Wikipedia, sustainable consumption, and SCORAI

[Philip Vergragt]

Dear SCORAI-ers,

As you know, Wikipedia is a great and important source of information.

For some time now I have been concerned about two things: that sustainable consumption is not covered well; and that SCORAI, or its longer name are nowhere mentioned in Wikipedia.

I have started to edit the Sustainable Consumption page; and I learned a couple of things:

-it is not possible to copy-paste existing descriptions into Wiki; they are immediately removed because of copyright and plagiarism. So each entry has to be rewritten.

I rewrote the opening sentences of this page based on paraphrasing what I found in an existing publication; but I am not entirely satisfied. I intend to keep working on it. Some of you have earlier indicated to work with me on this; and I welcome this cooperation.

-I entered SCORAI in the form of its present and past conferences, but that was removed too. The argument is that SCORAI does not exist within Wiki. The way to address this appears to be that independent “others” are writing about SCORAI and its activities.

So here are my questions and suggestions:

-is anybody who teaches SC interested to enter existing “grey” descriptions of SC into the Wiki page? Or otherwise to help edit this page further?

-does anybody have collected an inventory of “basic” papers describing SC and its aspects, which would be suitable as sources for such an entry?

-is anybody of this listserv willing and able to write an “independent” publication about SCORAI; or do you know anyone who would be interested to do so? This is the right time because of our upcoming conference, which, hopefully, will attract a lot of attention.

I am looking forward to your reactions. You may chose to write to the entire listserv, or just to me, whatever you think is more appropriate.

I think that we as a community should be able to edit and upgrade the existing entries in Wikipedia; and to make sure that SCORAI and the Sustainable Consumption Research and Action initiative activities are properly covered.

Warm regards, and thank you in advance for your cooperation,

Philip

 

 

Philip J Vergragt PhD

SCORAI Founding Board member

KAN SSCP Steering Group member

350mass Newton Node member

Professor Emeritus, TU Delft, Netherlands

Research Professor, Clark University, Worcester, MA, USA