asset that the reef could offer would be simply the view and the representation/interaction of the animal/plant-species. As each coral reef has its own species, and its own coastline charisteristics the reefs would be very different for each coral reef and thus distinct views can be made and sold for their preservation. Untill now, I didn't really now how to proceed dough, since TV-documentaries already existed and people won't be giving money to the inhabitants living near the coral reefs filmed, simply to see the documentaries.

However, I recently saw a episode of "Prototype This" (Virtual Sea Adventure) which used recordings inside a pool (which increased value, and provided a more realistic touch). Prototype This seems to be in contact to the Grand Idea Studio which can provide technical assistance on some Prototype This-ideas, even today now the show has ended. Aldough I believe the system needs to be changed somewhat (ie I would project the images to the 4 pool walls (360°) rather than a screen in the center of the pool), the method seems useful for supplying funding.

Having thought about it some more, I would also change from using a realtime system to a system with simple "recordings". This would allow to take out visually unattractive views (ie the views at times when the fish are sleeping), remove the need of a cable and perhaps add extra info aswell (ie the Latin names for the animal/plant-species can be projected on the floor of the pool). Also, it would decrease costs/increase profits as no internet access/camera-system will needs to be put in place at the location to record and transmit the video feed. Costs are also decreased as the recordings can be done by 1 professional team carrying only 1 set of 360° (4) stationary cameras, rather than 4 camera's per location and automated recording. The team could btw also do the recording much cheaper (ie by simply sailing to the locations rather than travelling by public transport). Also, a professional team (and/or a team on dry land) can recognise the filmed species for adding the extra info later-on.

I think it's thus best to connect to the Grand Idea Studio to discuss the idea. http://www.grandideastudio.com/portfolio/pt-virtual-sea-adventure/ If the system can indeed be set up, the revenue (ie from swimming pools, ...) can be used for coral reef rehabilitation; see the original environment rehabilitation manual (coral)

07:55, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Doors, locks and screwdrivers

Aldough it may seem quite banal at first glance, I was thinking about making a schematic + page about doors and locks. This because specific door types may provide increased security, provide benefits regarding energy conservation (they keep warmth in and draft out), ... I'm thinking that a schematic may provide some help in selecting the best type of door for each task. Also, I'm thinking of having some info on the page regarding the selection of door springs --> see http://www.energiebespaarshop.be/shop/index.php/cPath/34 these devices can help ensuring that doors keep closed, hereby eliminating draft. This is useful for eg patio doors, and doors used in corridors, ...

In addition, I was thinking about detailing some info on locks; my first idea was to make a basic keylock that basic artisans could make. However, as RFID is on the rise, I'm guessing it won't be long untill this type of lock is discarded (along with card/keypad-locks). Thus I'm not sure whether its useful to still include such a design (a basic design would btw not be very secure neither, they can simply be picked, aldough one needs to be somewhat skilled in this). Key-locks can also not be made modular (as the turn of the key provides the energy for the unlocking process). Perhaps that a keypad lock could be made modular (already electrified) so that cards, RFID, ... can be supported in the future (not sure), but I'm focusing for the moment on an other solution; remote control. This as it doesn't require a direct connection, and it is thus possible to place the locking mechanism somewhat furtherup. This is handy as I'm simply using (the idea of) a hydraulic pole. This method can be used with a variety of door types. Perhaps we can draw out the RC hydraulic pole in detail in the future. For securing it, aswell as for piggybacking reasons, we could simply use an encrypted RC system as used in current commercial garage doors.

UPDATE Types of doors image finished; see http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Types_of_doors.png and

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Placement_of_locks_depending_on_door_type.png

Appropedia articles will follow later

217.136.156.176 12:50, 21 March 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Excellent drawing. I have seen one kind of door that is missing in that image: the Wikipedia: gull-wing door. A solid door that has one hinge at the top. when open, the door sticks straight out and up from that hinge. The door is a little wider than the opening so that, when closed, it seals out drafts on the left and right. --DavidCary 22:31, 21 March 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

This type of door falls roughly in the hinged doors category; there are many other subtypes I didn't mention to not overcomplicate the image. Perhaps that if others too find that it deserves its own category, I'll update the image in a next version.

KVDP 08:51, 22 March 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

UPDATE: besides focusing on the locks and door mechanisms, the doors themselves also need some attention. From what I saw from the Earthship Biotecture guys, they actually prefer wood as a door material, and also design it in a very difficult manner (by using plywood that they glue together on a V-like pattern, and finish it with 4 boards for the edges). Personally, I'd like to advocate a simple, single piece of (cut or cast) metal. Wood could be used if metal is too expensive locally, but in this case, I would advocate another method to construct it. This method could be simply by laying boards together (without leaving any space in between) and then screwing (not nailing !) them into a second layer of boards (ie 3; 2 for the endpoints and 1 in the middle). The screws would need to be inserted from the side that opens (to prevent simply screwing them out by burglars, ...). An alternative design that also provides protection against crowbars (by simply pulling the boards out by placing the crowbar between the boards), I was thinking of a up-and-over type of hinged door where the door is placed behind the walls (instead of before) and where the boards are larger than the wall opening. The lock would then be a hydraulic pole at the center of the opening.

Thinking about this screwing into wood, I thought it might also be useful to make a AT electric screwdriver design. The main improvement would be the battery and the notion that most electric screwdrivers are not generic (brand-based screwdriver bits, ...). I was thinking that besides making the bits "generic" (brand-independant), we could also make the entire device modular (meaning that we could use it as a screwdriver, drill, jigsaw, ... As such, we would use the same electric engine for a multitude of jobs, and hereby save money. The power could be adjusted per task (ie screwing, drilling, sawing, ...) using a simple potentiometer. In addition, we could also get rid of the brand-specific battery/power supply. This latter could be done using net power for use at the workshop, and by using a "car battery" for use on the road (on-site). A car battery is a technology we can make ourself (using sulpheric acid); the battery will probably be a bit larger than conventional electric screwdrivers (these are lithium-ion I guess), but we can still probably make it fit into a backpack. I would however hold off momentarily of making this battery until we finished detailing on how the regular DIY home electricity system needs to be made. This latter system would also use a electrochemical battery (in certain setups), the construction thereof is more or less identical to the electric screwdriver system (deep-cycle batteries only have thicker plates).

KVDP 13:18, 26 March 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Tabs

Hi,

I was wondering if the wiki has the ability to do drop down tabs in "content" if your contents is very long?

Thanks.

Not sure about this, however I think I'll be moving some of the issues raised here to other pages (projects). This will reduce the length. Also, we use Archiving aswell, however as some issues are still not solved, I wonder if we could archive only certain sections rather than the entire page.

KVDP

Off-site manufacturing sites/factories

With the

in mind, and having been inspired by off-site ISF/Codéart manufacturing process (both based at Haiti (Camp Perrrin) aswell as in Belgium), I thought it might be useful to determine our current manufacturing plants of our AT organisations. Off-site factories/sites allow production of parts/components where these could not be locally made (see ISF document) and would also reduce the start-up time of new AT-villages, ... Currently, off-site manufacturing plants of AT-organisations still only work pretty much only work for their own (and to their own requirements); however if we redesign them to work as a hub (for several AT-organisations), we can heavily increase our efficiency/reduce plant-costs, ... The sites/factories can be marked on (2) maps (I suggest the BlankMap-World_v4 to make the exchange process clear and perhaps a Google maps where the exact location is marked on). These maps would allow us to figure out how we best set-up our manufacturing sites (their location needs to be somewhat strategically placed). The map can also help us figure out what factories are already strategically placed, yet should be expanded to increase their tasks. To figure things out, it's best to group the plants into several types: ie CNC factory (or "FabLab"), foundry, electric actuator factory, electric circuitry factory, energy storage module factory, plant seeds factory, ...). This info can be given in a table (a new article needs to be made). For the shipping, I perhaps the shipping lanes image I made could be useful (aldough not all connections are marked). In addition, it may be useful to think about alternate modes of shipping (I eg had the idea of a aireal shipping connection atleast for certain connections, not sure whether this is actually legal however, perhaps if we get a developing country's permission).

Note: It may also be useful to look at whether there are commercial companies, seed gardens/gene banks, or non AT-organisations (ie Elektor, MakingThings, LLC, Grand Idea Studio, ...) that may perform the function of a AT-factory for us (either as a side-activity, ...)

KVDP 10:38, 24 March 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Dimensioning (AT) caterpillar tracks

Having been making an image for wikipedia's wheel article a few days ago, I was reminded about another idea I've had. This idea was to create an AT caterpillar track design, which could be used for applications requiring a connection to the ground (ie in agriculture) and/or for outdoor (uneven terrain) applications where the distances to be travelled are too short or too narrow to allow the use of vehicle wheels. The design would thus not be used other than in very specific applications, basically as the caterpillar tracks are not needed when driving the vehicle on roads. Besides use in arid environments (ie "deserts"), caterpillar tracks could thus eg be used for some future agricultural "robots", ...

However, one of the main reasons why the caterpillar tracks have not been integrated widely (and which still form a problem today) is that most caterpillar tracks are made too heavy. This is logical, given their main application in machines of war (ie tanks), since the vehicle's armour is heavy too (requiring heavy tracks to sustain the weight). However, for our applications, this is not required, and we could thus design something of "AT caterpillar tracks". Besides dimensioning to the vehicle's size, other modifications could be: sole use of natural rubber (no metal) in the belt; this to avoid damaging of roads (in case these need to be crossed), to reduce weight, and to reduce production complexity (we can then simply use a mold). An other modification could be to design the tracks to come "under and over" the main vehicle, rather than entirely under it. As such, the tracks + wheels need to be placed next to the vehicle.

Regarding the dimensioning + design, I'm guessing that we could simply use/describe the designs of regular military robots (ie Foster-Miller TALON, ... Not sure dough whether these designs have suspension (with tanks ie M1 Abrams, ... have a suspension system connected to the wheels . For the dimensioning, we could make a graph (ie ? thickness of the belt with ?m of belt length and ?m width for a given weight/size of the vehicle). I'm guessing that if we can cooperate with some companies that built earlier military robots, this can all be done quite quickly.

The undercarriage can then simply be designed to fit to a simple vehicle design (ie my car design at http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/New_car_design ) KVDP 15:58, 24 March 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

AT incinerator

Having been thinking of the problem of waste, and the fact that allot of (urban) areas in the devloping world simply don't have any good waste disposal system (or otherwise not a very fast one) resulting in leftover waste/buildup of landfills, I was thinking it would be useful that we have an AT incinerator design at Appropedia. Aldough incinerators have been produced for a long time in "developed countries", I'm not sure whether most allow material recovery in some form or another and another problem of most incinerators is the cost and construction time. I thus promoted a plant that is able to recover (some) material at wikipedia a while ago (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landfill#Reclaiming_materials ). This design however, is only good for developed countries. Ideally, for developing countries, incinerators should be small and modular. This as, as I see things, waste itself shouldn't exist (using the cradle-to-cradle system, and techniques as plastics recovery, ...), but since it has been made anyhow in the past (and since some dirty plastics, too polluted litter piles, ... is incincerated even in AT projects), we need to be able to dispose of it. However, as the incinerator is thus only a method to get things right (and not a device that should stay in place after when the waste has been cleaned up), the incinerator is best kept small (facilitating transportation). One of the best designs which has been made so far is I think the Qinetic PyTEC (see http://www.qinetiq.com/home/newsroom/news_releases_homepage/2009/4th_quarter/pytec_us_army_contract.html ). This design, made initially for the military, could probably be used by us. Besides being modular and small, it also seems to have low preoduction of fumes and the incinerated material can probably be recovered aswell (atleast to a degree, perhaps more if modified). I'm not sure however of the electricity production (this is perhaps best not used as the incinerator needs to be non-permanent). In addition, I'm wondering whether the exhaust pipe can be directed into the soil. This would reduce (eliminate?) sickening fumes (emissions won't be eliminated as the co² goes trough the soil, but this is of little importance as it's a non-permanenent solution). When a location has been cleaned up, the incinerator can be transported to another location (this method will also reduce costs greatly). Perhaps that we could also use the project to some support from the US Army AT-engineers (ie Provincial Reconstruction Teams, 189th Infantry Brigade). Note that my previous attempts herein failed however. Also, perhaps the project can be used as a Medical waste incinerator.

PS: A simple schematic showing more or less on how the device would be set up can be found at [5]. However, this particular device was initially meant for burning wood/organic material (hereby making biochar), I'm guessing the heat won't be enough to melt other (less-combustible) materials. Also, the "cavity" wouldn't be airtight in the setup of the here discussed incinerator. KVDP 14:51, 31 March 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

AT construction method ?

Not sure about this, but it seems that a new construction technique has emerged recently. Given that its still pretty expensive, and since it may not be completely in line with the cradle-to-cradle approach (shafts are carbon fibre, so I guess this is fine, but not sure about the used treatment resin), I'm not sure whether the technique is usable in AT. Personally, I would simply use caissons/cofferdams to make the bridge, but I guess they need the inflatable shafts for something specific (to make the arches). Perhaps useful to take a closer look into this. KVDP 14:19, 1 April 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Micro nuclear reactors

Since quite a while ago, I created the Mini nuclear reactor page at wikipedia. Having recently been reminded of the technology, It came to me that we don't yet have a article at Appropedia about it (detailing installation + overall costs, ...) Small nuclear power plants have several advantages, including zero emissions, very fast setup, very secure and stable energy supply (no power fluctuations, ... For small villages (not AT-villages !) this might thus be a good solution, atleast for the time being. I'm guessing that if the costs are low, this technology could be used by power companies, ... in the developing world. We will need some calculations for this dough (ie how much people could 1 power plant (45 megawatt) support ? (not sure whether this megawatt is eg per day, ...).

The reason why the power plants are not really a good solution to AT villages is because generally, AT villages would consume way less power (ie a regular household consumes about 20000kw-h (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_energy_consumption). Also AT villages can probably be set up in such a way that most energy is used up at the moment on which it is generated (ie using renewable power plants). The minor surplus can be stored in energy storage devices. I'm guessing that with the communal setup, and considering that allot of developing nations lay in the (sub)tropical zone, a household (4 peaople) would only need some 2000 kw-h (atleast with my initial, most basic setup). Perhaps we can calculate this more precisily.

I'm btw not completely sure what the electrification policy is of electricity companies, ie do they really supply power lines + electrification to rural villages (of which they can assume that most inhabitants won't be able to afford it anyhow). Depending on the outcome of the price calculation/W, such reactors could perhaps provide beneficial. Perhaps that we can integrate the technology with the sustainable urban planning blog.

In the article, we can also describe the issue of the nuclear waste. Normally, a "AT-compliant" reactor should be able to replace the nuclear fuel, or alternatively, the entire reactor can be brought back to the manufacturing plant, disassambled and have the fuel reused (in a self-breeder reactor). Since nuclear fuel becomes otherwise dangerous waste, and since nuclear fuel is a vary valuable material, this feature is critical. One other issue to describe in the article is the issue of security. 81.241.109.254 12:29, 9 April 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

UPDATE; I'm also not sure on whether light water reactors provide a level of radioactivity to the coolant/moderator water. If so, this type is best discarded.

81.243.177.146 09:41, 11 April 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I agree that it's good to cover such solutions.

Major concerns I have with such technologies are the difficulty of having reliable and properly monitored processes on the small scale - for building, operation, transport of material, and monitoring of radioactive material at every moment (preventing diversion for criminal purposes). Nuclear power, if it's to be used, is almost certainly better as a large-scale solution connected to a grid. Sometimes "appropriate" means "big" and sometimes it means "not at all," as I'm sure you're aware. I believe nuclear power fits into one of these, but I'm not sure which one. --Chriswaterguy 06:26, 22 April 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Help Desk

At the moment Appropedia is oriented to the agencies producing information and the site is still built around that rather than users requirements. Fixing that will time and work but in the meantime what about creating a Help desk where people could ask for help and advice?

This would depend on editors here doing some research on the resources here, and elsewhere on the web, to point people towards relevant content. Worth doing? Joe Raftery 15:56, 3 March 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hi Joe,

I have wanted something like this for years. For me it was the main reason we were testing forums. Right now I answer some questions on different forums spread out over the net (aardvark, moodle, linkedin (rarely), facebook, google groups, etc.). I would love to be answering a question a day here at Appropedia. How could we get something like you suggest going on? I know we have been talking about forums again. Is that the best solution?

Thanks, --Lonny 18:20, 3 March 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I like the forum idea - I'm looking forward to seeing what we can do either with a Wordpress plugin or a Wordpress-compatible platform. --Chriswaterguy 11:11, 24 March 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I've seen Mediawiki's liquid threads forum software on strategy.wikimedia.org and that works quite nicely. Joe Raftery 19:31, 1 April 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Archived

I moved a bunch of conversations that seemed resolved to Appropedia talk:Village pump/Archive. There are still many conversations here that are still relevant in some way - I've added some responses, but others I'm leaving open for now. --Chriswaterguy 01:19, 4 March 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Changes to Wikipedia templates, and adding "Interwiki links" sections

Some of us made some templates in the early days of Appropedia, but over time I realized they had some drawbacks. The trouble is, they started to get used quite a bit, and it's only now I figured out how to fix them up with my bot. I probably should have flagged my plans beforehand - if you have other ideas for how we should do things, please say so. The main changes were:

1. The {{wp}} template uses a superscript to link a Wikipedia article. The problem is, it's hard to then link the text to a local article, if there is one. (Even a redlink is useful - you can see the article needs to be created.) So I replaced these with the ^{[[Wikipedia:{{{1}}}|W]]} template, which only creates the superscript link, and leaves it to the editors to link or not link the word that's part of the regular text. E.g. diff. I used my judgement about whether to put the local link in - in most cases I did.
2. The {{Wikipedia}} and {{Wikipedia p}} boxes have been replaced with a link an an "Interwiki links" section (after "See also" but before "External links"). E.g. diff. Highlighting the Wikipedia link seemed less appropriate now, since that there are many sources of info relevant to Appropedia, and Wikipedia isn't always the most useful link to highlight for our visitors. The one distinction I do believe we should make is between regular links and "living" sources of information that are open to correction, i.e. wikis, hence the "Interwiki links" section. These are often under the same license as Appropedia also.

I think there'll be a small benefit in search engine ranking from these changes as well, through a slight increase in local links, and the change in placement of external links.

I hope that's all satisfactory. If we have consensus, I'll mark the templates as "deprecated."

I apologize for any mistakes the bot may have made - I'm still learning, and I know that it put the "== Interwiki links ==" section below the category in a few cases. Still working out how that happened. --Chriswaterguy 11:08, 11 April 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Status tags

Hi everyone - in order to keep the status of AT projects clear -- I propose the following status tags Category:Status. What do you think? Here is an example of its use on a student page - Charcoal Cooler‎ --Joshua 15:25, 24 April 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

This is brilliant - I love it! --Chriswaterguy 10:55, 5 May 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]