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 Millenium 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 (PDT)

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 talk 23:07, 5 August 2006 (PDT)

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 talk 01:03, 20 August 2006 (PDT)
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 (PDT)
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 talk 10:11, 12 September 2006 (PDT)

Encyclopedia content

I only just realised that {{Encyclopedic content}} and {{Wikipedia}}, ...were created by different people. So perhaps we still need to discuss how we deal with encyclopedia content. I like the idea of having something like {{Wikipedia}} on topic articles, with its message of "Look up X in Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." ...but we could perhaps change the wording to say Wikipedia has information on X. (I considered For encyclopedic information, see Wikipedia's article on X. - however, I suspect many people will misunderstand what is meant by "Encyclopedic" as that word can have a broader meaning.) --Singkong2005 talk 08:11, 10 August 2006 (PDT)

I have the feeling that we (by which I mean Chris :-) could propose some straightfoward and perfectly acceptable policy and close this... But I want to ask a clarifying question. When we say "see Wikipedia's article on X.", would that be a hyperlink to the article? I would assume yes, but perhaps there is a reason why not?
Okay, well, here's my proposal.

Appropedia's policy on encyclopedic content of significant size (over one or two sentences) is that it should be included by reference. That is, when there is relevant encyclopedic (i.e. Wikipedia) content available, that content should be referenced with a link. For example, (give example).

What if the content could be regarded as "encyclopedic" but is not on Wikipedia? I would suggest that it be included here for simplicity. There will always be some judgment about such things and will need to be resolved by concensus. In addition, some content will begin as non-encyclopedic and mature over time into encyclopedic info. So there needs to be a (slowish) process for migrating content from Appropedia to Wikipedia. Worry the details of that later.
I think the policy on this would be something like:
We encourage encyclopedic information to be placed at Wikipedia. If someone places it here, that's cool, but it should be moved to Wikipedia. If material is placed here and later becomes encyclopedic (because good references have been added, and/or it's been written), then that is very cool - this should also be moved to Wikipedia.
Note that it is always acceptable to use a brief explanations on Appropedia where this makes it easier for the reader.
Needs polishing, but does it sound reasonable? Perhaps we should slip the word "transwikiing in there somewhere. --Singkong2005 · talk 08:46, 10 October 2006 (PDT)
When we settle on a policy, what are the actions? Just change the template and Ruleset? --Curtbeckmann 22:40, 3 October 2006 (PDT)
I think that the {{Encyclopedic content}} may be close to unnecessary. I feel that a policy is emerging of topic-area categories having {{wikipedia}} placed on them, then containing value-added information. Wikipedia is for brief description based encylcopedic entries, and as I think Singkong2005 would tell you, we should contribute to wikipedia for this type of entry. Here at Appropedia, we can go much more indepth and include futher pages on lecture notes, projects, research, theses, organization, people, etc. It is probable that some wikipedia-like content will end up here, but only when it leads into more. In addition, it is possible that some things like lecture notes would be better placed at wikiversity and linked from here. I look forward to what Singkong2005 has to say, as this is his arena, see The Wiki Synergy Project. --Lonny 23:48, 3 October 2006 (PDT)
This sounds like we're in agreement about the practice, which is excellent. I think it doesn't hurt to have the policy spelt out (briefly) as suggested by Curt. This would be helpful for new people trying to figure out how things fit together. --Singkong2005 · talk 08:46, 10 October 2006 (PDT)
Curt: When we settle on a policy, I think it is just a matter of changing the relevant policy page, and doing whatever changes to templates etc are appropriate. As long as we reach consensus first, it's no problem. (I think we're pretty close to consensus here, but I'd like to get Lonny's feedback, esp on whether he's okay with expressing this stuff explicitly in policy.) --Singkong2005 · talk 08:54, 10 October 2006 (PDT)
I am ready for this to be expressed explicitly in a policy, but I am a little wary of it being posted in the Appropedia:Ruleset. My reasons for trepidation could be easily mitigated. My worry is that editors will remove contributions because they are too "encyclopedic". I would like to greatly encourage contributors to post brief encyclopedic wikipedia-type content to wikipedia, and more in-depth studies, explorations, models, formulae, etc. here. But at the same time I do not want to encourage any quick deletion of content because it is too "encyclopedic". Instead of having a atmosphere of strict adherence, I would rather foster a more open attitude, instead of, "that content does not belong here", I would rather, "let's find a place for that content, or a way to develop it further." I think that this can be stated along side a statement discouraging any braindrain or duplication from wikipedia. Sorry this is not succinct, does it make sense? --Lonny 23:30, 10 October 2006 (PDT)
Makes perfect sense. We just need to word it clearly, to say that we never just delete material etc. Perhaps the ruleset could refer to transwikiing (not using the word delete), and Appropedia:Transwikiing could explain what that means. --Singkong2005 · talk 21:28, 11 October 2006 (PDT)
If I understand right, we pretty much have the wording we want. It belongs in "Policy" instead of "Ruleset" because we don't want to be too legalistic. I'm going to remove the "encyclopedic" template from the 2 places it's used, and place the wording that Chris created onto the policy page (project page for this talk page). If everyone is in agreement, this discussion topic can probably be archived. Maybe Chris can help archive, or I'll have to grok the archive template/policy/process :-) --CurtB 17:51, 22 October 2006 (PDT)
Okay, when I made my last comment, I had the idea that there was an Appropedia:Policy page, but that does not exist. Actually, I thought it was the "project page" associated with this "policy discussion" page, which seems like the way it oughta be, but the project page has a redirect to this page. What's right? Create the "Policy" page, then move this page to the "Policy talk" page? Or (this seems weird) create a redirect from "Policy talk" to this page? I'll puzzle on that for a mo' (sleep on it). Replies welcome, but I'll just do something if I don't hear back. --CurtB 21:21, 22 October 2006 (PDT)

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 · talk 21:22, 11 October 2006 (PDT)

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.

I've created an {{archive}} template, which looks like this:


The {{archive}} 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 · talk 19:25, 16 October 2006 (PDT)

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 (PDT)

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 (PDT)

Bummer. I will work on this. --ATSysop 18:59, 17 October 2006 (PDT)

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 (PDT)

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 (PDT)
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 (PDT)
Yet another edit now that I have set the "mark my edits as patrolled" box... --Curtbeckmann 19:11, 17 October 2006 (PDT)
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 · talk 22:03, 17 October 2006 (PDT)

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 · talk 17:46, 24 October 2006 (PDT)

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 (PDT)
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