More Traffic is Good News for Sustainability

Appropedia, the site for collaborative solutions in sustainability and poverty reduction, celebrates its first birthday this month. The anniversary coincides with the site's delivery of over one half million page views. Building on accolades such as Engineers without Borders-International’s site of the month in September 2006, Appropedia has enjoyed exponential growth. Traffic at the site has grown from 1000 page views in April 2006 to 100,000 this February, and roughly 200,000 this month. Appropedia has flourished in the excitement about and need for quality information on sustainable living, appropriate technology, poverty reduction, social entrepreneurship and service learning.

With this growth in page views comes growth in contributors. Currently housing over 3000 articles, Appropedia has found original content from many contributors and has found many wikis willing to join forces under the Appropedia site. Appropedia founder Lonny Grafman states, "The dedication of wiki founders coupled with their openness to collaborate is what has driven wiki development from the start." But in his view, more is at play with sustainability wikis, “People are feeling the urgency to find collaborative solutions to the myriad problems around us, and believe that the most selfish thing they can do is to act selflessly.”

In that vein of necessity and collaboration, Appropedia has thus far been the convergence point for seven separate wikis, most prominently Village Earth's first of its kind ATwiki, and most recently "HowToLiveWiki", home of the Hexayurt refugee shelter. As Chris Watkins, founder of the now absorbed Development and Sustainability Wikia states, "Building a vibrant wiki is enough of a challenge. It’s better not to compete with each other for the same members. Better to find common ground, and work together to build the resource and the community."

Will passion and pragmatism succeed in finding a path that works? Vote with your keyboards. Join Appropedia and its partners in co-creating solutions for a sustainable world: visit http://www.appropedia.org.