Page types and organizing the info
This page got me thinking some more about how we organize info on Appropedia. It starts off about a business and with a first person perspective ("Organic Landscape Design is a precursor business... The Base Pair I am starting with...") This is great to have such businesses described here, but I was going to move the page to "Organic Landscape Design," or something like that, to reflect that it's a business page.
Then I noticed that it's mainly not about the specific business, but there's a lot of knowledge being shared useful to many people. So what's the best way to deal with this? One option is to split it into different article types, so the business article would just describe what that business does, experience, link to their case studies... but on the other hand, when a business is sharing info, they would like to get the credit and exposure for that, of course. David Braden, as the article's creator, what are your feelings on this? --Chriswaterguy 03:32, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
Blurring the Lines
Thank you for your interest Chris.
I don't want to try to tell you how to organize information on this site - but the topic, Integrated Systems of Production, is about the efficiency to be obtained by doing many related things in the same space as a different (and appropriate scale) efficiency than 'economies of scale'.
In this case, the business is part of a local organizing effort to achieve local production for local consumption. I think of it as developing the technology for local self-reliance (resilience) and I think in terms of that part best accomplished at the neighborhood level, the municipal level, the regional level . . . trying to keep control of our lives as close to home as possible. I think some in this group think in terms of technology appropriate for the third world - where I am thinking there is only one world and, through integrated production systems, we can develop technology appropriate for a long, sustainable and prosperous future for all of us.
Your other question on my User Page was about developing an active group. The group I am working with on Transition Colorado is Transition Westminster/Arvada/Broomfield which are three adjoining cities in north west metropolitan Denver. I like the transition concept because it begins with the assumption that peak oil will bring about a lot of interrelated changes that we can either take charge of or let happen to us. I think the first challenge for an active community is 1) finding a way out of our areas of interest/expertise to look at how that relates to what else is going on, and then 2) finding a way to consistently deliver something of value to the participants.
I had a great time at Global Swadeshi until we ran out of knew things to say and started just agreeing with each other. And that is generally the problem with Ning which is designed to divide things up based on area of interest. I am still searching for a forum that is conducting a conversation across interest and expertise - where I can explore the ways that one thing is related to another and everything is related to everything else.
There is a discussion about supporting collaboration that may interest you at ned.com. We would welcome your thoughts there.