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How to make Appropedia most relevant

In the interest of making Appropedia most relevant to content providers and developers, I'm thinking about ways to make Appropedia more attractive to content users. What will increase the likelihood that the Appropedia content will actually get used? That leads naturally to the "who actually is our customer" discussion.

I see the potential user community as being largely made up of "doers" who are relative non-experts in the technologies and methods documented here. For example, volunteers or volunteer organizers, like Nabuur or World Volunteer Web, wanting to build schools or provide clean water and sanitation, etc, in support of Millennium Development Goals, etc.

What kind of information are these people looking for? I would be guessing (I bet Lonny and Singkong can answer this better), but I have these suspicions:

  • What are the appropriate technologies for building construction (or water purification, etc) in a particular region?
  • How would I choose between the various options that are regionally appropriate?

I think another useful tool would be for an interested user to "request" some content. As a provider, I think it would be compelling to add my content if someone had already specifically asked for it. --Curtbeckmann 07:17, 26 September 2006 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Developing course notes - Wikibooks and Appropedia

I'd like us to work out a demarcation between Wikibooks and Appropedia, to ensure efficient collaboration (and maximum cooperation with people from outside Appropedia.

I'm referring to Curricula, mentioned at the Community portal - I think that just as the best place for encyclopedic material is Wikipedia, the best place for developing course notes is in Wikibooks, the Wikimedia project for developing textbooks, and Wikiversity for developing university curricula.

However, there are some additional comments:

  • If something doesn't fit at Wikibooks for some reason of course we can accept it here, e.g.
    • information about a specific course
    • notes taken by someone in a course
  • Any relevant material at Wikibooks can be linked from the relevant page here.
  • We should have a page here listing relevant Wikibooks and Wikiversity courses (which will fit in Category:Internet resources).

Those are my initial thoughts... --Singkong2005 (now known as Chriswaterguy) talk 23:07, 5 August 2006 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Update:
  1. Wikiversity is now launched, with its own domain name.
  2. OpenCourseWare is an exciting development, with institutions such as MIT releasing their course notes under an open licence. See [1]. If HSU goes the same way, it should get added to the OCW Finder (instructions near the bottom of that page).
--Singkong2005 (now known as Chriswaterguy) talk 01:03, 20 August 2006 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Comment and question: I changed the first Wikiversity reference to point to the new domain (not sure the exact policy there), and I'm curious why some external links (like the OCW Finder above) don't appear as external links...?
Curtbeckmann 06:41, 12 September 2006 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I don't have a problem in this case... where there's a significant change, it's better to make changes at the end - but fixing a broken link or outdated link as you did is the right thing to do I think.
Re external links: have you set your preferences to a different skin? OCW Finder has the little arrow thing after it (denoting external links) when I view it in the standard skin; in the Cologne Blue skin it displays as a green link, which again means it's an external link.
Yes, I have again stayed up ridiculously late. My excuse is that I've been talking with someone about Bangladesh, education, public health and such things and it was all very interesting. Good night. --Singkong2005 (now known as Chriswaterguy) talk 10:11, 12 September 2006 (UTC)Reply[reply]
See the Scratchpad for some work I've done on a draft education page. --Singkong2005 (now known as Chriswaterguy) · talk 19:25, 10 November 2006 (UTC)Reply[reply]

singularizing categories

I'm inclined towards the Wikipedia practice of making category names plural - after all, it's a number of articles, so it seems logical. (The only problem I see is that "Theses" may be a little confusing to anyone who isn't a well-educated native speaker - so I would like to see an alternative to theses.)

Anyhow, just mentioning it - not something I'll make a fuss about. --Singkong2005 (now known as Chriswaterguy) · talk 21:22, 11 October 2006 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hi Singkong2005 (now known as Chriswaterguy), Do you still feel that categories should be pluralized? I am interested in comming to some consensus on the standard. In addition, I feel that we have two different types of categories to discuss - Areas and Topics. I feel that topic categories should definitely be singular, since many do not have regular plural forms (unless the topic noun is adjectized and a new noun is added), e.g. Cobb could not be Cobbs (although it could be Cobb buildings). Areas, such as Program vs Programs, seems to be a tougher, more open, question. What do you think? --Lonny 21:54, 31 October 2006 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Yes, this is still my feeling... and yes, this would only be relevant only be relevant to nouns with a different plural form. Programs seems the right choice to me, as there are multiple programs in that category. As you rightly point out, a category such as Cobb or Solar would not have an s added. I hope that isn't making it too complex - it makes sense to me, but I do want it to be intuitive for readers and editors.
I just looked up Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Naming conventions (categories) - I don't have time to figure it out now, but it does mention singular nouns being used sometimes, as well:
Note that there are a growing number of instances where both the singular category (listing topics relating to) and plural category (listing instances of) exist, for example, Category:Opera and Category:Operas. Be careful to choose the right one when categorizing articles.
Something I just noticed, FWIW, is that categories in Wikipedia seem to be always nouns, e.g. Wikipedia:Category:Solar energy, not Category:Solar. --Singkong2005 (now known as Chriswaterguy) · talk 05:34, 1 November 2006 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Any more thoughts on this?
Once we resolve category naming issue, we should create a "category redirect" template, a kind of notice that says "There should be no items in this category", and make a policy of not using normal redirects from category pages. It's a problem at the moment, for example, where Category:Projects is a redirect, but contains two pages, which are consequently not in the singularized version, Category:Projects. --Singkong2005 (now known as Chriswaterguy) · talk 06:06, 25 November 2006 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Have we resolved the singular/plural discussion? I still feel that we have many Topic categories that could only be pluralized if we appended a "techniques", "implementations" or "products". See Category_talk:Topic/Draft_of_metatopic_structure for some examples of both singular and plural topic categories. How should we proceed? --Lonny 09:56, 19 December 2006 (UTC)Reply[reply]
As I see it, the next step was for me to articulate a draft category naming policy with lots of examples. In short, though, I think we all agree. Countable nouns would get the plural, assuming there is one. Others would get the "natural" form. What that translates to is, we look at all our categories, and pretty much "add an 's'" where that makes sense. We listed a number of categories where pluralizing didn't make sense to any of us. Curiously, I think that if we each attempted to name all the categories independently, following a "natural choice" policy, I bet we'd all choose the same names, with the possible exception of the "thesis" category. The major challenge is articulating that policy so that someone else will also choose the right names.
Anyway, I thought next step was me articulating a draft naming policy. If/when we get agreement, then we get busy making changes, while at the same time rolling out the updated Topic (or Topics :-) categorization policy, which will likely also resolve at the same time. --CurtB 17:03, 19 December 2006 (UTC)Reply[reply]
That was my understanding, too. Another way to see it is that being plural only changes the form of countable nouns. So, however many examples there are of "Biomimicry", it's still "Biomimicry" with no "s". --Singkong2005 (now known as Chriswaterguy) · talk 04:55, 20 December 2006 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Please review and comment on my draft category naming guidelines at: User talk:Curtbeckmann/Category naming (which will obviously move when we reach consensus). Thanks, --CurtB 10:20, 20 December 2006 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Archiving

Suggested archiving policy: Whenever old material is removed from a talk page, it should be moved to an archive (e.g. Talk:Main Page/Archive) - even if the question is resolved, it may have some value as a reference.

Edited to update the archive header. --Chriswaterguy 22:32, 22 January 2010 (UTC) I've created an {{archive header}} template, which looks is used in this way:Reply[reply]

E.g. {{archive header|Talk:Arcata Marsh}}

The {{archive header}} template should be placed at the top of archive pages.

Protection: A policy question - should archived pages be protected to avoid new comments being added? I've seen this done on Wikiversity. My inclination is not to protect the pages, but just encourage the use of the current talk page, as in the template above. Sometimes someone might want to add a very small comment, and will not do so if they have to start a new comment on the current page. At least on the archived page it will still have some value. --Singkong2005 (now known as Chriswaterguy) · talk 19:25, 16 October 2006 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Great work on the archiving, Singkong. Thanks for setting it up. I think that we can leave them unprotected for now, especially considering the text in the template stating that it is an archive and posting to it will not attract much attention. If it becomes a problem though, I am not opposed to protected pages. --ATSysop 18:59, 17 October 2006 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Email this user?

I tried to use the "email this user" link, but didn't work for you. I guess you haven't provided a valid email address :-) Not sure if it works for me. I mention it since it somewhat undermines one of the "benefits of registering" that we articulated... I suspect it depends on what profile stuff we entered when we created our login... and leads to another thought (man, why do I pull on these threads?) that we could have some suggestions (or even a weaker noun, like "thoughts") about what to include in one's profile and user page. --Curtbeckmann 18:23, 17 October 2006 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Bummer. I will work on this. --ATSysop 18:59, 17 October 2006 (UTC)Reply[reply]

What's with the red "!"

Apparently now that I've got admin rights, all "recent changes" have a red "!" next to them. What does it signify? Is there some action I need to take? Thanks in advance. --Curtbeckmann 18:23, 17 October 2006 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I don't think that this is set up here yet, but this is the answer: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Patrolled_edit --ATSysop 18:59, 17 October 2006 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Either you fixed it, or it already worked. I hadn't previously noticed the "mark as patrolled" link when viewing diffs. I clicked it, and the red "!" went away for that change. In case you don't know what I'm talking about, click on a "diff" next to a recent change.
On a related topic, I notice in my "preferences" that I can select "mark my edits as patrolled". Assuming that this is only available to Admins, then we Admins should all check that box, in which case only the "ordinary humans" (like Lonny, but not ATsysop?) will be marked "!". I'll go check that box now :-) Certainly admins are human and can make typos, but presumably we're not spammers. --Curtbeckmann 19:10, 17 October 2006 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Yet another edit now that I have set the "mark my edits as patrolled" box... --Curtbeckmann 19:11, 17 October 2006 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Well spotted - have changed my prefs. Non-admins are usually not spammers too, but might be less familiar with wikis and with this site, and thus more likely to need checking of their edits, in case their formatting & categorization needs adjusting, for example. --Singkong2005 (now known as Chriswaterguy) · talk 22:03, 17 October 2006 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Linking to Wikipedia & other wikis

We have these templates for linking to Wikipedia:

  • {{Wikipedia}}, which links to the Wikipedia page on PAGENAME
  • {{Wikipedia p}}, used as {{Wikipedia p|foo}} to link to the Wikipedia article on "Foo."

Now, when adding links to other wikis at the end of a page, I'm inclined to say we should:

  • put them in the "See also" section, not "External links," reflecting the fact that we complement and integrate with other wikis, esp Wikipedia; also that we're the same kind of site, part of the "wikisphere."
  • Not use the templates above (too bulky when there's a list); rather we should say something like:

However, our policy should be along the lines of:

When linking to Wikipedia articles, it should be made clear that these are from that wiki and not Appropedia.
Links to other wikis should be placed in "See also" rather than "External links"


It is more difficult for inline links. Perhaps the text can be left plain (not wikilinked) and the {{Wikipedia p}} link can be put near it? Still not a satisfying solution though. --Singkong2005 (now known as Chriswaterguy) · talk 17:46, 24 October 2006 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Why wouldn't we just use the standard interwiki link such as [[wikipedia:Main page]] to create wikipedia:Greywater? This seems to make it clear that it is a link to Greywater at Wikipedia. --Lonny 23:27, 24 October 2006 (UTC)Reply[reply]
We could do, though for inline links, they are part of a sentence, so the "Wikipedia" sticks out, breaks the flow, and could be confusing.
But certainly in bulleted lists, "Hand pump at Wikipedia" (using a piped link to look neater) could be dropped in favor of "Wikipedia:Hand pump". I have a bit of a negative reaction to the appearance, but that's minor, and it's easier and clearer.
If we decide on a standard for capitalization of such links, (e.g. Wikipedia: not wikipedia:) that makes it look a bit less raw and haphazard, so resolves part of the aesthetic concern.
Any thoughts on interwiki links going in "See also" rather than "External links"? --Singkong2005 (now known as Chriswaterguy) · talk 17:31, 26 October 2006 (UTC)Reply[reply]
How about a template for inline interwiki links, with a small WP (for Wikipedia) occurring after the link text? Here's my effort: {{WP}}... for example:
Jock Brandiswikipedia developed the Malian peanut shellerwikipedia."
I think it's an improvement over:
wikipedia:Jock Brandis developed the wikipedia:Malian peanut sheller.
(But of course improvements welcomed.) Are you open to a policy of using this template for all Wikipedia links?
It would be easy to create equivalent templates for any other wikis that we regularly create inline links to, though I don't expect there will be any other such wiki... we would usually link them in the links section at the bottom.) --Singkong2005 (now known as Chriswaterguy) · talk 02:51, 11 November 2006 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Update: {{WP}} is now deprecated, and I've used "subst:" on the above examples, to avoid having anything using this template which may get deleted.
Common practice now is to use {{w}} (check instructions before use). --Chriswaterguy 11:51, 14 March 2012 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Permission for copying information

It would be a good idea to have a policy for copyright permission granted by other authors. I don't expect problems, but it's best to be safe, avoid confusion, and also to have a record of who stated that they owned the copyright and allowed Appropedia to use it.

I suggest Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Requesting copyright permission as a starting point. It seems a little involved and we may wish to simplify it a little (as I think we can assume a reasonable amount of good faith on the part of people we're dealing with). However, it shouldn't be too hard if at least there's a couple of admins (I suggest Curt & myself) who familiarize ourselves with the procedures, and make an effort to see that it is always done properly. --Singkong2005 (now known as Chriswaterguy) · talk 02:39, 9 November 2006 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Puzzlement

Is the redirection of Appropedia:Policy to this page a temporary thing? I would expect (and it was my plan) that the Policy page would hold text describing our policies (when we have firmed up that text) in the same way that Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Policy (after a redirect) tells you about policies, and not about discussions of polices. --CurtB 22:39, 10 November 2006 (UTC)Reply[reply]

You're right - I've changed it to a redirect to Appropedia:Ruleset (until there is other material to put on Appropedia:Policy). --Singkong2005 (now known as Chriswaterguy) · talk 00:53, 11 November 2006 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Exclusion of political activity

As part of exploration of nonprofit filing, it is clear that Appropedia does not want to participate in any political activity. Consequently we will need some policies about this. Presumably this is implied in Wikipedia's NPOV, which is not copied verbatim by Appropedia. I mention this because I haven't seen explicit exclusion of political activity at Wikipedia (though maybe I missed it), whereas I'm sure we will want to do it here. --CurtB 13:12, 22 November 2006 (UTC)Reply[reply]

At Wikipedia, overt activism in editing is seen as a violation of NPOV - I think that's the main thing. The move away from political userboxes in the Wikipedia namespace is another thing worth noting - it was dealt with using the German solution of moving them to the userspace, as subpages of individual editors.
I agree we need a policy. Of course I'm sure no one here wants to stifle discussion of relevant political issues, and that's another reason we need to have a clear policy of what's good and acceptable, what should be transwikied to another wiki, and what should be discouraged outright. --Singkong2005 (now known as Chriswaterguy) · talk 19:57, 22 November 2006 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Lots of redirects (I'm assuming that's a good thing)

I just want to explain why I make so many redirects.

I've been following a philosophy of making redirects where I think they'll be helpful, e.g.

Now, having a lot of redirects does clutter up the Special:Allpages page. However, most people won't navigate this way (especially if we maintain the categorization structure) so I don't think that's a big problem. I don't think it affects the {{NUMBEROFARTICLES}} function (which appears not count redirects).

Anyway, if that's how I've been doing it, but of course if people have other ideas, I'm open to that. --Singkong2005 (now known as Chriswaterguy) · talk 15:25, 13 December 2006 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Redlinks

Should redlinks be turned into stubs, if it only consists of a {{Wikipedia}} box? E.g. Microcredit, at present. I can see the reasoning, but a near empty stub won't show up in Special:Wanted pages so it's more easily overlooked than a redlink.

But rather than the redlink, it's probably better to just link to Wikipedia using {{WP}}. I'd originally left microcredit as a redlink here, as a prompt for myself or others to add material on microcredit, but I'm now less keen on this - the {{WP}} style link will do the job as well, plus provide a useful, direct link. --Singkong2005 (now known as Chriswaterguy) · talk 05:07, 14 December 2006 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Don't use season names in categories

Categories such as Category:Spring 2006, describing the March-May period, only make intuitive sense for those north of the tropics, not for those in the tropics or the southern hemisphere. I'll add a note to Help:Categorization. --Singkong2005 (now known as Chriswaterguy) · talk 17:29, 26 December 2006 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Wow, what egocentrism. I think I had added the seasons based on the U.S. University semesters. Next, I will start advising that all solar panels should be installed facing south. Sorry. This lattitudism has been corrected. Thank you. --Lonny 23:56, 28 December 2006 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Policies for Appropedia:Policy

I think we're getting close to some policy content. Not quite there, but it's looming. Anyway, I'd like to "threaten" a policy page as a way to move things a little faster (decided to mostly skip snide comment here). Having policies that are "in flux" makes the site seem "half baked" (and that's a moderately valid perception when there are so many that are in flux).

  1. Porting policy
    • This seems ready in the sense that we (mostly me) now have a policy that we follow. And yet, a certain amount of dissatisfaction is perceptible in the Appropedia space.
  2. Categorization policy
    • This is actually multiple policies, which all appear to be approaching closure.
      • Topic structure
      • Area structure
      • Category naming policy (singular v plural, season names)
  3. Spam policy
    • This is not so much a policy as a process, but by articulating a "spam policy" we can then make comments like "such content will be treated as spam".
  4. Deletion policy
    • Similar to "spam policy" and yet not quite.
  5. Archive policy
    • This is written somewhere, could / should add
  6. Portal policy
  7. Merging policy?
    • This may be more in the mission / vision area...
  8. Stub policy
  9. Category page content policy
    • Are empty or near empty category pages stubs? That is, are category pages supposed to have content?
  10. Redirect policy
    • We "shouldn't" allow Category pages to be redirects, IMHO, due to the special nature of category pages.
    • Otherwise, numerous redirects are fine. (Though learning about navigation patterns may alter MHO.)
  11. Political expression
    • Independent of POV/NPOV considerations, political expression can endanger the (future) nonprofit status of the Appropedia parent company. Without being specific, I think it helps to articulate that "POV" is okay until it crosses the comfort threshold of the founder / BoD, at which time deletion may occur. The very articulation of this probably makes deletion less likely, but also easier if/when it's necessary.

Enough for now... --CurtB 16:08, 1 January 2007 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Looks good.
Only one quibble: "until it crosses the comfort threshold of the founder" sounds too subjective - clear guidelines are better IMO. I think I expressed my basic idea in a recent email to you and Lonny, which I'll copy here:
  • topic pages are not the place for POV material, whether religious or political. We may need to clarify POV if we ever find ourselves dealing with people who simply insist that their belief is truth, not opinion. I've known Christians, Muslims and Trotskyites who might fall in this category, though most of them wouldn't be enthusiastic contributors to a wiki like Appropedia.
  • user pages have few limits to freedom of expression.
  • we are considering other types of pages or sections (essay? opinion? comment?)
  • organization pages should describe an organization and its beliefs, but this normally does not mean making a strong argument for those beliefs. If those beliefs are directly related to development or sustainability issues, these can be made respectfully elsewhere on Appropedia (in a relevant comment/essay). Where the beliefs are not directly related, e.g. religious beliefs, then arguments for those beliefs are not appropriate for Appropedia, but may be linked from the organization page. At this stage, users are free to use their talk pages to describe their beliefs, but we encourage discretion. For users for whom such beliefs are important and who wish to mention them, you might wish to consider following the same policy as organizations, describing your beliefs briefly and linking as appropriate.
I don't know what the issues are re non-profit status, but I'd rather start off with the policy a bit too loose, rather than too tight. We can adjust later if needed.
About writing policies - I presume the approach is to do them on separate pages and add them to Category:Appropedia policies?
Keep up the good work, and the gentle prodding. ;. --Singkong2005 (now known as Chriswaterguy) · talk 01:18, 2 January 2007 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Hi Chris. My quibble with your quibble: I'd rather be a bit restrictive on the political side of POV due to the non-profit constraints (which I don't have handy as I type this).
Perhaps you could write the proposed policy, specifically quoting the relevant non-profit legal requirements? Until that time I don't think I can comment intelligently. Things might be different in the USA, but I'm fairly sure there's no such restriction on Australian non-profits, so I need to know more about the issues for Appropedia.
I'd be much happier if we were setting POV policy purely on the basis of what's best for Appropedia - however, I presume that we need to get registered as a non-profit in the USA for donors to get tax exemptions, so I'm certainly open to the idea of compromise on that point, presuming it doesn't restrict the ability of Appropedia pages to openly and civilly discuss alternative government policies on climate change, for example. --Singkong2005 (now known as Chriswaterguy) · talk 17:58, 3 January 2007 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Other parts of POV I don't have a problem with. Ultimately, most of the policies comes down to judgment, and I was merely making explicit one of the few "limits to freedom" that you refer to. Yep, it's arbitrary, and it also seems 100% accurate. Perhaps it can be articulated more in line with the non-profit political expression language, and still leave it to the judgment of the founder. Have you seen the stuff at Wikipedia that says "disputes will be resolved by Jimbo Wales" (or something similar)?
That's a last resort, if I remember correctly - in general the community deals with it, and he only steps in if things are really problematic. It doesn't replace clear guidelines, and cases where Jimbo steps in are likely to be followed by appropriate changes to policy, I presume. That's not a perfect solution, but pretty good, and I'd be cool with a similar approach here. --Singkong2005 (now known as Chriswaterguy) · talk 17:58, 3 January 2007 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I think we're on the same page. I'm amused by your wording above about "what's best for Appropedia". Guaranteeing non-profit status seems best to me, but I get your point. In any case, I will find the relevant wording (except that I'll probably be quoting from a popular book on the subject, and not actual California or Federal law) and write that into a proposed policy. I think (but will need to check) that policy discussions are safe as long as you don't advocate a particular candidate by name or a particular Proposition. Also, the wording is that it must not be a substantial part of what you do. Lot of judgment there, of course, and so my sense was that if we gently discourge political (but not policy) speech, we just won't get much. If someone creates a political advocacy page and we don't notice, we're probably safe, but with an anti-political advocacy policy in place, we're better off, plus can in good conscience remove the content if necessary.
By the way, there is already the "don't diss da man" rule on the ruleset. Is that a clear guideline? I'm figuring on something more clear. Actually, I think we're aligned when the wording comes out. --CurtB 18:10, 3 January 2007 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Overall, if this very-slightly-restrictive policy on the expression of political speech is enough to offend someone, I have my doubts about their alignment with Appropedia generally.
On of the things that got me puzzling on this was the addition of the DeLi Linux page. Did you look at it? Not sure it has any use here, but also didn't know what our policy would be for that page. Delete? On what basis?
I've responded at Talk:DeLi Linux and added a note to the page (and suggested changing it to a redirect, later. To me, it looks resolved now, but feel free to consider it unresolved ;). --Singkong2005 (now known as Chriswaterguy) · talk 17:58, 3 January 2007 (UTC)Reply[reply]
As for policy pages, I had originally pictured a single page with a bunch of policies on it. I had not realized until looking at "Recent changes" that we even had a policy category (*sheepish look*). Went and viewed that, and figured that was your plan. (Seems like Appropedia:Policy should redirect to the category?)
Sounds fair. --Singkong2005 (now known as Chriswaterguy) · talk 17:58, 3 January 2007 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I didn't read this section of this page till now. Separate pages are probably better, and I'll hack up some proposed policies in the near future.
By the way, I notice that the (rather stale) Appropedia:About Appropedia page is categorized in as policy, but (newer) Appropedia:About is not... It makes a certain amount of sense, I suppose, since the newer page is not much about policy... On the other hand, the older page is out of sync with our policies... If it has much of value, I'm not sure what it is. Maybe there is some archive option for that page... --CurtB 14:11, 2 January 2007 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Perhaps archive it, then merge with Appropedia:About, moving useful bits, deleting the rest and making a redirect to Appropedia:About Appropedia. --Singkong2005 (now known as Chriswaterguy) · talk 17:58, 3 January 2007 (UTC)Reply[reply]


Translations

When I was attempting to translate some articles into German I got confused about language policies and their application. The (proposed) Languages policy clearly states that articles translated into a language other than English should imply this by a Wikimedia-like prefix for the Language. Its talk page even suggests adding such a prefix to translated category names. The translation guide does not say anything about prefixes but emphasizes the use of templates. Most of the already translated articles I've seen so far rather seem to follow the guide's convention and reject the policy.

I've done my first translation trying to follow the policy. This raised a few points which perhaps explain why people don't follow the policy:

  • Where does the prefix go when there are already namespaces preceeding the name?

It intuitively seems to make more sense to have the language prefix as the first namespace like ln:nspace:page This approach should work pretty well for the help section. The categories namespace could be fixed with some effort. But I don't see how this could be expanded to Template or even Special (maybe not necessary). Since namespaces should also be translated it seems strange to prefix only the last word, the page name.

  • How should categories be translated?

First of all I couldn't figure out if the discussion about category naming guidelines hat been settled or not. Should categories be always plural or singular, etc? It doesn't make much sense to translate the category name for the translated page but don't translate the category name for the category the page's category is residing in. If all Categoried upwards are translated why not just add the language prefix to the categories residing in Fundamental and Appropedia and skip the prefixes for all categories inside?

  • Language prefixes don't look very nice.


Maybe these thoughts help to elaborate a clarification of the policy. But first of all I would like to get a few translations done. Therefore I ask: should I try to follow the policy or go with the de-facto convention of just translating the page and its name and leave it next to the original page integrating it in a parallel language structure through a language category ? --reichnil Reichnil 17:49, 2 July 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Thanks for spotting that inconsistency! The prefix format was a proposal by me - it's not an approved policy, and it's not being followed, so feel free to ignore it.
Hopefully we'll have separate sub-domains before long, so it will all be work much more logically.
Thanks also for your translating work here! --Chriswaterguy 07:43, 3 July 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

neutrality, respect and religious views

I recognise that a large portion of humanity considers itself religious and/or spiritual. It is clear that religion can and does play a significant role in shaping the values and practices of communities.

In light of this it follows naturally that religion is a topic that can be very relevant to Appropedia. Where a religious perspective is key to an article (e.g. a certain practice is not possible due to a religious custom) this will add knowledge and increase understanding. General remarks that do not increase understanding or make an article more accessible probably do not have much of a place in Appropedia.

How do you feel about this? Please note that while I have occasionally used and recommended Appropedia, I am really quite new and only just registered.

--Moaltmann 12:45, 15 January 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]

This is a great question. I think there is definitely a place for some religion-related content, if it relates to the main topics covered by this website. Some example topics I'd welcome: the Pope's recent encyclical on climate change, the recent statement by Muslim scholars on climate change, environmentalism in the Neo-Pagan community, a report of a Baptist missionary group's well-building project in Uganda, a report of a Jewish group building a food forest on synagogue grounds, or documentation of a permaculture redesign of a New Age retreat center. The only existing page I know of along these lines is Dharmahouse community project. The highly personal/subjective topic area that has been dealt with here is politics. Once again, it seems to be fine to deal with these topics as long as they're sustainability-related. Another guideline is to make sure that it's not written proscriptively (telling people what to do). That's generally frowned upon, even on otherwise non-controversial subjects.

TL;DR: There should be room for religion-related content, just make sure not to step on anyone's toes. --Ethan (talk) 17:43, 25 October 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Page naming: plural nouns?

What do we think about page names for generic topics (ex: chickens, photovoltaics)? It seems to be the preference to use a plural noun, but I don't see that explicitly stated at Help:Page naming. Shall we make it (semi-)official policy? Personally I don't have a preference for singular or plural, but I do want a consistent site-wide convention. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ethan, 26 October 2015

I had suggested plural naming for Appropedia - I thought it made more sense here. And that seems to have mostly stuck, but it never became a guideline or policy. I'd like to see a guideline or policy - I'm open to discussion on which it should be, but it's not a big issue either way. Thanks!--Chriswaterguy (talk) 22:18, 25 October 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]
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