Mark and Alison, I looks to me like Category:Alternative / Renewable Energy is actually a mistake done by a new member, who probably did not understand the idea of categories or what the Category namespace was. I agree that material with specific content is not what a category should be. I will move around the page when I have the time in the next week (I teach environmental scientist and just taught renewable energy this week!).
John <br/>http://www.wikieducator.org/User:JohnWS<br/>http://johnsearth.blogspot.com --- On Wed, 2/1/12, Alison Snieckus <[email protected]> wrote: From: Alison Snieckus <[email protected]> Subject: [WikiEducator] Category:Alternative / Renewable Energy To: [email protected] Date: Wednesday, February 1, 2012, 6:29 PM On Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 2:24 AM, Mark Roest <[email protected]> wrote: I just followed the link to the old discussion and the categories and content that were done around 2009. Under Category:Alternative / Renewable Energy, I found the following: In Solomon Islands you can find coconut everywhere ..." which led to a discussion of coconut biodiesel production and values. That was it for content. ... In summary, it is the intersection of challenge, eco-region / ecosystem, and culture that define which technologies and adaptations are sustainable and appropriate, so a categorizing system that follows this principle and uses visualization can, done well, reach the level of an affordance -- something that affords the user an unequivocally positive experience, intuitive, effective, effortless (relatively) and pleasant / elegant. Then there is nothing left but to fill in the bins with just the right options! Hi Mark, I completely agree with your email response describing how Category:Alternative / Renewable Energy is not effective as a category. In fact this particular page, in the Category namespace, offers specific content, which is not the intent of a category page. I believe that category pages should offer only an intro about the topic of the category and maybe a bit more about how pages and subcategories were/are added. See the category for WE's Math glossary as an example. I suggest that the content on the Category:Alternative / Renewable Energy be moved to a page specific to using coconuts to create bio-fuel. That page can then be added to the alternative/renewable energy category, as well as any others to which it applies (e.g., Solomon Islands?). I have only a cursory knowledge of this area; anyone have suggestions for what the page should be named? As to your suggestion for a more coherent category structure in this area, again, I agree with you. I believe that there are many aspects of WE's category structure which fail to encompass a topic fully. There is much work to do in this respect. Thank you for your thoughts as to the use of categories in WE generally, and in this specific instance. You are welcome to join our categories workgroup if you are interested to help with the big picture, and you are welcome to work to organize the materials related to alternative/renewable energy, more specifically to, as you say, afford a better experience for the user. AlisonUser:ASnieckus -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "WikiEducator" group. To visit wikieducator: http://www.wikieducator.org To visit the discussion forum: http://groups.google.com/group/wikieducator To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "WikiEducator" group. To visit wikieducator: http://www.wikieducator.org To visit the discussion forum: http://groups.google.com/group/wikieducator To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]
