User talk:Tom Sponheim

From Solar Cooking

Earlier discussions have been archived.

2007-02-20

[edit] Democratic Republic of the Congo

Strangeness with Democratic Republic of the Congo page: I made a slight change to Sylvain's input (removing the leading space so at least it wouldn't be in a box). I wasn't quite sure what to do with the links so I left them there. But I must have done this after you made your changes, based on an old copy (pre your changes). Once before I was editing a page at the same time as Walt, and the wiki warned me - said the page had been changed and I would have to merge my changes into the new version. But if it warned me this time, I missed it. Anyway, it's now back to your last version. I like the way you did the links on Sylvain Kimour Kalubi. Why not have them on Democratic Republic of the Congo also? They can go under Web pages --Beth Ogilvie 20:56, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Good idea I'll move some of them back to the DRC page. Tom Sponheim 22:29, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Forum link is gone

Have you changed the nav menu in the left frame? What file is this stuff in? I noticed because the Forum link, which I use many times a day, is now gone. -Beth

No, I haven't changed anything. It must be Wikia who changed it. Can you find out? Tom Sponheim 15:08, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Apparently MediaWiki has changed the default nav box. See MediaWiki:Sidebar's history for when it happened. I have changed it back to the previous version, and left a message on the central Wikia forum. There is already a reply, indicating it was some kind of bug - or at least a surprise to the Wikia staff also.

See http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Navigation_bar for nav bar formatting (very obscure). I have created Purge cache in case the Forum link doesn't pop up for you right away.

While browsing in the Wikia Fora, I came across Wikia:Forum:Links on the home page and added a plug for solar cooking at the end.

--Beth Ogilvie 17:43, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! Tom Sponheim 01:06, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Hello Tom! Today is the first time I try doing something useful here. I added a Public Domain licensing to the image Haybasket* 4.jpg. I hope this is all right with you. Brit from Norway 17:49, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Go Brit! One little suggestion: You could add a header above the note: ==Licensing Change== or something like that. Or you can use the + at the top of the page (next to edit on talk pages), which makes it easy to add a new topic. Walt just pointed this out to me. (Thank you, Walt :) Beth Ogilvie 18:18, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

It's great that you're joining us in setting all of this up. Det er bare fint at du blir med! Tom Sponheim 21:06, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Bravo, Brit! You are welcome, Beth. Tom, please check your email junk filter. I don't think you are getting my emails. Walter Siegmund 21:43, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Categories

Hi Tom; When you create a category, if you don't know what category it goes into, please place it in Category:Solar Cooking Wiki if it is content related, or Category:Browse if it is not. [[1] Walter Siegmund 00:02, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Move of userpage to article

Hi Tom; These edits look odd to me.

19:52, 17 March 2007 Tom Sponheim User talk:Kpdbmx moved to Talk:Niño a Niño (Better placement)
19:52, 17 March 2007 Tom Sponheim User:Kpdbmx moved to Niño a Niño (Better placement)

If User:Kpdbmx does anymore editing, she will find her userpage and user talk page redirected to the Niño a Niño article and discussion page and that may be confusing. I think it might be better, in this case, to move the userpage to the article, but not to move the talk page (leave the checkbox unchecked). Then, remove the redirect from the userpage. By so doing User:Kpdbmx will be usable (but blank), the welcome message will be on her talk page, and Niño a Niño will have the proper edit history. Also, the page that Beth made, Nino a Nino, can be redirected to Niño a Niño. Walter Siegmund 21:07, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! Good points. I'll remember that. Tom Sponheim 22:07, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm happy to help. By the way, User:Ashokraok looks similar to me, more of a biography than a user page. Walter Siegmund 15:55, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Feature article

Do you have any suggestions for next week's FA? Walter Siegmund 21:19, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bad image link

In late April, you added a link to a image that doesn't exist to Terre de la Paix. [2] Is it ok to delete it? Walter Siegmund 01:10, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Sure. Tom Sponheim 01:19, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 67.189.28.33

Did you mean to block 67.189.28.33? I didn't see any evidence of vandalism by that anon.[3] Nominations for next week's featured article are welcome. Walter Siegmund (talk) 04:48, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

You're right. I shouldn't have banned them. It has probably already expired or will soon. Thanks. Tom Sponheim 17:56, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Missing copyright information

The number of files without copyright information has grown to 76 since I last cleaned it out.[4] I won't have time to spend on it until fall, but please try to avoid adding to it, e.g., Image:Ravindra and Shobha Pardeshi.jpg. Thank you, Walter Siegmund (talk) 19:44, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

We have this in To do. Hopefully one of us will get to it. Thanks! Tom Sponheim 20:56, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Iridimi refuge camp

Iridimi refugee camp has been semiprotected since January.[5] Is it ok to remove semiprotection? It would not be normal on Wikipedia to leave an article semiprotected for a long period in the absence of continuous threat. Best wishes, Walter Siegmund (talk) 05:44, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I unprotected it. Thanks! Tom Sponheim 14:48, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] English Wikipedia deletions

Hi Tom; A couple of your image uploads were deleted from the English version of Wikipedia recently because they were licensed {{PD}} "for non-commercial use only". A couple of others are tagged {{PD}} that is now deprecated on enwiki.[6] {{PD-self}} and {{PD-author}} are acceptable licenses that may be appropriate.

This came to my attention because I am looking for pictures that could be used to illustrate the Valuable Images proposal at Wikimedia Commons.[7] I'm looking for an image, probably from one of Solar Cooking's featured articles, that has a license that would be acceptable for Commons, probably {{PD-author}}. I haven't found any that give the author and/or source of the image. Suggestions would be welcome.

I found one, Image:Mwamongu_water_source.jpg. Best wishes, Walter Siegmund (talk) 14:18, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] How did you get Google Analytics to work

I'm trying to get google analytics to work on my wiki www.bmet.wikia.com. But having no luck thanks Jandkcompton 18:49, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Have you talked to the Wikia people? When I setup google analytics on this wikia all I did was register with google and then pass the information on to the Wikia staff, who did all the work. It required a lower level access than we have. I'm not sure they're even supporting google analytics at the moment. A question on the Wikia Forum might be a good way to get started. Sorry not to be more helpful. --Beth Ogilvie 02:00, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Thank you from Andrew

Dear Tom,
Thank you very much for your message, and especially for your recognition of our work.
I continue the development of the French version of Wiki with pleasure.
Andrew Kotowski

[edit] Green.wikia

Hi There, I am working on a new wiki w:c:green and wanted to let you know that I copied introduction to solar cooking article and pointed all the links back to w:c:solarcooking. If you think there are any other places you should link to this wiki, please feel free to add. I also added this wiki to the "Related Communities Widget" on my Monaco skin Mediawiki:Monaco-related-communities angies (talk) 01:06, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Feedback appreciated

heya, I'm trying to have a discussion here but haven't had much luck. I'd like to hopefully get at least one person on the wiki to see what I have to say, and not just assume people won't have a problem with what I happen to think is good for the wiki d-: -User:PanSola^{(talk/history)} 21:28, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Main page adjustments

Hi Tom! Congratulations on your thriving wiki here -- you are getting a lot of visitors and building a very successful project!

As we mentioned in our sitenotice last week, we are announcing some changes to ad layouts at Wikia's New Style, which are necessary to support Wikia and Solar Cooking's ever-growing traffic.

One of the layout changes will involve some minor adjustments to your main page -- I've given them a trial run at Main Page/Temp, and the appearance is very close to what you have now. What do you think? Please feel free to make any other changes you'd like to the Temp page, and when you are satisfied you can transfer the code on the Temp page to the actual mainpage.

Please let me know if you have any questions or suggestions, I'm happy to help in any way that I can. — Catherine (talk) 19:09, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

The square box ad will appear in the upper right on most article pages. Very short pages will get no ads at all, and on pages where the box ad would push the whole page down, such as Meat Dishes, we will substitute a rectangular banner ad above the article instead. Only the main page will get both the banner and the box -- though we may be able to remove one or the other from the main page in the future, depending on the results we see from this change.

I apologize for the necessity here -- although ads support our free service, I know they aren't pleasant for anyone. Is there anything else I can answer or help with? — Catherine

(talk) 01:45, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Tom, are you ready to move the code from the Temp page to the main page, or are there any other changes you'd like to make first? Please let me know if there are any problems with moving forward.

Thanks again for all the hard work you and your friends are doing -- your pages look fantastic and the number is growing quickly -- would you be interested in having our PR department issue a press release to environmental outlets when you reach 1,000 articles? We can also feature your wiki in our internal spotlights displayed on our other 6,000+ wikis -- it looks like you already meet many of the criteria to earn a featured spot. I am looking forward to continuing to work with you! — Catherine

(talk) 13:45, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

We're not ready to switch the front page yet. We would like you to issue a press release and to highlight our wiki. It would be great to encourage some of the teens that are wasting their lives documenting imaginary worlds to work on our wiki so there is a tree or two left when they hit their 30s. If you come across any good candidates to help us, please let us know. Thanks. Tom Sponheim 16:55, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Thank you! It looks like the only criteria that needs to be met before we put you in the queue for a Spotlight is to add categories to the pages listed at Special:Uncategorizedpages.

I will certainly send interested users that I encounter your way, and I hope that the spotlights and press will attract some more. Maintaining the solar cooking content at Green Wikia will also help you to meet other editors interested in saving the ecosphere. The Green Wikia is the "central marketplace" for green ideas on Wikia, and will be receiving a lot of promotion from Wikia and Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales in the coming weeks and months, so it can be beneficial to make sure the solar cooking page there can serve as an up-to-date gateway to the more detailed information you can provide here.

I will start getting a press release in motion. Please keep up the good work! — Catherine

(talk) 19:39, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Hello again Tom! I'm glad to report that Ms. Lovelace will be talking to you tomorrow about your press release. I'm excited to see your wiki getting closer and closer to 1,000 articles! I am also getting a Spotlight ready to go up on other wikis at the same time.

I would like to see about getting the new column code transferred to the main page today or tomorrow. I've transferred the current article about Niger to Main Page/Temp -- are there any other changes you'd like to make before making this live? Thanks! — Catherine

(talk) 20:20, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Flash ad errors

I'm having a problem with pages aborting on the wiki when the ad pops in at the top see this photo. Can you check out whether other people have experienced this? Tom Sponheim 21:51, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Yuck! Checking into that right now -- can you please tell me if you are using Internet Explorer 6 or 7? Thanks! — Catherine

(talk) 21:57, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm using IE7 on Windows XP. Tom Sponheim 22:03, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm very sorry for the error. This appears to be a problem with the way IE is loading at least some Flash-based ads, and I've got some tech people working hard to fix it on our end right now. Can you please tell me if this happens on every page load, or only on certain ads? If only on certain ones, we'll need some more information about the specific ads so I can have them removed from the rotation.

It happens only on certain ads. We have thousands of people every week coming to our site from all around the world (from many poor countries) who aren't going to have the latest version of anything. Is there a way you can fix this on your end? Your flash ads should be made to be backward compatable in my opinion. Tom Sponheim 01:18, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree wholeheartedly, that's why we're trying to track down which ads are causing it so that we can isolate whether it's an error in the way we are loading certain ads, or a particular advertiser or ad network that is not taking backwards compatibility into account, so that we can stop working with them. We definitely need to solve the root problem; I only mention the upgrade since we are aware of it as a fix for users that have that luxury. We are continuing to work on this! — Catherine

(talk) 06:04, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

For the long term, you may need to update your Adobe Flash player as this sort of error is likely to continue appearing for you on many sites that uses Flash plugins or Flash ads -- please see Adobe's knowledge base article for more information. — Catherine

(talk) 22:35, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

The tech team tells me that the problem ads should no longer be loading, and we're no longer seeing the problem elsewhere. Can you please confirm whether the error message is gone for you now? Thanks! — Catherine (talk) 19:53, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

I refreshed the Main page 10 times or so and didn't receive any errors. Thanks for the quick work! Tom Sponheim 21:31, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Great, I'm glad we got it. I'd like to go ahead and move the new code from the temp page to the main page if that's all right, then.

Does going over to the new page code mean that we're going to have to lose space to both ads? We are really not relishing that change. It pretty much destroys the page. Our board is very unhappy with losing that much space. Tom Sponheim 23:07, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

I'd also like to suggest, in preparation for the press release, that we use the "move" tab to rename the page from the title "Main Page" to Solar Cooking Wiki or Solar Cooking Archive Wiki -- we find that using the topic name in the page title can greatly increase a page's ranking in search engines, making it easier for someone searching for "solar cooking" to find this wiki. Does that sound good to you? — Catherine

(talk) 22:42, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

thanks for the welcome plus I like the new look of the site.

[edit] Add "What you can do" to left sidebar?

Hi Tom! I've been away for a while, so didn't want to leap in and change the sidebar without asking... What do you think about moving "What you can do up" up from "Solar cooking basics" so it appears on the sidebar? Maybe more people will find it - and do something. --Beth Ogilvie 18:37, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Hi, Beth. But happy to see you back online. We have more things in the sidebar but we found that we had too many. We already have "Help us with this wiki" at the top level. Have a wait to add the item that you want to move to the top level so that it works in conjunction with this item?Tom Sponheim 19:24, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! It's good to be back. How about if we change "Help us with this wiki!" to "You can help!" which would link to What you can do to promote solar cooking and at the top of that page we put Help us with this wiki! --Beth Ogilvie 16:44, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

That sounds good. Can you make the changes? Tom Sponheim 22:29, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Done. --Beth Ogilvie 05:27, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] New intro to Category:Solar cooker plans

Pls see Sandbox2 for a draft of the new intro to Category:Solar cooker plans and add to/correct the advantages and disadvantages (and anything else you want to do :). Then I'll move it to the real page. Thanks. --Beth Ogilvie 16:44, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

The is great. Please add it to the top of that category and we can fill it in a bit. I'd like to get the advantages and disavantages to be a bit more snappily formatted, but we can work on this once it's in place. Thanks! Tom Sponheim 22:32, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Done. --Beth Ogilvie 05:27, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Question about 'Help needed'

In the left nav bar there is a box titled "Help needed" and the content says 'Need Help: Please edit this page to show articles here." What does this mean? Is the idea that we should change that page so it has a list of pages we're hoping people will work on? I'm baffled. --Beth Ogilvie 15:58, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Hi Beth. I don't see a link with the text "Help needed". Can you send me a screenshot? Tom Sponheim 19:29, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Revising categories

Hi Tom,

I'm having trouble getting to the place where I can a) revise individuals' category, Solar Cookers World Network members, to add |last name (which I forgot when I added the category for each of them. Then I can b) check that list against category Solar Cookers International Association members so we can c) delete SCIA category.

Cheers, Association 23:01, 26 March 2009 (UTC)Bev Blum

Hi Bev! I saw your note on here. I suggest the following plan: that we ask the friendly bot guy to
(a) Remove all the references to "Category:Solar Cookers World Network members", then
(b) Rename "Category:Solar Cookers International Association members" to "Category:Solar Cookers World Network members".
How's that sound? That will save you changing 200+ pages by hand. Let me know...

In future, when you add a member, you can add the "|lastname" by clicking on "Code view". It's under the fancy new category bar in the ediit window, lower right corner. "Code view" gives you a 2 line window (with scroll bar on right) to view the old style Category references. If you're in "Code view" you can get back to the fancy version by clicking "Visual view".<br Beth Ogilvie 14:25, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Main page content

Hi Tom: The main page, The Solar Cooking Archive Wiki, listed under "Browse", has numerous off-site links. I worry that we may be sending casual visitors off to CNN or National Geographic, to name just a couple of sites, before they have a chance to see the content here. In some ways, I thought the old main page did a better job of promoting the content of this site. Recent news is important, but it may be better placed one layer down from the main page.

One more comment, if I may. I that the site content is so comprehensive that it may be a little overwhelming on the first visit. This might be by someone who has just heard of solar cookers and wants to know how to build one. You might consider a box on the main page that would help the visitor get started, say, with the Fun-Panel photo and initial paragraph. WAPI could be treated similarly. Best wishes, Walter Siegmund (talk) 01:08, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Hi, Walter. Thanks for your suggestions. We trying to move away from the Solar Cooking Archive, so we needed a place for news and to alert people of new content on our site. I don't think it would be found if it was any deeper in the site. We have already had a big drop-off in hits to new content from what it was on the Archive. This could only get worse if the news wasn't on the main page. I'm not concerned about people linking off of the site. We're trying to be THE comprehensive site dealing with solar cooking. We need to let people know what's out there. Also, from Google Analytics, it seems that the majority of our visitors never see the main page.

As far as overwhelming people goes, I think you have a good point. I have plans to add a page to handhold people through the process of starting to solar cooking. Something like How to start solar cooking for yourself. My neighbor last summer had a really hard time figuring out which plan to build or where to buy pots, etc. Now that solar season is here, it's probably about time to create that page.

If I'm not seeing some obvious way to achieve what I'm trying to achieve, please let me know. I'm not wedded to any mothod of achieving the goals that I'm mentioned. Tom Sponheim 04:27, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Creating a Template

Thanks for cleaning/formatting the "Creating a Template" bit I added to the CooKit page. It looks much better now. --Pleitch 00:00, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Direct TV dish

I've had an old TV dish around for a long time and this idea of using it for a solar reflector is outstanding!

Thanks for the wonderful idea.

Calvin J. Griggs Shawn Lu's Arizona Solar Cookers Using the sun today for a better tomorrow

[edit] Problem reports

Hi there, did you know that some of the users of this wiki have reported some problems? You can view them at Special:ProblemReports. Its a great system for users to mark pages with various types of problems to bring them to the attention of admins (like you). Often they are about the subject of the wiki, and only someone from the wiki can make the knowledgeable decision on how to fix the page.

Its a fairly simple system to use. You can click the magnify glass icon to show the reported problem for each ticket. The icons on the right change the status of the report. The green check mark icon is for "Fixed", you use this if you read the report, and changed something on the page to fix the reported problem, (or deleted it, if its a vandal/spam report), or anything that "Fixes" the problem. The red X icon is for "closed", this is for reports that are false/jokes, or things that are not really a problem. The yellow triangle will mark a report for need help by Wikia Staff, it is used when there is something wrong with the wiki that you cannot fix here with editing pages, such as menus not working, or skin problems, or anything beyond your control. Use it sparingly, as there are many wikis, and our time is limited, but dont be afraid to use it either, we dont want you to have a broken wiki for too long. The last icon is for returning a report back to an open or 'Pending' state if you accidentally used one of the first 3 icons.

If you are using the Monaco skin, there is a ProblemReport widget you can add to your sidebar, so you can see as soon as problems are reported. If you have any other questions, feel free to ask on my talk page, I'll be glad to help you help your wiki. --Uberfuzzy 20:41, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] New Section for Solar Links

If you check out my talk page you will see that I've mentioned a couple of solar information links that are useful when solar cooking. I think this should be a dedicated page.

For instance, there are sites that tell you how much energy you can expect from the sun at your point in the world at particular times of the day. There are other links which give indications of current and future weather. There are even links that allow you to “zoom” in on your location or enter your address to find your longitude and latitude.

[edit] Contact info

I read your post at w:Forum:Harvesting email addresses from our Solarcooking wiki. Is User:M.mendel/individuals enough to help you out? I could probably develop a solution that does exactly what you describe, but it requires more effort. (A pity that you haven't used templates for your contact info, it'd be simple then). --◄mendel► 02:52, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] SODIS efficiency

Hello Tom

I have some comments on your last modifications of the SODIS page. Eawag (the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology has been involved in research on different aspects of solar water disinfection. I agree with you that boiling is the only household water treatment method that can produce completely sterile water (i.e. kill all microorganisms). While not producing sterile water, SODIS, chlorination and different types of filters are effective in removing diarrhea causing microorganisms. The technical disinfection efficiency of these technologies is in the range of 3-4 orders of magnitude (factor 1000-10000) on average, with filters performing better for larger protozoa, and SODIS and chlorination perform better for viruses. The statement you added that "SODIS is not nearly as reliable as [boiling or] chlorination" is not supported by the literature (see, e.g. review articles by Sobsey 2008: Point of Use Household Drinking Water Filtration: A Practical, Effective Solution for Providing Sustained Access to Safe Drinking Water in the Developing World, Environmental Science & Technology; Clasen 2007: Cost-effectiveness of water quality interventions for preventing diarrhoeal disease in developing countries, Journal of Water and Health). There are differences between the mentioned technologies in terms of the availability of materials and convenience for the users that may render one method preferable over others in a certain situation; in terms of disinfection efficiency, however, they all perform reliably well. Also note that safe storage is a critical aspect in this context. Studies on boiling (e.g. Clasen 2008: Microbiological Effectiveness and Cost of Disinfecting Water by Boiling in Semi-urban India, Am J Trop Med Hyg.) have shown that a very high percentage of households where boiling is used for drinking water treatment, people consumed polluted water due to re-contamination during storage of the water after boiling. SODIS bottles and chlorination (if the correct dose of chlorine is applied) provide safe storage of the treated water.

In the light of this information, SODIS is not inferior to boiling and chlorination (nor superior, the user's choice will depend on the local circumstances and personal preferences). I think we should modify the text in the Solar Cooker Wikia accordingly - hope this is ok with you...

[edit] Thanks

Mr. Sponheim,

Hello! Thank you for the welcome. It took me a while to figure the talk page. I would like to ask if it is safe to use black acrylic to paint glass plates or bowls for solar cooking. Thank you for your help.

SunshineCooking

[edit] Great wiki!

This is an impressive wiki. Congratulations!
I'm the founder of the Home wikia. Currently it's much more U.S.-centric than I'd like. So, I'd appreciate any advice you have to help pull in global perspectives.
Also, I've started pages on solar cooking and another on solar ovens, but I don't know much so they're pretty "sparse" right now. I'd love it, if someone from this wiki could help improve them. Both pages have links back to this wiki and should continue to do so, but it would be nice if there was a bit more information to encourage people to look here when it's appropriate. I've also put in cross-wiki links on both wiki's WikiNode pages. I understand you're probably already very busy with your current work, but any contributions or suggestions would be appreciated.
Thank you! -- CocoaZen 18:25, October 11, 2009 (UTC)

I understand. You've clearly put a great deal of work into making this an excellent wiki! For the most part, I'll just refer to here for more information. I'd like my "summary" information to be better, but I don't want to copy much since your wiki is really the "primary" source or best collection of information that I know. So, as I improve the content of the Home wiki, I'll try to improve the summaries. Best wishes! -- CocoaZen 16:53, October 17, 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Other recipes