User:Teratornis/Tasks: Difference between revisions

Notes about some things I would like to do on Appropedia.

Index

I contributed to these index pages:

• Editor's index to Wikipedia (a few design suggestions to the primary author; some editing)
• Editor's index to Commons (I did most of the editing by copying design elements from the Editor's index to Wikipedia)

Indexing a site is an effective (if laborious) way to learn what is on a site. Plus it makes one of the handiest ways to look stuff up. The Editor's index pages on Wikipedia and Commons are useful tools for answering questions on the Help desks of the respective sites, as well as for general reference when editing pages or uploading files. Since Appropedia is not very large (yet), a single index might contain links to article content as well as project pages and help pages. Wikipedia is too large for an index of this type to cover all the articles, so the Editor's index only covers the internal help pages and project pages of interest to editors, as well as links to external tools. Perhaps the nicest feature of the index is that it groups related pages together, and we can assign shortcut links to particular entries. In this way one can direct another user to all the pages that document a specific feature with one compact link, for example:

• Wikipedia:WP:EIW#Search - links to pages and external sites relating to searching Wikipedia
• Commons:COM:EIC#Copyright - links to pages that describe copyright and licensing issues for media on Commons

I've noticed that Appropedia has some pages with similar titles and overlapping content that do not always link to each other. An analytical index would group all the similar pages together, like categories do, but I like having everything on one page so I can use Ctrl-F search. An index page can include annotations on its entries, unlike category pages which only list titles. Sometimes a page title is not descriptive enough. Annotations also add keywords and synonyms to make a fatter search targets.

Templates

21:38, 9 January 2011 (PST): import some templates from Wikipedia.

Template documentation templates

21:38, 9 January 2011 (PST): Some time after the founding of Appropedia, Wikipedia largely adopted a new style for documenting templates on /doc subpages.^W Porting the necessary components to Appropedia would simplify porting other templates from Wikipedia. There are advantages to documenting templates on subpages:

• The documentation wikitext is easier to distinguish from the template code.
• The page histories are separate, making it easier to tell when someone is editing the actual template or just the documentation.
• Template transclusion might be slightly faster, since the MediaWiki parser does not have to read through the documentation every time.

Pre-requisite: the Template: namespace^W must allow subpages. The MediaWiki default setting is not to have subpages there. See if any subpages are there now:

• Special:PrefixIndex/Template:

Someone tried to make one here:

• Template:Olpc bundle/doc

but that is not a true subpage at the moment, as indicated by the lack of an automatic link to the parent page at the top of the subpage.

Search templates

Messagebox templates

Navigation templates

Citation templates

Location map templates

Infobox templates

21:38, 9 January 2011 (PST): a few are here already:

• Category:Infobox templates

Miscellaneous templates

Global warming denial FAQ

21:38, 9 January 2011 (PST): Appropedia might not be an appropriate platform for this content. However, given the following:

• As of 2011, there is no binding global agreement to cap the maximum amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that humans will add to the atmosphere, and neither is there anywhere near the level of voluntary action to stop burning fossil fuels that would be necessary in the absence of an agreement. Given the slow pace of climate negotiations, the obstructive efforts of climate change disinformers, not to mention everyone's addiction to the goods and services made affordable by fossil fuels, no one can even predict when a sufficiently robust global climate agreement might be attainable.
• Humans remain firmly on a business-as-usual trajectory to burn essentially all the Earth's recoverable fossil fuels within a century or two.
• This could result in atmospheric carbon dioxide rising to a concentration of 750 ppm or higher by 2100, and continuing to rise thereafter.
• The resulting degree of global warming and ocean acidification could be catastrophic for many of the world's peoples, with disproportionate harm inflicted on poor people living in the tropics and subtropics.

Failure to cap humanity's greenhouse gas emissions could negate most of the efforts falling under the traditional definition of appropriate technology. Therefore one might argue that eliminating fossil fuel combustion altogether, or preventing the products of fossil fuel combustion from ever reaching the atmosphere, is a necessary condition for enabling other technologies to be "appropriate".

One of the main barriers to eliminating fossil fuel combustion is the widespread disbelief or misunderstanding of the facts of climate science. Much of the confusion is the result of an orchestrated disinformation campaign funded by fossil fuel interests and free market think tanks. They have proven thus far to be much better at public relations than the scientific community. It is not enough for scientists to report their results in the scientific literature. Someone (either scientists, or someone else) must respond to the specific arguments (memes, tropes) originating from climate change disinformers and circulating endlessly on the Web and in conservative media.

It might be interesting to wikify content similar to what is on these pages:

• http://www.astronomynotes.com/solarsys/s11b.htm - Answers to Global Warming Skeptics: a list of questions with links to many other sites
• http://www.grist.org/article/series/skeptics/ - How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic: Responses to the most common skeptical arguments on global warming

This would let the content benefit from collaborative editing, as well as the superior MediaWiki feature set (links, shortcuts, etc.). In general, when one encounters global warming deniers on discussion sites, they rehash well-worn and thoroughly-debunked arguments - as if they believe the world's leading scientific societies which endorse the IPCC's claims wouldn't have thought of the obvious questions. It would be efficient to answer these repetitive questions with shortcut links. That won't convince any deniers, but it might persuade the rational but uninformed.

The vast majority of people where I live (midwestern US) behave as if they do not believe global warming is a threat. That is, I haven't seen many people who have achieved or are seriously working toward personal carbon footprint reductions of 90% or more. Which is what everybody needs to do to limit the global temperature increase to 2°C or less.