Editing User talk:RichardF

== New Vector skin, and "move" tab ==

I'm liking the current state of Vector. I'd strongly prefer "move" to be one of the main tabs, rather than hidden away, but overall, your version of Vector is much better looking than current default, and has a bit of adifferent feel to Wikipedia. Not sure if there's anything else we need before going live with it - I'll ping Lonny. --[[User:Chriswaterguy|Chriswaterguy]] 23:01, 1 February 2012 (PST)

:As far as I can tell, the [[Mw:Extension:Vector|Vector extension]] that [https://www.appropedia.org/w/index.php?title=Appropedia%3AVillage_pump&action=historysubmit&diff=198650&oldid=198614 Tahnok mentioned] at Village Pump is necessary to [[User talk:RichardF/vector.css|uncollapse the move tab]] and get the search box (upper-right corner) to look cuter. Old browsers just don't look as fancy, e.g., no shadows, but they still work. The changeover could happen any time. It just would be fewer visible default skin changes if the Vector extension were added and tested first. --[[User:RichardF|RichardF]] 09:38, 2 February 2012 (PST)

::Thanks for looking into this. I'll ask Danny B ([[wikipedia:cz:User:Danny B.]]) how he would do it, and CC you on the email. --[[User:Chriswaterguy|Chriswaterguy]] 16:08, 3 February 2012 (PST)

:::Jason has been having problems getting the social media links (facebook and google +) and google translate to work on vector. Richard, do you have any ideas on how to do it. Chris, can you ask Danny B? It would be great to do it using the common.js like they did [http://offene-naturfuehrer.de/w/index.php?action=historysubmit&diff=33865&oldid=33600 here], and include google translate and a style that matches our skin. thanks, --[[User:Lonny|Lonny]] 00:12, 6 February 2012 (PST)

::::[https://www.appropedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:RichardF/vector.css&curid=39130&diff=199955&oldid=199729 Danny fixed the "Move" tab]! I have no idea about the social media stuff. Oh, Danny?...:-) --[[User:RichardF|RichardF]] 05:39, 6 February 2012 (PST)

{{Undent}}

Thanks Danny for fixing the Move tab! I'm also in favor of some other changes - once we have screenshots we could ask people on [[Appropedia:VP]] & social media what they think:

* Having the Watch and Delete in the open. I guess I ''personally'' prefer clutter at the top to relying on the drop-down menu - I'd be happy to see the menu kept, but with clear options/instructions for someone like me.
* Removing "Read" as it's a duplicate of one of the tabs on the left. (Perhaps there is a good reason for it, and I'm sure it's been discussed at length on Wikipedia, but no time to check that now.)
* Having the drop-down menu marked as "Tools" or something like that. The current inverted triangle doesn't catch the eye at all.

I'll also ask Danny B. to give his opinion here on these suggestions. Not meaning to rush you - this just seemed like the best place to put down my thoughts. --[[User:Chriswaterguy|Chriswaterguy]] 21:47, 20 February 2012 (PST)

Another minor skin issue (just putting it here so they're all together): The new skin displays a link to http://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl.html but with the display text "CC-BY-SA" - this needs to be removed. It's actually in the current default skin's source code as well, but doesn't display for some reason. --[[User:Chriswaterguy|Chriswaterguy]] 08:43, 29 February 2012 (PST)

:When I log out, I see the "CC-BY-SA" link on the extreme left side of the footer. --[[User:RichardF|RichardF]] 13:50, 2 March 2012 (PST)

::Well spotted. Does anyone know what causes that? --[[User:Chriswaterguy|Chriswaterguy]] 00:23, 3 March 2012 (PST)

:::I think this is defined in this bit of css code: div id="f-copyrightico"

:::I don't know how to access the css, files but this should be easy to change. What do you want it to say? [[User:Joeturner|Joeturner]] 02:13, 11 March 2013 (PDT)

::::My understanding is that an image, like the ones for MediaWiki and Semantic MediaWiki, is missing. I don't know what it looks like or where to find it. --[[User:RichardF|RichardF]] 05:16, 11 March 2013 (PDT)

:::::You mean like this? http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by/2.0/uk/88x31.png from here http://creativecommons.org/choose/ [[User:Joeturner|Joeturner]] 05:22, 11 March 2013 (PDT)

::::::Your guess is as good as mine. I don't know what the "SA" means in "CC-BY-SA" and that link is differnet than the one for it (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl.html). --[[User:RichardF|RichardF]] 05:27, 11 March 2013 (PDT)

:::::::According to [[Appropedia:Copyrights]], "Unless otherwise specified, all material is under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 [http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ (CC-BY-SA-3.0)]." I still can't find an image that would fit that little box. Maybe that's why it's empty.:-) --[[User:RichardF|RichardF]] 13:05, 11 March 2013 (PDT)

::::::::Found it! [http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ CC licenses] [http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-sa/3.0/88x31.png CC-BY-SA image] Now, the next thing I don't know is where to put it. It's not in the skins. I think it's in the main code somewhere. Joe, are you willing to ask Lonny or someone who knows about such things to track it down?:-) --[[User:RichardF|RichardF]] 13:17, 11 March 2013 (PDT)
:::::::::well, I'm reasonably sure it is in the css. If I can find the css files, I can probably find it. [[User:Joeturner|Joeturner]] 13:20, 11 March 2013 (PDT)

::::::::::Are you referring to [[MediaWiki:Common.css]]? If not, I'm stumped. --[[User:RichardF|RichardF]] 13:24, 11 March 2013 (PDT)
:::::::::::it should be in the folder in which the wiki lives, unlikely to be a page of the wiki. The code says it is in the file /skins/monobook/main.css. I'll ask Lonny. [[User:Joeturner|Joeturner]] 13:37, 11 March 2013 (PDT)

::::::::::::Okay, sounds like a plan. Thanks! --[[User:RichardF|RichardF]] 13:42, 11 March 2013 (PDT)

:::::::::::::Phew. I think I fixed it from within the localsettings (with this simple missing code <tt>$wgRightsIcon = "{$wgStylePath}/common/images/cc-by-sa.png";</tt>). Please let me know if it doesn't fix it for you. Thanks, --[[User:Lonny|Lonny]] 20:13, 13 March 2013 (PDT)

::::::::::::::Woo-Hoo!!! Now, ''everything'' is ''perfect'' on this site!!! So, when did you say you were going to convert over to a new version with just a few bugs left to fix? ;-) --[[User:RichardF|RichardF]] 20:29, 13 March 2013 (PDT)

:::::::::::::::Ha! I hear you. I promise to let you know when the dev site is ready for QA testing! Thanks, --[[User:Lonny|Lonny]] 20:32, 13 March 2013 (PDT)

== Sanitation portal ==

Hope you've had a great new year.

Kili & I have been talking (in the recent [[Appropedia:Appropedia Jam]] and [[User talk:Chriswaterguy #Question about water and sanitation categories/areas|here]]) with [[User:Joeturner]], who's keen to do something with sanitation info on Appropedia. Would you be interested in using your wiki magic at some point to create a [[Portal:Sanitation]] or a [[Portal:WASH]] (water, sanitation and hygiene)? (Very long term we could aim to have both, but one would be great for now.)

I think Joe would be able to offer suggestions if you had questions about content or structure, and of course I'm happy to help as well. Thanks. --[[User:Chriswaterguy|Chriswaterguy]] 22:16, 26 January 2013 (PST)

:Hi Chris. See [[Talk:WASH#Working WASH outline]] for my take on this discussion.:-) [[User:RichardF|RichardF]] 18:43, 9 February 2013 (PST)

== Announcements and horizontal line ==

I've squeezed in two announcements at [[Welcome to Appropedia/Announcements]] - see if you think that works.

I couldn't figure out how to elegantly separate the two announcements though - I used a horizontal line, but wanted to make it a partial width, centerd divider - maybe a thin grey line. I reckon you probably have an idea though:) --[[User:Chriswaterguy|Chriswaterguy]] 20:58, 20 February 2013 (PST)

:Hi. Those divs are always goofy, but I "tricked" it into making [https://www.appropedia.org/w/index.php?title=Welcome_to_Appropedia/Announcements&oldid=231303 a 90% centered, divider line] by putting it inside the centered section above it. [[User:RichardF|RichardF]] 19:50, 21 February 2013 (PST)

That's excellent - thank you. --[[User:Chriswaterguy|Chriswaterguy]] 04:15, 25 February 2013 (PST)

== Portal:Permaculture ==

Hi RichardF,

I started [[Portal:Permaculture]] as a series of links for now - we'll be getting some steady traffic to that site starting in a week or so (prominent link from Permies.com/forums) so I wanted to have something useful there.

If you're inspired to work your magic sometime, that would be cool. We don't have a lot of permaculture info just yet, but we're working on importing a dump from an old permaculture wiki (a hundred pages or so).

And of course all those other topics that I linked are relevant to permaculture - so it could reuse a bunch of the highlighted content from the other portals that I listed there on [[Portal:Permaculture]].

On a related note, this one could be moved to energy and/or permaculture - currently in transport: [[Portal:Transport/Selected project/4]]. --[[User:Chriswaterguy|Chriswaterguy]] 04:15, 25 February 2013 (PST)

:Hi Chris, As you've noticed, I'm really not much of a contributor these days and I don't expect that to be changing in the foreseeable future. I'll do what I can on weekends, but it might take a while. --[[User:RichardF|RichardF]] 07:49, 25 February 2013 (PST)

::The basic structure is in place. Please let me know what other content you want added. --[[User:RichardF|RichardF]] 15:15, 2 March 2013 (PST)

== Praise ==

Good work. Gold star. [[User:Joeturner|Joeturner]] 08:04, 8 March 2013 (PST)

Thanks. And thanks for pointing me in the right direction!:-) --[[User:RichardF|RichardF]] 08:14, 8 March 2013 (PST)

== random code ==

The code you originally posted had two extra }} - the code you most recently put on Chris' talk page was missing them, and, I think, is correct. [[User:Joeturner|Joeturner]] 12:34, 8 March 2013 (PST)

:That's fine. It probably was sloppy copying the first time. I confirmed the next copy in a sandbox. --[[User:RichardF|RichardF]] 14:13, 8 March 2013 (PST)

== FWD book ==

Sorry, my mistake. I can't identify things from that book. [[User:Joeturner|Joeturner]] 09:57, 11 March 2013 (PDT)

:Yeah, the easiest way to check for them is with [[Book:The Future We Deserve]]. Release the cat/article herding bot!!!:-) --[[User:RichardF|RichardF]] 10:01, 11 March 2013 (PDT)

:: Also note that all the pages have {{Tl|TheFWD_header}}. Which is currently a blank header (I think for previous printing purposes maybe), but could also have the category in the template. Thanks, --[[User:Lonny|Lonny]] 20:11, 13 March 2013 (PDT)

:::Apparently not. When I looked at older versions, the template only contained [[:Category:Navigation templates]]. It's a good thing Joe was on the case...as usual!:-) --[[User:RichardF|RichardF]] 20:38, 13 March 2013 (PDT)

::::Oops... I meant we could add the category to it. But either way, glad that Joe was on the case! Thanks, --[[User:Lonny|Lonny]] 20:41, 13 March 2013 (PDT)

:::::Yeah, maybe we shouldn't tell Joe that part quite yet. ;-) --[[User:RichardF|RichardF]] 20:43, 13 March 2013 (PDT)

== Daily News ==

Do you understand how User555's page will work? It seems to be something which will generate new pages for every day of the year. Is that really what we want? Is the election of the Pope really suitable material for a page on Appropedia? Maybe I'm missing a whole chunk of understanding about how this is going to work.. [[User:Joeturner|Joeturner]] 09:38, 15 March 2013 (PDT)

:I think he's trying to copy some version of [[Wikipedia:Portal:Current events]]. I see no real value for that here. --[[User:RichardF|RichardF]] 09:51, 15 March 2013 (PDT)

:: I agree, it looks like it will only generate many pages of worthless content, and it isn't even clear that there wouldn't need to be someone manually adding pages. I strongly suggest User555 should stop doing this immediately. [[User:Joeturner|Joeturner]] 09:55, 15 March 2013 (PDT)

:::Given the "be bold" culture here, I see that as being above my pay grade. If you want to discuss it with Lonny, I'm fine with that. I certainly will oppose any implementation of it outside of the incubator. --[[User:RichardF|RichardF]] 10:00, 15 March 2013 (PDT)

:::Thanks guys. Agreed that this doesn't show any prospect of being useful. I've asked User555 to stop adding templates and pages from Wikipedia until we understand what the purpose is. [[Appropedia:BOLD]] is why I wasn't more adamant, sooner, but if it's creating work for others without adding value (or without a serious effort to explain to confused Appropedians what's going on), it needs to stop. --[[User:Chriswaterguy|Chriswaterguy]] 01:52, 20 March 2013 (PDT)

== Wiki blog ==

After struggling to [http://blogs.appropedia.org/ blog], I now think a "Wiki blog" is probably the appropriate technology for sharing announcements and ideas on Appropedia:-).

I'm thinking of something that:

* looks a bit like the [https://blog.wikimedia.org/ Wikimedia Foundation blog] (although that's actually WordPress)
* is modeled, in terms of templates, transcluded posts, comments, subpage tree structure etc, on the [[Wikipedia:WP:Wikipedia Signpost|Wikipedia Signpost]]. The actual presentation of it as a periodical is very nice, but we could revisit that model later, if we have enough content.
* is located at [[Appropedia:Blog]]

Thoughts? This should be much easier than portals, but your wiki fu would still be of tremendous assistance:-).

I don't have any posts yet, but I was just working on a [[User:Chriswaterguy/Blog/Licensing for Open Source Appropriate Technology|draft]]. Future drafts could go under [[Appropedia:Blog/Drafts]], to encourage collaborative editing. --[[User:Chriswaterguy|Chriswaterguy]] 02:03, 20 March 2013 (PDT)

:I'm not particularly familiar with the structural differences between wikis and blogs, so I'm sure [[Wikipedia:WP:Wikipedia Signpost|Wikipedia Signpost]] would be the best model to emulate. Who knows how much infrastructure we would have to import and maintain manually, but I'm sure there would be a ramp up needed. We also would have to transition a feed here and there (maybe 2 ;-) and figure out how to best automatically (if possible) keep them up to date. Other than that... sure, why not?! --[[User:RichardF|RichardF]] 10:13, 20 March 2013 (PDT):-)

:Also, can you say a little more about why you believe the blog isn't working and why switching to a wiki blog will fix it? --[[User:RichardF|RichardF]] 19:26, 21 March 2013 (PDT)
::I think the point is the collaborative effort on Wikipedia Signpost is not easily replicated on the Appropedia blog, which is more like a single person's writing that others discuss. I'm not sure it helps so much to think of signpost as a blog, it is more like a newspaper which is editable. [[User:Joeturner|Joeturner]] 02:01, 22 March 2013 (PDT)

:::I agree the Signpost is a newspaper rather than a blog. My question to Chris more pointedly is about what does he want, a newspaper or a blog? Beyond that, we've had a number of discussions around community and somehow expanding the functionality of our topical discussions beyond the capabilities of Appropedia discussion pages like the Village Pump.

:::Beyond the "wiki blog (newspaper?)" model, [[Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Community portal]] really is the top-level model for community building on a wiki that also happens to include a newspaper. So, again, my question back to Chris boils down to is the current blog situation that much of a technical issue or really more of an intent and design issue?:-) --[[User:RichardF|RichardF]] 14:24, 22 March 2013 (PDT)

{{Undent}}

 Thanks for the replies, fellas.

Richard: "My question to Chris more pointedly is about what does he want, a newspaper or a blog?"

A newspaper is a more interesting model, I think - a newspaper model can include blog-style pieces, but also gives space for news bites. A newspaper/zine could also be sent out as an email newsletter.

But my main concern is how to make this a shared effort. Even if (hypothetically) we wanted the blog format, I'd rather move it to the wiki. As Joe touched on, our blog software isn't the right tool for collaborative effort like this - a blog must be overseen by someone (or some limited group of people) and expresses their point of view. I'd rather open it up because (a) I think we can do better with a community effort to make an engaging publication, and (b) I want to allow the awesomeness of Appropedians to shine more easily.

So - technically, I think the Wikipedia Signpost is pretty good. Not as nice to navigate as a blog, perhaps, so we could think about whether we want an alternative way of viewing the articles, that presents them in a blog-style format. Some usability testing is called for - see how people find navigating the Wikipedia Signpost.

Does that make sense? --[[User:Chriswaterguy|Chriswaterguy]] 01:47, 7 April 2013 (PDT)

::Okay, thanks. That give me a better idea about intent, which I don't find surprising. ;-) My next question gets more to design - features and elements. Do you have any particular elements you do or don't want from the [[Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost|Signpost]] / [[Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Community portal|Community portal]] design? --[[User:RichardF|RichardF]] 05:05, 7 April 2013 (PDT)

"This should be much easier than portals..." -- Chris
:Actually, the more I look at The Signpost, the more complex it gets. It's a periodical with topical departments. Structurally, it has lots of technically interwoven elements. Administratively, it has lots of managers and contributors. I really don't see anything on Appropedia that could keep up with this design. Can you say a little bit more about what you actually want to implement here? --[[User:RichardF|RichardF]] 17:25, 7 April 2013 (PDT)

:Errr... busy getting ready for a trip. Will need to think on this. Briefly: I don't think it needs to be particularly complex. Maybe each edition could be one page, linking to a number of articles. Those articles might be semi-protected, with transcluded comments (like the Signpost). --[[User:Chriswaterguy|Chriswaterguy]] 06:40, 9 April 2013 (PDT)

::Here's the [[Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Signpost/Single|one-page Signpost]]. Here's [[Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2013-04-01/WikiProject report|a single Signpost article]]. Even at its simplest, implementing a wiki blog/newsletter still poses lots of design questions. To me, the most critical questions revolve around how much content about what topics should be generated how frequently? Given answers to questions like those, I expect we can adapt whatever [[Wikipedia:Category:Wikipedia Signpost|Signpost structural elements]] remain relevant to our purposes. --[[User:RichardF|RichardF]] 08:42, 9 April 2013 (PDT)

I just stumbled across the [http://www.ecoreality.org/wiki/Newsletter:20120523 EcoReality Newsletter] from [[User:Jan Steinman|Jan Steinman]]'s page. Somehow, ''every'' page there has a "Share your opinion" section at the bottom!:-) --[[User:RichardF|RichardF]] 09:40, 17 April 2013 (PDT)

== new cats? ==

This is possibly a silly question, but I'll ask it anyway. I don't understand the value of the categories created by your list pages. For example, do we really need both [[:Category:Agricultural soil science]] and [[:Category:Soil science]]? Some of these cats only have your list pages in them.. [[User:Joeturner|Joeturner]] 10:58, 27 March 2013 (PDT)

:Hi. Those lists are part of serveral approaches I've used in attempts to clean up the Appropedia hi-level classification system over the years. You can see several possible ways various systems are related at [[User:RichardF#Contents]]. On those lists, the categories come from Wikipedia. I often use that structure to test for and link categories here. Your examples probably are overkill here. My aim is to strengthen Appropedia's [[Wikipedia:faceted classification|faceted classification]] system so that readers can more easily find articles from multiple and relevent perspectives. If you want to get rid of one of those categories ([[:Category:Agricultural soil science]]), that's fine with me. However, I prefer to keep at least one. --[[User:RichardF|RichardF]] 11:14, 27 March 2013 (PDT)
:: I'd keep the Soil Science cat and lose the other too. There are a good number of pages which should be in it. I was just giving this as an example, however. [[User:Joeturner|Joeturner]] 11:33, 27 March 2013 (PDT)

:::Works for me. Combine as you see fit.:-) --[[User:RichardF|RichardF]] 12:11, 27 March 2013 (PDT)

== glossaries ==

Can you work your wiki magic on [[Fruits]]? I think we could essentially park the vast majority of fruit, vegetable, herb and other things in glossaries, there are a few useful pages but the majority can be just a line in a glossary. [[Fruits]] might be a good place to start because the info is already arranged in glossary format, just needs wiki-links plus a line about each one. [[User:Joeturner|Joeturner]] 08:14, 18 April 2013 (PDT)

:Done! Sure, there's a start. Let the cleanup begin!:-) --[[User:RichardF|RichardF]] 08:41, 18 April 2013 (PDT)
::Just me, or should that page be called fruit rather than fruits? [[User:Joeturner|Joeturner]] 08:44, 18 April 2013 (PDT)

:::? That's a big debate Chris and others keep having. I prefer the Wikipedia singular page style. For some reason, which I don't get, others around here prefer plurals. --[[User:RichardF|RichardF]] 08:49, 18 April 2013 (PDT)

:::After further review, [[Fruits]] actually is from [[Wikipedia:List of fruits]]. Maybe that's why the "Fruits" article is a list.:-) --[[User:RichardF|RichardF]] 16:43, 18 April 2013 (PDT)

== cleanup [[AT Sourcebook]] ==

Here's another source of lots of small-content pages: [[AT Sourcebook]]. A bibliography was started, but this appears to have mostly been about creating pages with single lines of text. Seems to me they could all be on a single page bibliography and delete a lot of pages. Not entirely sure of the best way to do this, but can't be so difficult, can it? [[User:Joeturner|Joeturner]]

:What I would do is move the related site pages to subpages under section subpages. <!--{{List subpages|AT Sourcebook|}}--> The subpages then can be categorized as [[:Category:AT Sourcebook subpages]]. That way, the pages can be managed at multiple levels - Sourcebook, section, page - and it's clear they are part of a larger Sourcebook article structure. That's the basic way I manage [[:Category:Portal subpages|Portal subpages]]. --[[User:RichardF|RichardF]] 11:15, 19 April 2013 (PDT)

:Expanded sections are at [[AT Sourcebook/Local Self-Reliance]] and [[AT Sourcebook/Forestry]]. --[[User:RichardF|RichardF]] 19:46, 19 April 2013 (PDT)

:[[AT Sourcebook/Local Self-Reliance]] shows an example with two long pages with intro transcluded. [[AT Sourcebook/Forestry]] shows an example with virtually every entry transcluded, most of them short. All of the short pages probably could be put only in the section subpage. They still should be linked from the main page to show more info is available. Something like <nowiki><span id="reference name"></span></nowiki> should be used on the subpage to make the main page link work. --[[User:RichardF|RichardF]] 07:32, 20 April 2013 (PDT)

:I just tested the id method and it works.
:*[[AT Sourcebook/Forestry#Agroforestry Species: A Crop Sheets Manual|Agroforestry Species: A Crop Sheets Manual]]
:That means we could move short content to a section subpage, link to its id from the main page and delete the original page (after bypassing any redirects, changing links). Longer pages (except original) still could be moved to subpages with only the basics transcluded to the section subpages. --[[User:RichardF|RichardF]] 07:44, 20 April 2013 (PDT)

Next question: Is this thing worth all the effort?!:-) --[[User:RichardF|RichardF]] 07:49, 20 April 2013 (PDT)

:After trying both transcluding and copying references to section subpages, my answer is it's worth it only if each reference is moved to its own subpage and then transcluded to its section subpage. Otherwise, the subpage will be virtually unreadable and uneditable. The three-level system used in portals seems to be the best approach to use here as well. It still will be a lot of work. --[[User:RichardF|RichardF]] 08:26, 20 April 2013 (PDT)

::Thanks Richard and Joe - I've long wondered how to handle these bibliographic pages, and I really like the subpage structure as a solution.
:::Thanks. Until I hear otherwise, I'll assume this is the preferred structural design for bibliographies - a three-level, portal-like transcluded page hierarchy. Are there any other "main" pages that also should use this type of structure? --[[User:RichardF|RichardF]] 07:17, 25 April 2013 (PDT)

::If there's a desire to delete some of these pages, Joshua Pearce needs to be in that discussion. I'm undecided whether deletion is the best approach.
:::I'll contact Josh if I continue to work on it. As noted [[User talk:RichardF#Redirects|below]], I don't consider all moved pages to be redirectworthy. ;-) I also would recommend to Josh we design a layout page like we do for portal sections. That would make adding more citations much easier and more consistent. --[[User:RichardF|RichardF]] 07:17, 25 April 2013 (PDT)

::Another thought - if someone wants to edit a page with transclusions in it, how can we guide them? Instructions in hidden comments perhaps, but that's a clunky hack.
::One approach would be to use a variant of {{Tl|list subpages}} - it could be made to look better, but it only shows the page title. A version could be made to include the actual pages - somewhat like you're doing now. Question is, would that make for simpler code on the page, so that an editor can see what's going on?
:::These pages are very much like portal sections. Those types of guidelines could be added to talk pages. This structure also has a design element used in a new glossary structure, like at [[Glossary of sustainability terms]]. Linking to a specific item that is not a heading can be accomplished with the use of the id tag. I offer some basic guidance about that at [[Talk:Glossary of sustainability terms#Linking directly to glossary terms with the id tag]]. --[[User:RichardF|RichardF]] 07:17, 25 April 2013 (PDT)

::Anyhoo, it's looking good - thanks. --[[User:Chriswaterguy|Chriswaterguy]] 00:38, 25 April 2013 (PDT)
:::Woo-Hoo!:-) If you really want to go crazy over all of this type of stuff, I'm the one who designed the basic contents navigation page structure currently on Wikipedia. Whe you go to [[Wikipedia:Portal:Contents]], you see two rows of navbars across the top. The first row is a group of navigation pages by type. The second row is a group of navigation pages by topic. The layouts for these pages are at [[Wikipedia:Portal:Contents/Types layout]] and [[Wikipedia:Portal:Contents/Topics layout]]. We're starting to organize two more types of contents pages, glossaries and bibliographies. We already have a number of portals. I've ported over various versions of [[User:RichardF#Lists|lists]]. Is there much interest in doing the work it would take to add any more of these types of infrastructure? --[[User:RichardF|RichardF]] 07:17, 25 April 2013 (PDT)

:::I'm not sure I've totally followed what Richard said above, but it sounds like a lot of work to me to do properly - and I'm not sure whether we have really answered the question of whether it is really worth the effort (in this or in similar cases). From what I understand above, the number of individual pages remains the same, but with an additional page with them merged together. I don't really understand why we can't just cut'n'paste the content into separate sections of a smaller number of pages. Surely the end result would be a smaller number than what you're suggesting above, Richard? [[User:Joeturner|Joeturner]] 07:11, 25 April 2013 (PDT)
::::If we used two levels instead of three, the reader would basically see the same things at (for example) [[AT Sourcebook#Forestry]] (Level 1) and its [[AT Sourcebook/Forestry|View expanded section]] (Level 2). The difference would be no Level 3 links to individual citations. If this were done, no problem stopping at Level 2. The problems beging when I start working with Josh to train his students how to add ''new'' citations! ;-) If we set up a layout page with individual citation pages, then production ''has a chance'' to succeed moving forward. Trying to update this bibliography at two levels ''guarantees'' failure IMHO. If the updating's over, then its a moot point and let's just copy stuff over and lock it up. If we see a future for this type of page, then three level is much more manageable, just like for portals and [[Wikipedia:Portal:Contents|contents pages]]. --[[User:RichardF|RichardF]] 07:35, 25 April 2013 (PDT)
:::::Ah ok, I was assuming that there wouldn't be additional citations being added by a class (so, at best, the odd additional edit). I can see what you are saying makes more sense in a class editing situation. [[User:Joeturner|Joeturner]] 07:54, 25 April 2013 (PDT)
::::::Obviously, more being done on this is just an assumption on my part. But it's just as obvious the sourcebook is substantially incomplete. At some point, we'll get Josh to weigh in. ;-) --[[User:RichardF|RichardF]] 08:05, 25 April 2013 (PDT)
:Hi All - great work on the AT Sourcebook. My original thinking when starting the appropedia version of it was to eventually wikify the entire thing. Many of the documents are public domain and I think there is value in making them living documents rather than just a storage of poorly scanned pdfs. I think what you have done with [[AT Sourcebook/Forestry]] is great and a lot cleaner than small pages with just a copy right notice and a link. Currently I am not teaching the kinds of courses where it would be appropriate to continue having students fill in the missing sections - but eventually I will (and there are of course many others). It would be great to have the articles/books tagged that are out of copyright tagged so others could start to port them over in the entirety. It would also be awesome to have " a layout page like we do for portal sections. That would make adding more citations much easier and more consistent." The AT Sourcebook itself I dont think will expand - but we are also far from finishing what is already outlined....Thanks --[[User:J.M.Pearce|Joshua]] 15:27, 25 April 2013 (PDT)
::Hi Joshua, sounds like a plan!:-) If you give me an outline of all the possibilities for a citation layout page, I'll put one together in a sandbox and we can refine it from there. When it's ready, I'll add it as a Sourcebook subpage and begin using it for the existing citations to get a feel for how it works. From there, we can decide how far we want to populate empty citation pages before they're likely to be used. And back to you, do you know of any other pages this arrangement or one like [[Glossary of sustainability terms]] would be useful? --[[User:RichardF|RichardF]] 16:52, 25 April 2013 (PDT)
::: This looks really good - and I think nice and logical -- the Sourcebook is probably the largest body of AT that should get ported over to Appropedia like this - eventually it would be nice to have a curated collection for each main subtopic. The Practical Action guides are the other big source - many of which have been ported already. Thanks again -- [[User:J.M.Pearce|Joshua]] 17:23, 28 April 2013 (PDT)

::::Okay, thanks. I'll start implementing the layout and update it as needed. I'll also take a look at the [[Practical Action/Pages to port]]. --[[User:RichardF|RichardF]] 17:45, 28 April 2013 (PDT)

== Redirects ==

Re [[Appropedia:Public domain content on Appropedia]] - thanks for moving it. For the redirect, what are your thoughts on a guideline? I generally only suppress them when moving an poor quality page out of mainspace to the incubator or userspace. I don't know how likely it is that someone has the page bookmarked, but that's one factor. A redirect also helps search engines deliver people to the new place.

I'm probably worrying too much about details... --[[User:Chriswaterguy|Chriswaterguy]] 00:26, 25 April 2013 (PDT)

:Hi, I expected you to comment on this.:-) What I do is check the "What links here" list. if it's empty, I don't redirect. If it's short, I change the source links and don't redirect. I haven't been checking the watching users note, e.g., "[4 watching users]" for my user page. It seems spiders will find the new page just as easily as they found the old page, which I consider better. Obviously, my personal preference is to streamline the clutter and noise in Appropedia. I find redirects annoying and prefer to keep them to a minimum. If others want more, I'll stop doing what I described above. --[[User:RichardF|RichardF]] 06:27, 25 April 2013 (PDT)

::I didn't understand what Richard was saying when he suggested this before, but I now agree. Having lots of redirects seems to me to be a bit pointless (other than for pages which people are actually working on and/or kept for a short period to aid those who want to refer to them), given that they are just pages without content. Really old pages don't seem to me to have a need for redirects, given that the search engines and the Appropredia search box are going to list the content if someone is looking for it. [[User:Joeturner|Joeturner]] 07:17, 25 April 2013 (PDT)

:::Fair enough - I can get on board with that. Thanks --[[User:Chriswaterguy|Chriswaterguy]] 08:53, 25 April 2013 (PDT)

::::The "good" uses of redirects I support are as "shortcuts" to longer names (e.g., [[Videos]]), synonymous names (e.g., [[Appropedia:Internships]]) or common sense names to obscure names (e.g., [[Sustainable agriculture]]). --[[User:RichardF|RichardF]] 09:53, 25 April 2013 (PDT)

== wondering about the meaning of the statistics numbers ==

Hi Richard, interesting work on the stats. I was wondering whether you can clarify for me (possibly I'm missing the obvious) what the terms in the table mean?

Currently your sandbox3 page says the following: Pages: 40,554 · Files: 17,833 · Articles: 5,397 · Active users: 103

What exactly is a page? What is an article? What are the 35,000 pages that are not articles? I am also very curious about the 18k files. Do we know what these are? Presumably a small proportion are structural elements of appropedia, but are the rest mostly images? If so this seems to imply that we have more than 3 unique images per article (which seems unlikely to me, having read a lot of pages). I wonder if it is possible to tell how many of the files/images are unlinked to any page (in which case are presumably suitable for deletion). [[User:Joeturner|Joeturner]] 00:29, 20 May 2013 (PDT)

:I'd love to know how the "Articles" is calculated, as well. [[Special:Statistics]] has the numbers, but in the past, Lonny and Curt have said they thought the number of "Content pages" (currently 5,394) is probably too low, but I don't understand where that comes from.

:This leads me to saying that "We've got over 5000 pages" and others saying "We've got over 40,000 pages" and we probably should get our story straight:-). And I don't know that Richard is the person to demand answers from, but this is where it came up. (Maybe a question for #mediawiki on irc.freenode.net?) --[[User:Chriswaterguy|Chriswaterguy]] 04:26, 20 May 2013 (PDT)

::Glad it isn't just me then:) I found [http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Article_count this] from mediawiki -

::I'd be surprised if there were over 5,000 pages in the mainspace, although I guess this might include the pages associated with images. I don't think there is anything close to 40,000 useful pages. [[User:Joeturner|Joeturner]] 05:40, 20 May 2013 (PDT)

Hi Guys. A "page" is any wikipage in any namespace, including talk and file pages. My reference for namespaces is [[Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Namespace]]. You can see all Appropedia namespaces at various special pages, like [[Special:Search]]. An "article" is any page in Main/Article space ([http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Article_count minus any disclaimers Joe found]). That reference is [[Wikipedia:Wikipedia:What is an article?]]. A "file" is any uploaded file, whether, image, video, spreadsheet, PDF, or whatever. A file page links to the actual file. See [[Wikipedia:Help:Files]] for general stuff. [[Special:UnusedFiles]] shows all of them not used anywhere. I counted 3,324 unused files. You can go through all the Appropedia files at [https://www.appropedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3AAllPages&from=&to=&namespace=6 All pages (File namespace)] when you have some free time. ;-) --[[User:RichardF|RichardF]] 10:56, 20 May 2013 (PDT)

:Thanks Richard, that's interesting. A brief survey of the unused files suggests to me that a lot are from student projects which eventually decided not to use the image. In my view, they are a pretty major problem - because they presumably can be found by visitors/spammers, hence must be using up bandwidth every time they are loaded. For some it seems possible to me that appropredia is being used as a convenient free space to host images for other sites. I'd advocate removing them all - given it is going to be a major task to search through and try to identify what they all are for. For really old files, that is probably an impossible task anyway. Is it technically possible to put a notice on all the files in [[Special:UnusedFiles]] - perhaps alerting anyone following the pages that they are in danger of being removed?

:In my observation, once we take out orphan images/files, those which cannot be read and those which are obviously wrong, we're going to have a single-digit-thousand useful images. In terms of pages, there are large numbers which have no useful purpose, including all the pages for orphan files/images and talkpages for users who have never editted. I'd guess that more than 20,000 are like that. I'd think the article number is somewhere near the truth, although a good proportion of those are low quality. If we were to ruthlessly cull rubbish, I think we'd find there are somewhere around maybe 2 or 3,000 useful articles and 5,000 useful images. [[User:Joeturner|Joeturner]] 01:08, 21 May 2013 (PDT)

:Another thing is that the software seems to keep superceded images indefinitely. Is that absolutely necessary? Are these unused and very old versions counted somehwere? [[User:Joeturner|Joeturner]] 01:11, 21 May 2013 (PDT)

::I added, reverted and deleted a test file. The count never changed. As far as what to do about all this stuff, that sounds like a topic for the VP.:-) --[[User:RichardF|RichardF]] 13:59, 21 May 2013 (PDT)

== Landing page for Transitioners? ==

Hi Richard,

I recently spoke with Boris Woynowski from [http://wachstumswende.de/ Wachstumswende], a "degrowth" organization in Germany and connected across Europe; I also often talk with Donnie from the [http://web.archive.org/web/20210309041003/https://www.postgrowth.org/// Post Growth Institute] (they have a [http://www.facebook.com/postgrowth great FB page]) and we've also had contact with Rob Hopkins of the Transition Network; then there's Franz Nahrada in Vienna, connected to a lot of transition type people. These are all supportive of Appropedia. Boris just discovered us, but Donnie and Franz are active in telling people about us.

Now, I'm thinking about how to engage further with them and their communities. A landing page could also be good. Different from the typical topical portal, though, since they cover a range of issues, including community, alternative currencies, transport, liveable streets, edible landscaping, resilience, ending fossil fuel reliance... those are off the top of my head, but Wordle could help identify key topics. There's a lot of overlap in ideas and solutions between the degrowth/post-growth movements and transitioners, so I'm thinking that a single landing page is good, maybe a [[Portal:Transition]], but I may be wrong. What do you think?

(For the record I've often expressed doubt about the validity of the "post growth" terminology, but I realize that an imperfect name may be a good choice for communication purposes.)

On my side, I'm working on a "newsletter for diehard Appropedia supporters" idea. More on that soon. --[[User:Chriswaterguy|Chriswaterguy]] 04:48, 20 May 2013 (PDT)

:Hi Chris. I would say the [[Portal:Service learning|Service learning portal]] most closely represents the type of landing page you're envisioning. Service learning is a method of engagement that applies to any disciplinary topic. If the topics truly are unlimited as far as Appropedia goes, then we simply can borrow any elements of interest from the Main Page. The unique feature would be the intro, Things you can do, plus whatever anyone comes up with that actually has some content here. Let me know where you want to go from here.:-) --[[User:RichardF|RichardF]] 11:14, 20 May 2013 (PDT)

== Hey old friend ==

Hi Richard,

Things have been busy, but getting active again. How are you? --[[User:Chriswaterguy|Chriswaterguy]] ([[User talk:Chriswaterguy|talk]]) 22:47, 26 August 2014 (PDT)

Hello again! I love the "This year is: 92.3% complete" on this page. I'm copying it to my talk page. --[[User:Chriswaterguy|Chriswaterguy]] ([[User talk:Chriswaterguy|talk]]) 15:13, 30 November 2015 (PST)

:Howdy! Watch out for that complete year thing. I've noticed it tends to reset...a lot! ;-) --[[User:RichardF|RichardF]] ([[User talk:RichardF|talk]]) 05:09, 2 December 2015 (PST)

== Segapedia ==

:Richard, could you help me with my wiki called Segapedia? It is at [http://segapedia.shoutwiki.com Segapedia]. My user name is "Tiger Mum". [[User:Saftzie|<span style="color:magenta">Saftzie</span>]] ([[User talk:Saftzie|Message me!]]) 00:46, 23 April 2019 (PDT)

== Your 2021 impact stats are right here! ==

<div class="stats2021">
[[File:Let's recap.png|thumb|400px]]

Hi ! We thought you may want know that your top performing pages so far are:

# [[Appropriate technology]] (136 252 page views) {{Edit|Update!|Appropriate technology}}
# [[Control and treatment of bedbugs]] (62 049 page views) {{Edit|Update!|Control and treatment of bedbugs}}
# [[Glossary of sustainability terms]] (15 443 page views) {{Edit|Update!|Glossary of sustainability terms}}
# [[Sustainability]] (15 025 page views) {{Edit|Update!|Sustainability}}
# [[Green living]] (14 734 page views) {{Edit|Update!|Green living}}

Overall, your impact has been of '''298,814''' page views, woozaa!

Also, [[User:RichardF|your user page]] has received '''1688''' visits! People are interested in knowing more about you, {{Edit|edit your user page|User:RichardF}} to tell the world what you've been up to.

Thanks for your contributions and for making Appropedia great, have a merry [[green Christmas]]!!

[[Appropedia:About|The Appropedia Team]]
</div>