Template:Ekopedia

Ekopedia is a free (Free Art License), collaborative (wiki), and multilingual encyclopedia project dedicated in providing answers and spreading practical knowledge related to environmental sustainability. Their goal is to help everyone become more independent and establish the foundation necessary to build a better world.

History

Created in Quebec in December 2002 under the name of Newlimits.org, the project was initially in French. It was using TWiki wiki application for collaborative edition, and in 2004, community decided to migrate to MediaWiki.

The project got over 1000 articles on 10 December 2006. In February 2007, English and Esperanto projects were created. The media file and image depository Ekopedia Base (similar to the Wikimedia Commons) was created in 2007. Italian, German and Polish were created in February and March 2008, and the Spanish in November 2008. Ekopedia has about 2500 articles (> 1800 in French).

The Ekopedia Foundation was created in 19 September 2007.

Project details

Ekopedia gives people solutions and practical knowledge in order to act in a more environmentally sound way. Ekopedia is a wiki-based website using MediaWiki. Ekopedia is licensed in Free Art License in every language except for English; which uses double licensing: the Free Art License and the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL), and Ekopedia will soon be moving to double licensing Free Art License and Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 (CC-BY-SA 3.0).

Ekopedia is developed mainly in French, Polish, and Italian. In 2008, French Project received 2.3 million unique visitors and each day, an average of 11,000 people come to visit and participate in the project, which makes Ekopedia the most visited French website focused on ecology and sustainability issues.

Ekopedia articles are organized around twelve topics in order to meet the basics needs of people: Birth, Education, Food, Lodging, Clothing, Art and craft, Thinking, Living together, Health and care, Travel, Leisure (previously Play) and Communication. There are thus many articles on green building, washable diapers, seasonal vegetables, electric vehicles or even tofu manufacturing.

Ekopedia is different to Wikipedia as certain types of content and collaboration are not suitable for Wikipedia. In contrast to Wikipedia, Ekopedia content requires a different approach in selecting and writing articles.

Since the end of 2008, Appropedia.org and Ekopedia.org projects are in active collaboration that could lead to a projects merge.

Press references

Here is a list of some press references:

• 15 January 2009:– Article "Ekopedia: Une encyclopédie pour construire un monde meilleur" by Virginie Roy from Canoe
• 2 January 2009:– Interview of Jean-Luc Henry at radio Première heure on Radio-Canada. Listen in mp3 or ogg
• April 2008:– Reportage about Ekopedia on radio le Mouv des campus on Radio-France. Listen in (mp3 or ogg)
• 10 April 2008:– Reportage about Ekopedia on radio Vous Etes Ici on RadioCanada. Listen in (mp3 or ogg)
• 11 January 2007:– the newspaper Metro wrote Ekopedia, le Wikipedia écolo
• 2 December 2006:– Magazine Télérama n° 2968 published Critique Internet Ekopedia
• April 2006:– the book Wikipédia, comprendre et participer wrote about Ekopedia
• January 2006:– magazine "Micro Hebdo" (01net) published "http://fr.ekopedia.org : l'encyclo écolo"
• December 2005:– Liberation Newspaper published Ekopedia: L'encyclopédie des alternatives

Other references could also be found on Ekopedia Foundation website.

External links

• www.Ekopedia.org – Ekopedia portal
• FondationEkopedia.org – Ekopedia Foundation website
• 2008 Ekopedia.org Project results

Ekopedia Foundation wikis in these languages ^(edit)

English • Esperanto • French / Français • German / Deutsch • Italian / Italiano • Polish / Polski • Spanish / Español • Ekopedia Base (image depository)