If you are logged in, click the + sign next to the edit tab above to leave me a message. Or just click edit if you are not logged in. --Lonny (see also User_talk:Lonny/Archive for many past discussions)

Your thoughts requested...

at User_talk:Chriswaterguy#Greenlivingpedia interwiki. Thanks.

I was going to request input from the moderator of Category:Alternative building, but then I realized we don't have one yet...

Perhaps we should invite Peter to be moderator for Category:Sustainable buildings, which could have Category:Alternative building as a subcat. --Chriswaterguy · talk 16:02, 16 March 2007 (PDT)

Photovoltaics how-to?

What do you think about moving much of Category:Photovoltaics to a how-to? --Chriswaterguy · talk 02:53, 4 April 2007 (PDT)

Hi Chris, Great question. I have thinking about what to do with these types of pages. I do not think moving it to a how to is the best idea, as I feel that how tos should be followable step-by-step methods. I do think that the amount of content on Photovoltaics hides the category links below. Here are a two possible solutions:
  1. Create a standard _______ basics, for each category page. In this case, Category:Photovoltaics would have a prominent link to Photovoltaic basics.
  2. Move the subcategories and pages above the content. There is a mediawiki extension that does just that.
I would like to develop a standard. I think that #1 sounds best so far. Do you have any ideas?
When we do come up with a standard, we need to think about what is appropriate on a category page. If we have no text on category pages (as is the standard on some wikis) then we have users needing to click again to find any real information. If we do have text, how much and what type?
Thank you, --Lonny 19:21, 4 April 2007 (PDT)
Yep... #1 is a variation on the Wikipedia approach, and I can see the reason for it. I also see why it makes sense to take a different approach, and keep the topic and categories both high profile, since we have multiple content types.
I need to think more about this. --Chriswaterguy · talk 02:04, 24 April 2007 (PDT)
The top of any topic page would have a template notice something like "For more pages on this topic, see the Sanitation category. That works well.
I'm not sure whether to use "XYZ basics" or just have the page name = topic name. This is Wikipedia's approach, albeit in a context of only one content type to deal with. It also makes the abovementioned template workable using {{PAGENAME}}. And I'm not sure yet whether the info will necessarily be basic and would rather let that question be answered organically. --Chriswaterguy · talk 05:48, 24 April 2007 (PDT)
I like this discussion of moving the hefty content to a separate page. Low-content category pages are fine (essentially, a few sentences describing the nature of the category), and don't need a separate page. As for naming, I have a slight bias toward using the same name, as WP does, but to me this is a detail. Of course, it's a detail that needs to be worked out :-). But as long as the naming is algorithmic (standardized), it shouldn't be too hard to alter the algorithm. I think there ought to be a way to write some template that points to the page if it exists, but I could be mistaken about that. Also, since if there is no page, then the category name wants to be a redirect (I think), and that could spoil the "if exists" test... Anyway, I'm getting lost in implementation details. --CurtB 10:07, 24 April 2007 (PDT)
I'm now leaning strongly towards this change, after thinking about how we deal with topics with multiple aspects - whether the topic deserves subcategories and whether it deserves multiple pages on different aspects, are not quite the same question. It's also easier to create topic pages if we don't have to think so hard about how it fits with the category system.
Shall we make this our new policy, at Appropedia:Topic content? We'll also need to adjust pages and sections such as Appropedia:Categories#Topic_categories Run it past major topic contributors, and Appropedia team members including User:Vinay Gupta and User:On2Leggs before making the changes? --Chriswaterguy · talk 19:03, 29 April 2007 (PDT)

Promote feed-back from user to designer

Hello!

Please help me out! The original, self-made/designed/originated material I contribute to society through the website of my foundation Demotech (www.demotech.org) is also ported by Appropedia. This I highly value for two reasons:

  • Outgoing:

To be among the mind stuff of people with a similar mindset, to have an opportunity to be inspired, to learn in general

  • Incoming:

To create the opportunity for feed back from users. This world needs rapid development of any item of Appropriate Technology. Without a mechanism of DIRECT and EFFECTIVE feedback from users on content such as what Demotech offers, further development of this content may stagnate. However, when feedback opportunities are provided this development may soar!

For this reason the sole condition for use of Demotech designs is to provide a link back to its origin attached to the information from Demotech. And please, let this link not only contain name and (web)-address of the author, but also a few lines that the author expects explicit and detailed feedback as a rightful reward for its otherwise freely to be used contribution.
As I looked at Creative Commons Licenses, I found the license 'Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0' that seemed somehow to answer what I look for. However not with the specific request condition as named.
I fully realize this condition can not be enforced in practice. Similar as the condition to pay for 'share ware'. But non the less it should be a condition that remains attached to the content as it spreads.

Three questions:

  • Is the 'Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0' -license endorsed by Appropedia?
  • Where can I find earlier discussions on the topic of feed back on behalf of continuous development?
  • Where is info to be found on how design-communities may best originate and function on Internet?

Thanks for a rapid response!
--Demotech, design 14:03, 16 April 2007 (PDT) Reinder/Demotech

Hi Reinder,
Great to hear from you. I hope you received the email from my students. Your comments and questions are excellent and extremely pertinent. As requested, I am reposting your comments to the Village Pump for group discussion to follow. We are also considering starting a forum, so that it is easier for even more people to be involved.
Appropedia uses the GNU-FDL license. Here are our conversations on the topic of license - Appropedia_talk:Copyrights. Please feel free to add your comments there, where a more focused group can respond.
Thank you, --Lonny 18:51, 11 April 2007 (PDT)
To sign your comments use the following code: --~~~~
Lonny, hello!
Thanks for help and hope more clearity will come. And yes, I received the mail conserning the [=NightReader=]. I'll come back to it soon.
--Demotech, design 14:03, 16 April 2007 (PDT) Reinder

main page counter?

Lonny -- it looks like the main page counter has been stuck on ~58k for awhile -- is this correct? Is it counting? I tried reloading it and nothing changed - only one hit per ip? Cheers - Joshua ps - love the new chicken highlight

Hi Joshua,
If you mean 56k, it may look stuck because the counter stays in the cache during a normal refresh, but it will reload on a hard refresh. Use Shift-Refresh in Firefox and see if that works. If you mean 58k our numbers are different and we should discuss it further.
Glad you like the new chicken highlight.
PS you can sign your posts using 4 tildes (~~~~) --Lonny 22:23, 19 May 2007 (PDT)

Demotech contribution

Lonny, hi!
Thanks for your feed back. I have to study it thoroughly. Specially as I am not yet fully used to the Appropedia set up.
Whatever choice is made, it will be a tremendous lot of work to do all the porting to the right places. There seems to be a MediaWiki template that would well go together with the Research template. A friend of mine tries to find it.
All together it seems best to follow fate: go slow, make mistakes and hopefully then find a better way!
Reinder/Demotech

Great plan. I look forward to feedback. It will be a lot of work, but we have some techniques that make it easier. Here is a link to the entire topic category structure of Appropedia. -Lonny 02:25, 1 June 2007 (PDT)

Gender

I know very little how these kinds of sites work, and can't figure out how to make this suggestion otherwise: I'd like to see Gender as one of the categories under Culture and Community, if not its own listing under the main topics-areas listing.

Hi Jayne,
Thank you for your great suggestion. I responded on your talk page. Thank you, --Lonny 22:10, 13 July 2007 (PDT)

stats for GEM_mosquito_control

Hi Lonny,

Georgedappilly had a question about stats for GEM_mosquito_control:

By the way is it possible to get any details about those who visit the page. So far 714 visits are there!

Cheers --Chriswaterguy · talk 03:10, 22 July 2007 (PDT)

Actually I'd like to know how to access this for pages in general. Just noticed that Washing and drying clothes has had 1256 page views, which isn't bad, and I'd be interested to know where people have come from, so we can learn from it.

I also just noticed that my user page is 10th most viewed on the stats page, no doubt because I use it in my signature on blogs and other sites. I'll have to put more effort into giving people links when they arrive there. --Chriswaterguy · talk 05:50, 22 July 2007 (PDT)

Mandatos y Preguntas

¿Porqué no tienes un foto nuevo en tu pagina? Mas importante, ¿¡¿Porqué no hay un spell check en Appropedia?!? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 12:04, 29 July 2007, Waterfaery72

Gracias para tus dudas. Voy a hacer un nuevo foto para mi pagina muy pronto. Y para spell check, I suggest using the excellent web-browser Firefox. Here is a portable version (will work on a thumb drive) and here is a install version, both will spell check inside of Appropedia. --Lonny 12:29, 29 July 2007 (PDT)


Muy pronto, mis nalgas!

Kiva, Kivapedia and microfinance

Hey Lonny,

I've been looking around trying to get a feel for how I could best contribute to Appropedia. I'm not an expert in any of the fields covered here, just a fan who likes to edit wikis. :-) In terms of Kiva, etc., I made a few simple edits to test out the connections. They work great.

As far as articles go, there doesn't seem to be much here related to microfinance. You also seem to uses categories like that one as main articles. :-) So I was wondering, do you approve of "importing" Wikipedia articles with trans-wiki links? If that's okay, I would be willing to add "Kiva" and "microfinance" articles. Also, do you add articles about related wikis? If it's a yes on that, I also could start a little something about Kivapedia.

As another "connections" idea, people in the Kiva Friends community often send Kiva gift certificates to folks, e.g., Gift Certificate to Celebrities to get the microlending ball rolling in a new area. If you know of a sizable group of folks here or elsewhere, and they would be willing to form a "lender group," I would be willing to bankroll the "first" loan (a whopping $25! ;-) if the group finds a way to match it. Then we could add "Appropedians for Kiva" (or whatever) to the List of Kiva Group Lenders! ;-) Regards, RichardF 14:25, 1 August 2007 (PDT)

Hi Richard - haven't responded to your comment on my talk page yet and I'm busy at Wikimania, so I'll take the liberty of make some quick comments here on Lonny's talk page.
  • We use the {{Wikipedia}} template to link to encyclopedic content, rather than duplicating it here.
  • We would love more content on microfinance, and Kiva. My friend from the Grameen Foundation (Australia) has told me good things about Kiva.
  • We did have a policy of using categories as topic articles - I think we agreed to change the policy a while ago but haven't carried it out yet.
  • I see no problem adding stuff about Kivapedia - we like to interlink where appropriate, and in some cases have merged (e.g. with WikiGreen.org) where we were covering the same ground. It may be that the WikiNode is the best place to add that info, but that's not a hard and fast rule.
  • Welcome to Appropedia! --Chriswaterguy · talk 21:12, 1 August 2007 (PDT)
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