m (→‎Curt's second comments: tweaked formatting)
(→‎Land, materials and construction: changed to Materials and construction)
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===Biodiesel===
===Biodiesel===


=Land, materials and construction=
=Materials and construction=
==Natural capital==
==Natural capital==
==4Rs==
==4Rs==

Revision as of 22:44, 20 December 2006

Here are my 9 proposed top-level topic categories-
  1. Water
  2. Food
  3. Public health
  4. Culture and community
  5. Communication and information technology (maybe just "Information technology" or "Communication and information")
  6. Energy (notice not Power and Energy as energy implies both)
  7. Land, materials and construction
  8. Transportation (most debatable, could fit some under energy, some under culture and then just have a Transportation portal)
  9. Metaconcepts (these will mostly be concepts that are implicitly incorporated in many different pages. They will be mostly definitions, that are linked to inline from the text of other pages)
These 9 top-level categories are based on 8 basic human needs-
  1. Water
  2. Food
  3. Health
  4. Community
  5. Knowledge
  6. Energy
  7. Shelter
  8. Transportation (arguable)

An example category tree based on these 9 top-evel categories follows.

Please note that many subcategories will be in multiple higher categories.

Water

Water conservation

Rural water supply in _______

Greywater

Garden box

Planter box

Rainwater harvesting

Rooftop rainwater catchment

Stormwater catchment

Swails

Pumping

Hydraulic ram pumps

Solar pumps

Rope pumps

Hand pumps

Water quality

Water storage

Wells

Cysterns

Storage tanks

Ferrocement tanks

Plastic tanks

Wood tanks

Wastewater treatment

Primary wastewater treatment

Secondary wastewater treatment

Tertiary wastewater treatment

Physical wastewater treatment

Chemical wastewater treatment

Bilogical wastewater treatment

Constructed lagoons

Community scale wastewater treatment

Water sanitation

Filtration

Slow sand filtration

Distillation

Desalination

Solar desalination

Water transportation

Water jugs

Food

100 mile diet

Companion planting

Food preperation

Macrobiotics

Raw

Vegetarianism

Omnivorism

Food preserving

Canning

Dehydrating

Storing

Seed saving

Organic gardening

Double digging

Composting

Vermiculture

Pit compost

Spinning barrel compost

Agriculture

Crop rotation

Crop drying

Crop storage

Growing _______ in a ______ climate

Fertilization

Pest management

Aquaculture

Agroforestry

Biointensive gardening

Greenhouse

Pit greenhouse

Lean to greenhouse

Attached greenhouse

Freestanding greenhouse

Hoophouse

Animal husbandry

Chicken tractor

Animal health

Beekeeping

Public health

Pest control

Health care in _____

ORT

Cysts

Prevention and treatment of _____

Bacterias

Prevention and treatment of _____

Viruses

Prevention and treatment of _____

HIV

Sanitation

Hand washing

Pit latrine

Improved pit latrine

Humanure

Bucket composting toilet

Double vaulted composting toilets

(Many topics from water sanitation)

Septic tanks

Disabilities

Human dignity in public health

Refrigeration

Vaccine refrigeration

Food refrigeration

Health paradigms

Homeopathy

Aleopathy

Herbalism

Culture and community

Active citenzry

Collaborative meeting tools

Effective lobbying

Environmental justice

Multiculturalism

Builiding partnerships

Cities

Community organizing

Cooperatives

Intentional communities

Communes

Ecovillages

Social artistry

Male contraception

Banking

Microfinance

Triple bottom line

Sustainable accounting

Accounting practices

Decision making techniques

Pugh diagrams

Delphi method

Decision making structures

Hand clasp

Democratic

Consensus

Minority rule

Majority rule

Unanimity

Communication and information technology

Internet

Open source

GIS

Repeaters

Short wave radio

Wikis

Education

Service Learning

Teacher training

Curricullum development

Teaching materials

Computer based education

Education paradigms

Piaget

Montessori

International programs

Intereducation

Energy

Electrical energy

Batteries

Hydrogen fuel cells

Microcapicitors

Grid intertie

Photovoltaic power

Solar pumping

Solar vaccine refrigeration

Microhydro power

Wind power

Wave power

Pedal power

Heat

Cookstoves

Refrigeration

Thermodynamics

Solar thermal hotwater

Hydronic radiant floor heating

Insulation

Stawbale insulation

Fiber board insulation

Fiberglass insulation

Thermal mass

Passive solar design

Fuel

Biogas

Ethanol

Biodiesel

Materials and construction

Natural capital

4Rs

Supplies

Alternative materials

Lechugilla

Hemp

Bioplastic

Smartwood

Material science

Solid statics

Solid dynamics

Fluid dynamics

Bioremediation

Surveying

Compost

Alternative building

Bamboo

Papercrete

Cordwood

Earthship

Tires

Strawbale

Ferrocement

Living roof

Earthen construction

Adobe

Cobb

Bajareche

Earth bags

Earthen oven

Earthen plaster

Rammed earth

Wattle and daub

Stone and brick

Transportation

Greenbelts

Busses

Trains

Light rail

Bicycles

Recumbent

Rickshaw

Bicycle parking

Electric bicycles

Critical mass bike rides

Fuel

Multiple occupancy vehicles

Single occupancy vehicles

Rideshare

Metaconcepts

Poverty Reduction

International development

Appropriate technology

Sustainable development

Permaculture

Biomimicry

Natural capital

Triple bottom line

Comments

Place comments here.

Curt's first comments

Looks good. I see this mostly as a major tuning of categories, but not something strikingly different (except that perhaps placing the top 9 categories under fundamental might be called "striking"). Here are some random questions:

I am happy with whereever you would like to place those 9 top-level topic categories. --Lonny
  • Sort of a general question about singular/plural. I see a lot of plurals, but Earthen oven is singular. Perhaps "earthen oven" is a concept, and not just an object, and that could explain the singular. (This question is really with respect to category naming policy of course, and not category structure.)
Earthen ovens (plural) is great and we should change it. But as far as a plural/singular policy: I added some more comments at Appropedia talk:Policy discussion#singularizing categories. --Lonny
  • It's still okay for some subcategories to appear in multiple higher categories, right? Fuel, for example, seems to belong in Transportation as well as in Energy, especially if a fuel serves dual (or more) purposes.
Absolutely. Fuel is in both of those categories. (I did not place the subordinate subcategories of Fuel on the second instance in the outline above only to save redundancy, clearly Fuel has the same subcategories beneath it in both instances.)
  • Since the table representation or presentation seemed well received, presumably this could also be placed in a table format. Would that belong in the Fundamental category page?
Table format would be great, I love it. I acquiesce to wherever you feel it should be placed. My only need is that it is linked directly from the Navbar. I think Category:Topics, where it currently lives, is the best place for it. --Lonny

Gotta run. I'm sure to think up some more questions, but there's nothing really surprising about this to me. --CurtB 07:46, 19 December 2006 (PST)

Excellent. BTW I am very excited to also have a expanding subcategory structure, similar to that at Wikipedia, e.g. W--Lonny 10:06, 19 December 2006 (PST)

Curt's second comments

  • There is a threshold where category name length becomes painful to me. Consequently, I prefer "Information Technology" as the category name over the longer option.
  • I don't readily see the "land" connection...perhaps it's about "land use"? I can see Land as part of farming and agriculture..., but that would be under "Food". Where I'm going is that "Land, ... construction" is pushing my comfort zone on category name length, and I'm looking for a way to shorten the name, and "Land" doesn't fit naturally for me. Is "Land" a prominent enough category to participate in the name? I guess this is similar to me to the "refrigeration" topic. A useful category, but not really top level. (Having said all that, Lonny is going to give 12 examples of the importance of Land, and that's fine, I'll learn :-))

Sample table of category structure

Here is a table that talks about category framework a bit more, based on extensive exchanges Lonny and I have had via email. Since this is a structure comment, I'm not sweating the plural/singular decisions here.

cells below contain category pages cells below (under the headings) contain article pages
Cat:Topic(s)are below /// Areas are to the right Cat:Projects Cat:How tos Cat:Principles (?) Cat:Organizations
Cat:Water Cat:Rainwater
harvesting
Cat:Swails Portland example (empty) Beyond dams article Bob's swails
Cat:Rooftop
catchment
Ersson project Catchment how-to Beyond dams article George's gutters
Cat: Greywater Cat:Garden box (empty) Grey box how-to (empty)

In the table above, I propose the "Principles" area name for articles that are not quite Projects or How-tos. "Basics" seems too constraining, "Musings" seems too glib or lightweight for me. The need for this area category is not entirely clear yet, but if someone wants to see the list of such articles, it would be good to look here. We have several examples of such articles, like many from "Beyond Dams", as well as the "Power and energy basics" article.

How much content information belongs within Category pages themselves? Some are nearly empty, some have a lot of content. One view on the "principles" notion is that all that content could be placed in a category page. (Then the natural next question is, what about the principles of some subject that is too narrow to be a category?) My bias (just from my gut, without clear reasoning) is that Category pages should not have substantial content, except navigational content (like the table on the Topic page). What do others feel about this?

What are the benefits of placing the Topic category pages in Category:Topic? In part, if there are benefits, do we want to have a Category:Area that includes the area category pages? (The answer could easily be "no", since the Topic category pages are subject to much more growth than the Area category pages.)

What are the benefits to categorization generally? Are there more than those listed below?

  1. Navigation
    • especially for the topic categories
  2. Context
    • this benefit seems doubtful for me since category is very low profile, unless it is done through maintenance
  3. Maintenance
    • admins can sort thru groups of articles
  4. Intersections of categories (in future) seems like a very cool thing!

Enough for now... --CurtB 11:04, 20 December 2006 (PST)

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