Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Sanitation

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Sanitation This page is within the scope of WikiProject Sanitation, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Sanitation on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.SanitationWikipedia:WikiProject SanitationTemplate:WikiProject Sanitationsanitation articles

Welcome to the discussion page of Wikipedia:WikiProject Sanitation. We would love to hear suggestion on how to improve Wikipedia's sanitation related information.

James Doc_James|talk: You had once written this to me, how would we go about this now? "One could also collect articles within this subject area and then have automated lists formed of the most read articles to help direct peoples efforts." EvM-Susana (talk) 20:52, 3 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Have created the template for the talk pages. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 07:53, 20 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

So now we just have to figure out how to automatically collect the tagged articles in a table of articles that can be displayed on the project page like it exists on the Wikiproject Medicine page. EvM-Susana (talk) 00:17, 21 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Done, the lists are working now. EvM-Susana (talk) 10:18, 9 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Is it worth mentioning here that 'high quality' sources in sanitation might not be regarded by other wikipedians as being 'high quality', particularly if they overlap significantly with health/medicine? We would usually count much that is in the SuSanA library as high quality, but this might not be the case in discussions of health impacts - where I have learned today that good quality sources are review articles in high quality journals. This could confuse a stupid person. JMWt (talk) 22:16, 25 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

yes, please add this important hint to the project page, or perhaps better to our Manual of Style Sanitation page, which is linked from the WikiProject page and which still needs quite a bit of work.EvM-Susana (talk) 22:57, 25 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

One source that I consider high quality and of a very general nature is Compendium of Sanitation Systems and Technologies. 2nd Revised Edition by TILLEY, E.; ULRICH, L.; LUETHI, C.; REYMOND, P.; ZURBRUEGG, C. ^[1]. The online version is updated frequently, as recently as august 2016 as of this writing. It is available in English and French.

Abstract: A second, revised edition of the Compendium of Sanitation Systems and Technologies has been recently published by Eawag, WSSCC and the International Water Association. It features updated content, a number of new additions, and will also be available in French.

One important thing it does is to attempt to include and define all possible sanitation systems. It could save us a lot of trouble trying to define various sanitation systems.˜˜˜˜

Nirmal_Bharat_Abhiyan and the Indian Total Sanitation campaign is one to add to the list (I've not yet worked out the system for assessment of quality..

I'm not sure it is based on CLTS, is it? JMWt (talk) 09:13, 27 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Doc, do you know how this works: if one clicks on 'what links here' on the CLTS page you get this list: Special:WhatLinksHere/Community-led_total_sanitation, some of which seem unrelated. But I can't see the page link on some of those pages.. is this inaccurate and/or taking a long time to update? JMWt (talk) 09:33, 27 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

There could be two problems you encountering. First, frequently the links are generated from a template at the bottom of the article, so you won't find the link in the article, rather the template. (An infuriating side effect of templates is that they basically invalidate any usefulness of "what links here".) Second, sometimes you have to go into edit mode to find a link, because the article name you are searching for could be buried in an WP:EGG. Third, yes, sometimes "what links here" takes time to update (I've noticed up to a few hours). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:18, 27 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I proposing that we start a 'sanitation term and acronyms' glossary as per Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Glossaries. Anyone object and/or have a preference as to how it looks? JMWt (talk) 07:40, 20 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I think a list of acronyms is good and easy, this could just be part of the WikiProject Sanitation page, rather than a stand-alone page (or if it gets very long then it could be split off into a separate page). But a glossary is different to a list of accronyms. This is what a glossary looks like: http://ecompendium.sswm.info/glossary. I don't think such a glossary is really needed, unless it gives simply a link to the Wikipedia page on each term (if the page exists already). Or if it is indeed needed, should we first check with the makers of the ecompendium if we can copy their glossary list across into a Wikipedia page to have a head start? EvM-Susana (talk) 08:20, 20 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Disagree. I don't think it should be a part of the wikiproject sanitation page, it should stand alone as there are many terms which could usefully and briefly be defined, with links to the wikipedia page if they exist. I don't think there is any reason why a list of acronyms should not be included into a glossary. I also do not see the need to copy someone else's. It might well be short at the beginning, but can be added to as we discover that there are more terms and acronyms that need to be defined. JMWt (talk) 09:36, 20 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It could take the form of this: Acronyms_and_abbreviations_in_avionics - I don't really think it needs an extended entry for each term as per the sswm glossary above. JMWt (talk) 09:40, 20 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It could look like this: User:JMWt/sandbox/glossary - ie a mix of one-line definitions of acronyms, on and off wikilinks etc.JMWt (talk) 10:22, 20 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Like This is an excellent idea. (Not importing a glossary from 2008 as suggested below which may run into copyvio problems even if referenced, but doing Wikipedia's own glossary.) Also, other projects first developed most of the articles included in Wikiproject Sanitation (especially the better ones), and those projects continue to work on the same pages as this Wikiproject, including WikiProject Environment, WikiProject Medicine, WikiProject Chemical and Bio Engineering, so perhaps this project should cooperate with other such other WikiProjects; otherwise readers might be confronted with varying definitions of the same thing. Just a suggestion. EChastain (talk) 14:03, 20 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

You make a good point, although I don't know practically how to do this. We use words in a particular way in sanitation which may not be used in other fields. Primarily, I think, this effort is to try to explain how we are using these words, not their general usage. For example the word pathogen - it has a general explanation in a medical field, a specific meaning in a microbiological field, etc. But in sanitation, we are almost always going to be talking about pathogens which cause waterbourne disease. JMWt (talk) 14:09, 20 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

JMWt, you might get some ideas from examples in Category:Glossaries. EChastain (talk) 15:55, 20 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

And from Portal:Contents/Glossaries. EChastain (talk) 16:00, 20 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I think you are mixing glossary and list of acronyms? The two examples that you gave are lists of acronyms. I have no problem with those. They look pretty similar to what I had started here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Sanitation#List_of_abbreviations_and_acronyms And yes, if it gets long then it warrants a separate page, but it needs to be clearly linked to from the projects page (and from the forum etc.) to ensure that people actually find it and use it. - But a glossary is something different (and more difficult to do), isn't it? According to Wikipedia a glossary is: "A glossary, also known as a vocabulary, or clavis, is an alphabetical list of terms in a particular domain of knowledge with the definitions for those terms." As it includes definitions, this can lead to more discussions.... that's why I think building on the existing glossary of the eCompendium would be useful. I am quite sure they would allow it. Why would you not want to build on their work? But I actually think we don't need a real glossary. A simple list of abbreviations that everyone can add to would indeed be useful.

I am warming to your idea and have added some new terms to your Sandbox list. But I would say that the description of the term is only needed when there is no hyperlink for it; or descriptions must not be longer than one sentence - or? I am not sure we would need an entry for "CLTS Knowledge Hub" or do we? And would you plan to add all the UNICEF, WHO, WSP, GIZ, SNV etc., too, i.e. all these organizations? EvM-Susana (talk) 12:38, 20 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I think only where the name could be confusing. As we know, the Institute of Development Studies produces a lot of material on CLTS, which are not necessarily be views accepted by the CLTS Foundation (as might be expected by a confused reader). There might also be value in listing at least some of those you mention above if they are likely to be misunderstood - for example GIZ might not be obvious to everyone. I'm not sure there is a corresponding need to define UNICEF. Maybe I'm wrong, but that was my thinking. JMWt (talk) 13:28, 20 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Just to say that I am going to populate a list with a few more terms in my namespace before moving it to the main. It'd look a bit sad without many terms and it might be easier to see if it has any value if it has quite a few terms in it already. JMWt (talk) 14:35, 20 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Pathogen is not an abbreviation or accronym though. I think we should first focus on abbreviations and accronyms. An explanation of all terms used in sanitation is much, more more work (and is really what the Wikiproject Sanitation is doing itself, isn't it?).EvM-Susana (talk) 14:36, 20 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I think it is helpful to briefly say how we are using terms. In this case we are using pathogen in a very specific way. I think this is important to include in this kind of page.JMWt (talk) 14:56, 20 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It might indeed be a large task, but the objective is a simple page where people can navigate the other pages for more detailed explanations. JMWt (talk) 14:58, 20 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I am not convinced but let's see how it pans out. If you think we are using "pathogen" in a specific way, then we should ensure this is also reflected on the Wikipedia page on pathogen. What other examples can you give me on words that you are thinking of including? Also things like child mortality, infant mortality, for example?

I wouldn't think there is likely to be much confusion about how we are using the term 'child mortality'. But I think when we talk about pathogens, we are usually narrowly talking about the range of pathogens one might find in a latrine. That might be confusing to someone who is trying to understand what it is that we are talking about. JMWt (talk) 15:27, 20 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I think the thing to imagine is someone reading something written about sanitation. Such a report or discussion or talk might well use a phrase that is not explained, assuming that everyone knows what we are talking about. An informed person might well know what a pathogen is (or they might read the wiki page to find out), but might be curious to know what specifically we are talking about when we talk of pathogens. I don't think we need to edit the pathogen page, we just need a very simple one-line explanation that, in fact, we're probably talking about pathogens which cause water-bourne disease, and unlikely to be talking about any other kind of pathogen. I'll admit pathogen was possibly a bad example to choose in this illustration. JMWt (talk) 15:34, 20 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

See, this is where the problem starts. You have now included things like this:

• Helminths: worm parasites including Ascaris.
• Helminth ova: worm eggs which can be extracted and identified in faeces.
• Humanure: compost made from human faeces

--> but these things are not straight forward, e.g. I would not agree with your definition of helminths nor humanure. For helminths, if anything, use the first sentence of the helminth page. Humanure - I disagree with (see page on compost). We will have similar debates if you start to include the term ecosan... The only solution I would see is to strictly use the first sentence of the Wikipedia page (and then debate on the talk page of that article if needed). But why even take a sentence at all. If the term has a Wikipedia page then simply linking to that page is sufficient. - I still think it is going to end up in a big mess if you mix up a list of abbreviations with a list of "interesting terms" from the area of sanitation... EvM-Susana (talk) 15:30, 20 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Well the first phrase on the page Helminths says " also commonly known as parasitic worms", ova are eggs, humanure is a phrase used to describe human compost. I don't think there is anything to debate here. Clearly it is not a full definition, but none of those things are wrong. JMWt (talk) 15:37, 20 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The value of a one-line explanation is not needing to read the whole page to get a sense of what the page is talking about JMWt (talk) 15:41, 20 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

worm parasites it not the same as parasitic worms, singling out Ascaris is not valid and in my view misleading; ova are eggs, yes, but why "can be extracted and identified in faeces?" - only in faeces of infected persons! Can also be extracted from sewage sludge; their main purpose is for reproduction of the worm. Humanure is not compost made from human faeces, it is a term that some people use in the US to mean all sorts of things. See here what it says about humanure on the compost page: ""Humanure" is a combination of the words human and manure, designating human excrement (feces and urine) that is recycled via composting for agricultural or other purposes. The term was first used in a 1994 book by Joseph Jenkins that advocates the use of this organic soil amendment.[11] The term humanure is used by compost enthusiasts in the US but not generally elsewhere. Because the term "humanure" has no authoritative definition it is subject to various uses; news reporters occasionally fail to correctly distinguish between humanure and sewage sludge or "biosolids"". - why can we not have one list dealing with abbreviations (this is a list I would be interested in contributing to) and a separate list dealing with explaining terms if you think such a list is needed (which will lead to much more discussions - if you want to reach consensus and not be the definition of only yourself - than the former list). EvM-Susana (talk) 16:17, 20 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I'm done. Make a list or glossary or don't. I'm too busy to argue about whether or not worm parasites are the same as parastic worms. JMWt (talk) 16:22, 20 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

That's exactly my point, it would be very very very time consuming. This was just taking a few examples. Nothing is ever as straight forward as it seems. Anyhow, I diddn't want to upset you. - Personally, I am now going to focus on a list of abbreviations and acronyms (only) - for now just adding them to the WikiProject Sanitation page themeself; perhaps later on a separate page. If someone else wants to work on a sanitation glossary page, no problem for me. EvM-Susana (talk) 16:36, 20 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

We are making good progress on the list of abbreviations. I would like to either move it to a separate page now or to hide the alphabetical letters of the list from the table of contents (but I haven't been able to work out how to do this). EvM-Susana (talk) 12:11, 27 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

We can move it to an article in mainspace maybe? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:10, 6 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

After a recent request, I added WikiProject Sanitation to the list of projects to compile monthly pageview stats for. The data is the same used by http://stats.grok.se/en/ but the program is different, and includes the aggregate views from all redirects to each page. The stats are at Wikipedia:WikiProject Sanitation/Popular pages.

The page will be updated monthly with new data. The edits aren't marked as bot edits, so they will show up in watchlists. You can view more results, request a new project be added to the list, or request a configuration change for this project using the Tool Labs tool. If you have any comments or suggestions, please let me know. Thanks! Mr.Z-man 07:03, 10 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Woo-ha, that's great, thanks a lot, Z-man!! I have linked to it now from the WikiProject Sanitation page and will be referring to this list often in order to decide where to concentrate one's editing efforts. Thanks a lot! I take it that when a new article is tagged with this project, it will automatically appear in this list as well (with a time delay perhaps)? EvM-Susana (talk) 10:26, 10 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi all, I recently declined the draft Draft:Human excreta over at AfC. Would it be possible to have a discussion as to whether this material could stand alone or whether it might be better suited for inclusion in an existing article, perhaps in sustainable sanitation? Thank you, /wia /talk 18:13, 30 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'd say that there is very little there which could not already be found in Human feces, feces, Sustainable_sanitation and so on. As a general point, I'd say that there is no need to have a Human excreta page when we already have a Human feces page - given they are basically interchangeable terms. Actually we already have a Human waste page with some discussion about whether it is adding anything much.

On the content, I disagree that the term human waste is shunned, but there has been a move towards describing it with terms with less negative and/or more technical meanings. Natural Event is a company selling a product, I don't think there is much need to give them undue prominence, there is no real need to see Hamish Skermer as representative of the sector. The concepts of reuse are widely discussed in our pages, in particular Ecological sanitation. That said, it might be worth saying something more explicitly about disgust and taboos on one of more of our pages. JMWt (talk) 17:18, 31 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I have taken a look at this issue, too (thanks for bringing it to our attention, /wia. I also don't think that a new page on "human excreta" is warranted given that we have a page on "humane waste" and in the first few words it is said that it's the same as human excreta. OK, we could think about if we want to rename the current page on human waste to human excreta? However, the term human waste is far more common so far (see via a Google search) - not sure if that is an argument for keeping that article name as it is, but I suspect it it. The issue about the terminology (and I agree with Gruster that "human excreta" is generally preferable to "human waste"), should be incorporated into the existing article under the heading of "terminology" for example. The new page that was started would always remain very short (I can't really think of new sub-headings which would make it into a full-blown article without repeating what we have on the pages of reuse of excreta, ecological sanitation and so forth. - Also I actually think we need a link from the page of "waste" to the "human waste/excreta" page. The question is if millions of people are referring to it as "human waste" would we nevertheless be allowed to make a name change here and calling the page "human excreta" as we would argue it is "more correct"? I guess not, but I am not totally sure of the rules in that respect. - Starting up a new page on "human excreta" is not the solution in this case. It is different for the case of biosolids and sewage sludge because these are by definition two different things. - And apart from that I also agree with JMWt that the article proposal is giving undue weight to Hamish Skermer, keeping in mind that we should cite always high quality sources where available (we could probably find better sources), like those cited in the page on ecological sanitation? EvM-Susana (talk) 20:14, 31 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I have copied below what Gruster had written on the talk page of /wia, just to keep it all together:

Thanks for your suggestions regarding my proposed "human excreta" article. For some background, until my proposal, the term "human excreta" was included under the "human waste" article and as a redirect to same. It is crucial to realize, however, that given the reasons I lay out in the article, while they may refer to the same material, their use (as terms) couldn't be more different. IOW one describes a "waste" material while the other describes a "resource". Since "human waste" has its own article I felt it was only right that "human excreta" has its own article as well. Please note that I modestly reworked the article and have added an additional reference (a TedX presentation), the latter of which may assist you in understanding the basis from which I am proposing the article. Now, as far as neutrality goes, I'm unclear how to improve the neutrality of an article that is in effect describing a political (and thus opinionated) concept or, said another way, a politicized term. Therefore, what ever additional assistance you can provide will be most appreciated. Thanks again. Gruster (talk) 17:55, 30 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I just don't accept this reasoning - if everyone started a page to promote their own view of a subject, the whole thing would be fractured to a degree which would make this less of an encyclopedia and more of collection of essays. If there is anything to be said about the view of feces has a "resource" beyond what is already on the collection of pages we have (and which are discussing overlapping ideas and concepts) they should be added to one or more of the existing pages. TedX is not a reputable source, and we are well-aware of the discussion about feces as a resource as is clear from almost all of the pages this project is working on. Who actually is going to be looking at Draft:Human excreta rather than any of the other pages mentioned above - which we've spent a lot of time improving and updating? Even if someone searched for human excreta (which I'd think is a vanishingly small number of searches compared to the other terms we've discussed above), would they not want to read the content on those other pages rather than the para offered in this draft "stub" class page? JMWt (talk) 10:52, 1 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

A new copy-paste detection bot is now in general use on English Wikipedia. Come check it out at the EranBot reporting page. This bot utilizes the Turnitin software (ithenticate), unlike User:CorenSearchBot that relies on a web search API from Yahoo. It checks individual edits rather than just new articles. Please take 15 seconds to visit the EranBot reporting page and check a few of the flagged concerns. Comments welcome regarding potential improvements. These likely copyright violations can be searched by WikiProject categories. Use "control-f" to jump to your area of interest (if such a copyvio is present).--Lucas559 (talk) 16:18, 2 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The usage and primary topic of Venting is under discussion, see talk:Venting (disambiguation) -- 67.70.32.190 (talk) 05:10, 21 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The usage and primary topic of Garbage is under discussion, see talk:garbage (disambiguation) -- 70.51.202.113 (talk) 04:22, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

thanks for the alert, I have left a comment on that page. EvM-Susana (talk) 08:42, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

List here any sanitation pages we don't yet have, or which should be expanded as sections of pages that we do have.

These terms might need better definitions (not necessarily a page to themselves):

• Bucket latrines
• Hanging latrines or Hanging toilets
• Shared latrines

These terms need new pages:

• "Safely managed sanitation" as used in the Sustainable Development Goals
• Latrine gulper (not sure that's the best title) and other forms of mechanical latrine emptying machines

Please add to the above with any other suggestions! Thanks JMWt (talk) 08:38, 18 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Good idea, but perhaps such lists should be on the project page rather than on the talk page? Actually, I already added some terms into the table in the column to the far right:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Sanitation#Lists_by_content EvM-Susana (talk) 13:02, 18 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Ah yes, so you have - everyone else, add ideas there! JMWt (talk) 14:22, 18 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

About the bucket latrine (I would call it bucket toilet), there is a similar page called honey bucket. I have now created a re-direct from bucket toilet to honey bucket. Could do the same for bucket latrine. Or we could do it the other way around (i.e. re-name the page that is currenty called honey bucket (an American term?) to bucket toilet. EvM-Susana (talk) 09:21, 24 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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Although 2 years older, the lead of honeywagon appears to be a WP:CONTENTFORK of vacuum truck. The reason I say the lead is because the section on film and television use discusses a different, but related, concept; portable toilet blocks. Whilst these toilet blocks could be a section at the portable toilet article, I'm mindful that they might not be a familiar sight outside of the UK. So to clarify, there are essentially two types; the one mentioned in the honeywagon article are the towed or trailer mounted style, which are designed to be used on a temporary basis. The other is a portable building that has been outfitted as a public toilet, these arrive on a flatbed truck and are craned into place. As such they are semi-permanent structures. (Searching Google for toilet trailer and prefabricated toilet block may give you a better idea if needed.) Also, because the section on film and television use is unreferenced, it's not possible to ascertain if the industry refers to all production trailers as honeywagons, or if this claim is based on a misconception. i.e. there is a "large" company called Hollywood Honeywagon and Production Vehicles (emphasis mine). Little pob (talk) 22:09, 18 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

A honey wagon should be merged to vacuum truck IMO. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 07:02, 19 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed, seems to me honey wagon is just local slang for a form of vacuum truck - that said, vacuum trucks are used for a range of purposes (in the sense that they might be used to clear stormwater etc, not just vacuum up faeces), so I'm not sure that there is a total overlap of the term. The point about portable toilets seems to me to be a red herring - there are no references on the page to suggest that anyone anywhere calls festival temporary toilets on the back of a truck a "honeywagon". JMWt (talk) 07:41, 19 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, it would be great to have this tidied up. However, after the "shit storm" hit me/us about renaming honey bucket to bucket toilet, I would be scared to open another can of worms, ha-ha!! In any case, you'd have to put this on the talk page of honey wagon, wouldn't you? And would you have to open an official case? By the way, I realised another problem of a similar type: check out the page on portable toilet and you'll see that it is actually describing a chemical toilet, so should be reworked. I have put that comment on the talk pages of portable toilet and of chemical toilet. EvMsmile (talk) 12:23, 25 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I'll look at putting tags on soon. Just need to workout which is more appropriate: merge, merge section or split section. Little pob (talk) 15:41, 28 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Split portions to and merge portions templates now added to relevant articles. Discussion on relevant talk pages Little pob (talk) 19:31, 28 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

There is an interesting discussion on the talkpage of Effective microorganism which highlights something I've been a bit worried about for a while.

When we were thinking about and improving the content of that page, I think we tended to think of EM and latrine/sanitation additives as being essentially interchangeable ideas. As a reader now states on the talkpage, this tend to make the page lean rather heavily in the direction of sanitation when EM is more generally known in agriculture. I am also now not sure whether we should in fact include references on that page which do not specifically mention EM, but which are talking about additives. On the one hand, I still think they are likely talking about the same thing, on the other I think it is a legitimate complaint that EM is being criticised with references which do not actually mention it, and which might not be being used as the company behind it intend. So the issue is whether "Effective microorganism" is specifically a brand name, a general idea/concept or something else.

I think we should think and talk about this a bit more. I think I'm now in favour of having a separate page for latrine additives, where most of the references can reside, and a short section on the EM page pointing to it. It seems to me that it is inarguable that some are using EM as a latrine additive, but I'm now now sure that all latrine additives are by definition EM. JMWt (talk) 14:36, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that's true. I think what you're proposing is a good way forward. How would we call such a new page? Septic tank additives? Or pit and septic tank additives? I see a big advantage because then we can focus on that page and can "neglect" the EM page (except of course for making a reference across). I think the EM page will always be a highly controversial page so I would be quite glad to not have to feel that responsible for it (apart from the sanitation part). I think it's good that you've put this on the WikiProject page, hopefully getting more people interested in the conversation, e.g. User:Kevintayler, too. EvMsmile (talk) 01:02, 2 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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The result of the move request was: not moved.EvMsmile (talk) 00:34, 19 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Public health needs some TLC and general improvement. Please help. Bazj (talk) 20:41, 22 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, will take a look and comment there. EvMsmile (talk) 03:49, 23 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hello

Just a quick note to mention that the article Water pollution had been reviewed by an external expert Access to review notes here, as part of Wikipedia Primary School Research Project. Feedback welcome ! Anthere (talk)

Thanks for the notification, will take a look. EvMsmile (talk) 02:43, 26 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, I've been improving various articles in the toilet template and there are some curious gaps. I'm not sure what the best names for them are, but I'm thinking (to start with) of two types of modern, not historic, toilet. One is a small, simple, cheap, portable chemical toilet; two brand names I associate with them are Portapotti (NOT the American Portapotty, which are small buildings) and Elsan. The second type I've only seen on documentaries. It (or they - I assume the model has been constructed more than once) is an ambitious and relatively high-tech public toilet in an "informal settlement" (=slum) in a poor country. Users pay, which funds the salary of an attendant to keep the place safe and clean. The tech part is that the excreta is processed on-site, generating something of value, perhaps methane, I can't remember. (This article should link to the modern pigsties or cowbyres that produce cooking gas in peasant villages - same principle.) Any ideas? Do we have articles on these two toilets, perhaps under another name, or as a section that needs expanding? Carbon Caryatid (talk) 19:17, 7 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The first is a type of chemical toilet, we don't tend to work on pages about specific brand names of sanitation systems - although I suppose there is nothing stopping you from doing so if you wanted to (it might make sense to have it as a disamb page which points to chemical toilet, possibly with a section you've written specifically about this portapotti - providing you can find WP:RS to cite). I'd just note that these are not particularly common outside of Western countries, and our focus in this WikiProject has been on technologies with global relevance, particularly in sustainable sanitation systems in developing countries.

The second is a system we've seen in various places and by different groups. I don't know how we'd have a WP Sanitation page on it specifically, because they don't usually have any specific technology of note and might be hard to cite beyond their own promotional materials. On the other hand, they are an example of a particular kind of sanitation marketing - which is something we don't yet have a page on - which there probably is enough to write about. Your point about producing methane is kindof covered in Reuse of excreta, anaerobic digestion and other pages.

As a general point, you'd need to write something that was well supported by reliable sources outwith of information which is written by the companies/groups promoting the tech. It doesn't sound like you have a lot of knowledge about the second example, so I'd encourage you to familiarise yourself with as much information as you can about it before attempting to start a page. JMWt (talk) 11:07, 8 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for this. I'm glad that there's a global perspective for this project; pit latrine leapt out at me, for showing a depth of care. The information provided can make a real difference to people's lives. Having said that, the lesser-viewed or historical articles are useful too. I haven't started a lot of new articles, but I tend to contribute to ones already existing.

I might add more to chemical toilet. I appreciate that the emphasis shouldn't be on brands (although we do have Sanisette and Washlet, both registered trademarks), but the first source I turned to does use the names "Elsan" and "Portapotti" - it surprised me not to see a neutral name.

There is a section on biogas, but it seems to suggest that this is generated at a plant, therefore involving transport. The system I'm referring to, which you know far more about, is all on one site, and it seems odd that we don't have anything about it. I can't even think of a name to help me search.

There are plenty of other gaps. I was surprised to see only half a short article on commode; it needs to be split into Commode (furniture) and Commode (toilet), with better images than WikiCommons currently has. Would you know where to look for whatever information Wikipedia has on the outdoor flush toilets once common, shared by several households or a short street? It's not the technology that's innovative or interesting, but the social system. I've discovered a predecessor of the honeywagon (which should be merged with vacuum truck, as I'm not the first to realise). I created a redlink to fish pond toilet, for which I did find a couple of modern refs, and I may have invented the umbrella term "livestock toilets" to join fish with pigs.

Am I on the right track here, of areas to interest the sanitation project? Am I in the right place to get information on the points above? Carbon Caryatid (talk) 12:41, 8 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Well we're a small group of active editors so we do tend to work on things together. A good source of information is from the SuSanA website http://www.susana.org but there are lots of others covering this kind of thing. I am sure there are lots of resources which could be found around the place on household scale methane setups. Thoughts @EvMsmile:? JMWt (talk) 12:58, 8 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for discussing this here, Carbon Caryatid. I would underline what JMWt has said. My own interest in editing sanitation-related Wikipedia pages is more in relationship with current issues in developing countries, which is why an improved Wikipedia article on commode or even pig toilet is not that high on my personal priority list (but of course I am very happy for someone else to tackle that). I've recently done quite some work on the article history of water supply and sanitation - there might be a bit of overlap with commode there, actually. - As for various toilet innovations, have you taken a look at these two pages, perhaps this is what you're looking for (and should be linked better?): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omni_Processor and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_%26_Melinda_Gates_Foundation#Water.2C_sanitation_and_hygiene . It is interesting that you mentioned the article on pit latrine. This is actually the first article that got me into Wikipedia, after I saw in a mailing list that User:Doc_James - coming from a medical background - had been working on it. EvMsmile (talk) 12:14, 9 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Glad to hear that pit toilet looks good. We are working to improve sanitation related articles and than once the leads are at a high quality translate them into other languages. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 12:19, 9 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I've had a go at a few more existing articles today, and over the past couple of weeks I've found a lot of articles that need to be linked together. Who knew that the Rochdale system, under another name, was standard in parts of Australia until a generation or two ago? If neither pail closet nor dunny links to each other or to bucket toilet, then people today who are working on sanitation projects can't be expected to find them, nor to benefit fully from the lessons of history. So I've made some contributions to weaving the web. Carbon Caryatid (talk) 19:57, 10 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That's great, thanks. Are you mainly interested in the historical terms? The template for toilets should help to provide an overview, have you checked it?: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilet Keep in mind that meny of the terms used are alternative terms for the same thing, just slightly different with a lot of overlap or they are historical terms that were used in certain countries and not used in others. E.g. dunny is very much an Australian word and is basically the same as pit latrine. Outhouse is a historical term and has a lot of overlap with pit latrine as well. Outhouse is meant to be for the house/structure of the toilet outdoors but the way it is written, there is a lot of overlap. - My own emphasis is on the terms that are used in the current discourse on sanitation, and that's e.g. pit latrine, bucket toilet, fecal sludge (the other terms are also important but more from a historian's perspective only, like slopping out). If you want to know what the currently used terms are, then I recommend this glossary: http://www.sswm.info/glossary/2/lettera or this one: http://ecompendium.sswm.info/glossary EvMsmile (talk) 07:10, 11 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I'm interested in the historical terms, but I'm more interested in two areas: the lived reality, and the linking of the encyclopedia. What was or is it like, to live with each of these toilet systems? Why do people prefer one over another? There are plenty of examples of houses and societies getting improved sanitation of one sort or another, and some individuals and households preferring to use the old system. Why is that, and what implications does that have for current and future projects? The British Army went from earth closets to water closets and back to earth closets for quite some time. Australian men continued to wash and excrete in their backyard facilities, even after indoor plumbing. Andean hill farmers were given outhouses, but use them to store onions, and continue open defecation. Vietnamese peasants are suspicious of government-issued solutions, and the fish pond toilet remained widespread in 2008. Documenting this sort of thing on Wikipedia can only be helpful to those researching and making decisions today. At any rate, that's why I put my energy in such articles.

Interestingly, no, dunny is not synonymous with pit latrine, not at all. I didn't know that till I started on these articles a week or two ago. Outhouse is not a historical term - it remains in current usage in many countries. Slopping out continues, according to our article, in Ireland, and according to this, in Britain (and surely in many poorer countries). I salute your efforts to clarify the sanitation articles.

Yes, I have done some work on the toilet article and the toilet template. The Gates-related articles don't really answer my questions, but they are a start. Thanks for the external glossaries. Carbon Caryatid (talk) 00:16, 12 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I think with regards to user behavior and why they use one system bot not the other, you'd find these articles interesting, too: open defecation, community-led total sanitation, reuse of excreta, history of water supply and sanitation, sanitation. I would also love to work more on the article behavior change (public health) which is highly relevant for sanitation aspects.EvMsmile (talk) 02:21, 12 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't read all of the articles you suggest; I'll do so, gradually, and see how better links (including to relevant sections wihtin long articles) might be helpful. Carbon Caryatid (talk) 11:26, 12 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You said above that a dunny is not a pit latrine. Well from a technical viewpoint in most cases, it is. As far as I can see, dunny is just the Australian slang for a toilet that is outdoors (same as outhouse) and in most cases this would equate to a pit latrine, or it could also be a bucket toilet (or a composting toilet, I guess). I guess the more interesting part about the article "dunny" is how this term has been used in Australian language and perhaps some of the humor attached to it. EvMsmile (talk) 02:21, 12 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Many dunnies are pit latrines, especially in wilderness areas (the bush). But my reading turned up this, which I added to dunny:

Academic George Seddon claimed that "the typical Australian back yard in the cities and country towns" had, throughout the first half of the twentieth century, "a dunny against the back fence, so that the pan could be collected from the dunny lane through a trap-door"^[2]

Seddon's essay was eye-opening. I'll see if I can add more from Australian dictionaries. Carbon Caryatid (talk) 11:34, 12 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hello All,

I have recently done some major changes to the page toilet. I am doing some major changes to the page, and have posted on the talk page requesting feedback. Since that page rarely gets a view, I am putting this here as well.

Cheers - JoshMuirWikipedia (talk) 03:44, 18 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent work, thanks. See further discussions on talk page of toilet.EvMsmile (talk) 21:48, 21 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hello all, just wanted to let you know that I am going to be starting to edit the article Neglected tropical diseases soon. I am currently working as a part of the Poverty, Justice, and Human Capabilities class at Rice University. My question is this: Do you have any suggestions for how to reorganize the order? In my opinion, the flow of the article is not great. I am going to be posting my plan soon on my own pages. Thanks! Akweaver32 (talk) 19:08, 22 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Update: This is the link to the full proposal. https://docs.google.com/a/rice.edu/document/d/1GjMAVcSkGDW2rM1ECM6BoeU8jK46i2HuCsJ60-ZxPjk/edit?usp=sharing Akweaver32 (talk) 18:42, 29 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the alert. Further discussions have taken place on the talk page for neglected tropical diseases. EvMsmile (talk) 21:47, 21 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to invite anyone who has this page on their watchlist to take part in a webinar that will take place on 24 November 2016. In this webinar we invite people to learn and discuss about this WikiProject and also the Kiwix offline version of Wikipedia. Further information is available here: http://forum.susana.org/component/kunena/146-webinars-and-online-meetings/19556-susana-monthly-webinar-6-improving-wikipedias-sanitation-content-for-online-or-offline-use-thursday-24-november-900-am-cet-stockholm-time

Hope to see some of you there! EvMsmile (talk) 12:25, 17 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the invitation! Carbon Caryatid (talk) 13:07, 18 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

How did it work out? Carbon Caryatid (talk) 17:03, 5 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It was good! :-) See the link to the recording here: http://forum.susana.org/component/kunena/198-wikipedia-and-other-wikis/19556-susana-monthly-webinar-6-improving-wikipedias-sanitation-content-for-online-or-offline-use-24-nov-2016-recording-now-available#19642 (the thread also contains a question by Kai about Wikipedia's e-mail notification of edits to watched pages - which does not seem to be working quite right - if you know the answer, please feel free to respond there or here on the talk page.) - I was hoping for more participants but those that did participate said they liked it and felt inspired. We should perhaps repeat it at a different time of the day (it was middle of the night for people in the U.S.). EvMsmile (talk) 22:11, 5 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I've begun to play the videos. It takes a lot of concentration to follow, I find. Sorry, I don't know about the email facility. Have you looked at Wikipedia:Questions? Carbon Caryatid (talk) 12:30, 6 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Please excuse if this is not the best place to ask: I am not familiar with this project's structure, so feel free to point me to a better place.

Reviewing new articles, I came across Witch's kiss and Poseidon's kiss. My first inclination was to propose them for deletion as poorly-sourced neologisms. But before I do, I thought I should check here in case you prefer to rescue these articles or merge them into some existing article. If I don't hear otherwise in a couple of days, I will nominate for deletion. --Gronk Oz (talk) 12:58, 4 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Just because I've never heard of them doesn't make them spurious, but yes, I would tend to agree, not notable. Carbon Caryatid (talk) 20:41, 4 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Agree - they should both be deleted.EvMsmile (talk) 12:03, 5 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Done: Thanks for your feedback. I have nominated these articles for deletion: if you care to make a comment then the nominations are at:

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Poseidon's kiss
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Witch's kiss --Gronk Oz (talk) 20:01, 9 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Good, I've added a comment to those two pages. EvMsmile (talk) 20:05, 9 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

N These AfD discussions have now closed - in both cases the decision was "Delete". --Gronk Oz (talk) 02:06, 17 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Can some of you please take a look at these two pages: vermifiltration and vermifilter. I think they should be merged, see talk page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Vermifilter#Proposed_merge_with_Vermifiltration . The page vermifiltration does not have a very good structure and would need a lot of additional work. References should have URLs etc. EvMsmile (talk) 15:17, 9 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Editors with an interest in this subject are invited to comment on this discussion of recent and proposed changes to Wikipedia coverage and nomenclature. Thewellman (talk) 20:09, 26 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The suggestion has been raised to hold an edit-a-thon on or just before World Water Day (22 March) with the aim to push for improved articles on WASH topics. This page looks quite useful for preparation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:How_to_run_an_edit-a-thon

What do the members of this WikiProject Sanitation think about this suggestion? Could it work? Would you like to be involved? Have you been in any other successful Edit-a-thons? If your are interested to get involved, please reply here and watch this space or contact me. EvMsmile (talk) 22:16, 30 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Here is the link to our edit-a-thon running for 48 hours on 19-21 March 2017: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Sustainable_Sanitation_Alliance_Edit-a-thon_for_World_Water_Day_March_2017_@_SuSanA_Platform_Worldwide . We also have a virtual workroom in Adobe Connect. You can join us by using your webcam, microphone or just typing in the chat box. The link is: https://seint.adobeconnect.com/wpeditathon/ EMsmile (talk) 12:34, 20 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Our edit-a-thon is currently at the half-way mark, with 24 hours still to go! The Outreach Dashboard will continue to monitor activities of editors who signed up for the edit-a-thon until 31 March. How about adding your name to the edit-a-thon now by clicking here at Outreach Dashboard if you haven't done so yet? Pinging members of this WikiProject to alert them to this:

User:Doc James, User:mll_mitch, User:David Allen Still, User:Gruster, User:Jknappe, User:RobynWaite13, User:Kevintayler, User:FloNight, User:CFCF, User:Mregelsberger, User:IRSDPakistan, User:JoshMuirWikipedia, User:Akweaver32, User:Dmrobbins10, User:Efuhrm, User:lividlili, User:Meshuwa, User:NightLyrical, User:exobarbiche EMsmile (talk) 12:03, 20 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Anyone with an interest in sanitation, or in gravity sewer in particular, please head over to the talk page of gravity sewer and provide your opinion regarding the structure of that article. I am proposing to move the history section to later and to used a different style of referencing. I think the article fits fair and square into WikiProject Sanitation and it would be nice if it followed the same structure as the others. Just trying to collect more opinions on this. EMsmile (talk) 19:52, 29 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

We are planning an editing event head of World Toilet Day in October 2017. If you want to get involved, leave a note here or add yourself as a member to the WikiProject Sanitation here. EMsmile (talk) 10:46, 15 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hello. I have started to write a List of sanitation technologies in French, largely inspired by the Compendium. THis way I can gradually follow the links to add a blurb about each. I was thinking of adding an infobox to the beginning of such articles, and I was wondering 1) if it is a good idea, and 2) what should go into such an infobox. So far I was thinking of:

• Name of technology
• A picture (which could come from the compendium given the CC-BY license)
• Where it fits in the sanitation chain (Emptying, Treatment, etc.) - can be multiple e.g. septic tank
• Like in the Compendium, the Inputs and the Outputs
• For treatment technologies, is it primary / secondary / tertiary
• For treatment technologies, which processes are mostly active (e.g. anaerobic...)

Anything else? It's relatively easy to add fields anyway. Thanks! le Korrigan →bla 20:42, 28 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, le Korrigan, sorry, I missed this earlier on. That's an interesting idea to create such a list article. For the English Wikipedia I would worry a bit that it might overlap with the existing category and template pages, e.g. the category on "sanitation" or the template on "toilets", see here. Or this one:

I am not sure about the use of infoboxes. They have them for medical articles, and for the country profiles on water and sanitation. But for technologies, I am not sure if it is worth the effort? Would people really look and read there and gain much from them? Do you have perhaps an example? EMsmile (talk) 22:56, 13 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

By the way we have an infobox for sanitation technologies now, it looks like this (for example) - see in the right margin:

WikiProject Sanitation
A septic tank being installed in the ground
Position in sanitation chain	Collection and storage/treatment (on-site)[1]
Application level	Household or neighborhood level (schools, hotels etc.)[1]
Management level	Household, public, shared (most common is household level)[1]
Inputs	blackwater (waste), greywater, brownwater[1]
Outputs	Fecal sludge, effluent[1]
Types	Single tank or multi-chamber septic tanks (potentially with baffles)[1]
Environmental concerns	Groundwater pollution, water pollution e.g. during floods[1]

EMsmile (talk) 02:30, 19 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Shall we make a separate Menstruation navbox? There are a wide variety of topics to incorporate in relations to menstruation.

And if this WikiProject isn't the right place to discuss about proposing a separate Menstruation navbox, where shall I discuss with? Qwertyxp2000 (talk | contribs) 04:34, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Qwertyxp2000: If two years later this is still on your mind, then what would you put in such a box? Blue Rasberry (talk) 17:30, 18 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Any topic closely related to the topic of menstruation. Although it has been years since thinking about a menstruation navbox, I think that proposed navbox should include bodily parts involved in menstruation (such as the uterus), sanitary products, and any cultural views regarding menstruation. Qwertyxp2000 (talk | contribs) 05:15, 26 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I wonder if a nav box is any better or basically the same as a template that appears below the article such as this one (scroll down a little):

EMsmile (talk) 02:14, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I think that's satisfactory. Qwertyxp2000 (talk | contribs) 01:40, 28 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. Please see this thread for discussions on a possible merger of the below three projects:

• Wikipedia:WikiProject Water (created on 14 June 2005)
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Water supply and sanitation by country (created on 24 November 2007)
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Sanitation (created on 3 December 2014)

Thanks, Rehman 12:52, 22 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

India: Water and Sanitation
Data
Access to at least basic water	88% (2019)[2]
Access to at least basic sanitation	98.9% (2019)[3]
Average urban water use (liter/capita/day)	126 (2006)[4]
Average urban water and sewer bill for 20m3	US$2 (2007)[5]
Share of household metering	55 percent in urban areas (1999)[6]
Share of collected wastewater treated	27% (2003)[7]
Annual investment in water supply and sanitation	US$5 / capita[8]
(content cut for shorter table in demo)

In 2007 Mschiffler established Wikipedia:WikiProject Water supply and sanitation by country. That project produced articles for nearly every country.

For 2019, here are the most popular articles in the category:

• Water supply and sanitation in India
• Drinking water supply and sanitation in the United States (also the only one rated as good)
• Water supply and sanitation in the Philippines
• Water supply and sanitation in Saudi Arabia

Many of these articles use an infobox. It is possible to make custom infoboxes in Wikipedia, but for this collection, there is no custom infobox.

I ran a count and found 57 of these national articles which could have a box. Possibly a box could work on state or city government articles. I think at least one for each country is useful, so 300 instances, and possibly boxes for other kinds of places.

{| style="width: 25em; font-size: 90%; text-align: left;" class="infobox" |- ! style="text-align:center; background:lightblue;" colspan="2"|<big>India: Water and Sanitation</big> |- | colspan="2" style="text-align:center" | [[Image:Flag of India.svg|100px]] |- ! style="text-align:center; background:lightblue;" colspan="3"|Data |- ! style="text-align:left; vertical-align:top;"|Access to at least basic water |valign="top"| 88% (2019)<ref name="JMP2017">WHO and UNICEF (2017) [https://washdata.org/reports Progress on Drinking Water, Sanitation and Hygiene: 2017 Update and SDG Baselines]. Geneva: World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), 2017</ref> |- ! style="text-align:left; vertical-align:top;"|Access to at least basic sanitation |valign="top"| 98.9% (2019)<ref>https://data.unicef.org/resources/data_explorer/unicef_f/?ag=UNICEF&df=GLOBAL_DATAFLOW&ver=1.0&dq=.WS_PPL_S-ALB..&startPeriod=2014&endPeriod=2019</ref> |- ! style="text-align:left; vertical-align:top;"|Average urban water use (liter/capita/day) |valign="top"| 126 (2006)<ref name="WSP Kuwasip">{{cite web|last=World Bank Water and Sanitation Program (WSP):|title=The Karnataka Urban Water Sector Improvement Project: 24x7 Water Supply is Achievable|url=http://www.wsp.org/wsp/sites/wsp.org/files/publications/WSP_Karnataka-water-supply.pdf|accessdate=20 August 2012|date=September 2010}}</ref> |- ! style="text-align:left; vertical-align:top;"|Average urban water and sewer bill for 20m3 |valign="top"| {{USD}}2 (2007)<ref name="ADB 2007, p. 3">[[Asian Development Bank]]:[http://www.adb.org/publications/2007-benchmarking-and-data-book-water-utilities-india 2007 Benchmarking and Data Book of Water Utilities in India], 2007, p. 3</ref> |- ! style="text-align:left; vertical-align:top;"|Share of household [[water metering|metering]] |valign="top"| 55 percent in urban areas (1999)<ref name="NIUA">National Institute of Urban Affairs: [https://www.scribd.com/doc/23362613/Status-of-Water-Supply-Sanitation-and-Solid-Waste-Management-in-Urban-Areas-Part-1 Status of Water Supply, Sanitation and Solid Waste Management], 2005, p. xix–xxvi. The evaluation is based on a survey of all 23 metropolitan cities in India (cities with more than 1 million inhabitants) and a representative sample of 277 smaller cities with an aggregate population of 140 million. The survey was carried out in 1999.</ref> |- ! style="text-align:left; vertical-align:top;"|Share of collected [[sewage treatment|wastewater treated]] |valign="top"| 27% (2003)<ref name="GTZ"/> |- ! style="text-align:left; vertical-align:top;"|Annual investment in water supply and sanitation |valign="top"| {{USD}}5 / capita<ref name="11th 5-year plan">[[Planning Commission (India)]]:[http://planningcommission.nic.in/aboutus/committee/strgrp11/str11_hud1.pdf DRAFT REPORT OF THE STEERING COMMITTEE ON URBAN DEVELOPMENT FOR ELEVENTH FIVE YEAR PLAN (2007–2012)], 2007. Retrieved 15 April 2010.</ref> |- ! style="text-align:center; background:lightblue;" colspan="3"|Institutions |- ! style="text-align:left; vertical-align:top;"|Decentralization to municipalities |valign="top"| Partial |- ! style="text-align:left; vertical-align:top;"|National water and sanitation company |valign="top"| No |- ! style="text-align:left; vertical-align:top;"|Water and sanitation regulator |valign="top"| No |- ! style="text-align:left; vertical-align:top;"|Responsibility for policy setting |valign="top"| State Governments; Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation, Ministry of Urban Development and Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation at the Federal Level |- ! style="text-align:left; vertical-align:top;"|Sector law |valign="top"| No |- ! style="text-align:left; vertical-align:top;"|Number of urban service providers |valign="top"| 3,255 (1991) |- ! style="text-align:left; vertical-align:top;"|Number of rural service providers |valign="top"| about 100,000 |} 

I think instead of having a custom infobox for each place we should have a standard infobox. Advantages would include easier readability of the code as compared to the code text I pasted above, and more certainty about including fields for comparison, and it would be a step toward integration with Wikidata.

About the Wikidata - Wikipedia does not currently publish infobox content from Wikidata, but it will someday, and Wikidata is especially useful for content like this. In the case of India people update these fields regularly and fail to use citations. We could update all countries at once from the base dataset, which would give the boxes to all countries (~300) and all languages (~10, for now) at once. This is not technically feasible right now but there are a lot of international policymakers watch progress in sanitation, so I think we could get good attention on Wikipedia if we got progress on our publishing over the next few years.

This is just a slow idea for now. Thoughts from others?

• Who has discussed a standard infobox before?
• Is there a reason one does not already exist?
• Is there a story behind the current practice, or did it just happen?

Blue Rasberry (talk) 21:15, 18 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, a standard infobox would make sense (I actually thought those articles already had a standard infobox). We do have a standard infox for "sanitation technologies" which I have just mentioned above. With this suite of articles on "water supply and sanitation by country", it was a pretty amazing effort when it was done. Back then about 10 years ago, User:Mschiffler had funding by Worldbank to put consultants onto that tasks. Since then those pages have been ticking over and some of them have been updated here and there by volunteers, some haven't. They generally have quite low view rates as you can see here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Sanitation/Popular_pages . The one about Water supply and sanitation in India has the highest view rates of the group. Given the low view rates I find it hard to motivate myself to update any of the data there. One thing I once tried to get going is to put some base information about this into the country articles and then make a link out from there to these articles. This could increase the view rates. It's quite a cumbersome job though to do that for so many countries. EMsmile (talk) 02:38, 19 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, there is a new RfC here on whether the scope of the article wet market should include those outside of Southeast/East Asia. Any participation is welcome! — MarkH₂₁^talk 21:00, 11 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

There is a requested move at Talk:Rubicon Global that would benefit from your opinion. Please come and help! P.I. Ellsworth  ed. ^put'r there 17:18, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

There is a WP:featured article review underway for menstrual cycle. Considering information about this topic is vital for many girls and women around the world, it would be worth saving the star or at least updating it partially. Any volunteers here? FemkeMilene (talk) 09:46, 21 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Please note that Emergency management, which is within this project's scope, has been selected as one of the Articles for improvement. The article is scheduled to appear on Wikipedia's Community portal in the "Articles for improvement" section for one week, beginning today. Everyone is encouraged to collaborate to improve the article. Thanks, and happy editing! Delivered by — MusikBot talk 00:05, 1 March 2021 (UTC) on behalf of the AFI team[reply]

I have discussed with a couple of users about the possibility of promoting Sewage treatment to Good article status and have received support for the idea.

To do so is likely to have repercussions for other articles to avoid duplication and excessive overlap. We would need to agree whether Sewage is merged into the article, how we represent Wastewater treatment and whether we partition of some topics as has happened for Secondary treatment. There have already been some very helpful suggestions here. Does this seem sensible and worthwhile project to be doing and, because it impacts a number of articles, is this the best place to coordinate it? I will post a note on Talk:Sewage treatment about the discussion here.  Velella  ^{Velella Talk}   15:02, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Velella sorry for the late reply (and pity that nobody else has replied yet). I've just done some work on the 4 articles wastewater treatment, wastewater, sewage treatment and sewage. I've made up my mind that sewage ought to be merged into sewage treatment and have added the merger tags for discussion. Apart from that we have to work really hard on keeping wastewater treatment distinct from sewage treatment or come up with something clever. In the literature, the term "wastewater treatment" is used so often interchangeably with "sewage treatment", it makes it really hard. One suggestion could be to rename sewage treatment to "municipal wastewater treatment" or "domestic wastewater treatment"? And rename wastewater to "wastewater types"? I think this problem is only getting worse, e.g. look at the publications for SDG 6, they usually call it "wastewater" and mean "domestic wastewater". EMsmile (talk) 12:24, 11 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Just alerting you that a discussion about merging "wastewater" into "wastewater treatment" (or not) is taking place here. EMsmile (talk) 04:29, 18 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

A discussion is underway about changing the name of reuse of excreta. Please take part in the discussion on the talk page here. EMsmile (talk) 01:20, 19 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Myself and User:Thewellman have recently been working on the articles on sewage, sewage treatment, wastewater and wastewater treatment. I would appreciated if a few more editors could cast their eyes on these articles (including their talk pages) and help us improve them further. I think those topics are important enough to warrant more than just two editors. Thanks in advance. (you don't have to be an expert in sewage treatment to contribute in a meaningful way) EMsmile (talk) 02:10, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting draft, I think he meets WP:GNG, but there are WP:BLP and maybe WP:COI issues. For the interested. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 13:45, 23 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Please note that Soil, which is within this project's scope, has been selected as one of the Articles for improvement. The article is scheduled to appear on Wikipedia's Community portal in the "Articles for improvement" section for one week, beginning today. Everyone is encouraged to collaborate to improve the article. Thanks, and happy editing! Delivered by — MusikBot talk 00:06, 9 May 2022 (UTC) on behalf of the AFI team[reply]

A discussion is underway about changing the name of reclaimed water to "wastewater reuse". Please take part in the discussion on the talk page here. EMsmile (talk) 09:07, 16 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I seek feedback about a new article I am considering writing. The proposed article would cover the history and development of drainage and sewerage in the city of Christchurch, New Zealand, up to the present day.

Drainage has been a significant issue for the development of the city because parts of what is now urban Christchurch were swamp land, prior to European settlement. Sewage collection, treatment and disposal has also been a significant issue for the city over the years (and is also a current issue because of a recent fire that caused major damage to the sewage treatment works). Drainage and sewage infrastrucutre sustained major damage and was a significant issue following the large 2011 Christchurch earthquake, and there are also drainage issues associated with sea level rise.

I have found some good sources, and there are lots of mentions of drainage and sewage topics in digitised Christchurch newspapers from prior to 1900 up to 1970. Here is one source: Christchurch - Swamp to City - A Short History of the Christchurch Drainage Board 1875-1989, by John Wilson 1989 [1]. There are sufficient sources to allow a new article to be created, but perhaps this is not the best solution, because it might receive very few page views.

I seek feedback about whether it is best to create a new article, or add content on this topic to existing articles. Here are some existing article options and my comments:

I look forward to some feedback before I get underway. Marshelec (talk) 21:41, 24 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, your analysis looks very thorough, Marshelec. I think it could well fit into the last two in the table, depending on how long you think it would get? If it'll become very long then I guess there is no way around having a stand-alone article. But if it's only a few paragraphs then it could fit into Water supply and sanitation in New Zealand or History of water supply and sanitation where it could go into an "examples" section for example. It's OK to have an individual city in a broad or a national level article. If you do decide to create a stand-along article you could still link to it from the other articles so that it will get more visibility. EMsmile (talk) 21:59, 24 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Quality assessments by Wikipedia editors rate articles in terms of completeness, organization, prose quality, sourcing, etc. Most wikiprojects follow the general guidelines at Wikipedia:Content assessment, but some have specialized assessment guidelines. A recent Village pump proposal was approved and has been implemented to add a |class= parameter to {{WikiProject banner shell}}, which can display a general quality assessment for an article, and to let project banner templates "inherit" this assessment.

No action is required if your wikiproject follows the standard assessment approach. Over time, quality assessments will be migrated up to {{WikiProject banner shell}}, and your project banner will automatically "inherit" any changes to the general assessments for the purpose of assigning categories.

However, if your project has decided to "opt out" and follow a non-standard quality assessment approach, all you have to do is modify your wikiproject banner template to pass {{WPBannerMeta}} a new |QUALITY_CRITERIA=custom parameter. If this is done, changes to the general quality assessment will be ignored, and your project-level assessment will be displayed and used to create categories, as at present. Aymatth2 (talk) 13:50, 13 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Water supply and sanitation in Colombia has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Hog Farm _Talk 20:07, 20 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I've created a topic-exclusive barnstar for this WikiProject, happy editing and cheers!

• {{subst:The Sanitation Barnstar|1=message ~~~~}}

		The Sanitation Barnstar
		message ~~~~

- Jerium (talk) 21:10, 27 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Jerium! This WikiProject has been a bit inactive, sadly. I like your barnstar although one could be picky and say: where is the "toilet" part of "sanitation" symbolised in the water tap and hand? Are you only symbolising drinking water and handwashing? EMsmile (talk) 12:07, 17 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

EMsmile Inactive, active, or even defunct is irrelevant because to have a WikiProject formed is what makes the ideal of a barnstar relevant, even a task force is good enough reason for me to make a barnstar. Having a barnstar made for an inactive/defunct WikiProject that did not have one to begin with, or a decent one, is the more reason to have a barnstar made for those projects, for initiating a resurrection. I usually make a barnstar according to the logo of what a WikiProject has, but this project seemed to not have one though, so I improvised and found clip art that would best represent the subject. Washing-hands before and/or after a meal, using the toilet, or just sweaty hands is the most common sanitation practice everywhere, which is why the barnstar shows hands under a sink in this barnstar, not a glass of water for quenching a thirst, and a toilet in the barnstar would be perceived as the opposite of cleanliness. Jerium (talk) 19:23, 17 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Water supply and sanitation in the United States has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Hog Farm _Talk 02:21, 4 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The article List of mass graves in the Middle East relates to infectious diseases etc. might be of interest to some here. I have started with one region that has some currently active articles. Depressingly, I think if we made it worldwide then the scope would be too huge? If others want to create articles for other regions then that is very much welcomed. But I think it would be frowned upon if I made a whole series of stubs myself? MWQs (talk) 14:43, 25 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There's only WikiProject Medicine. EMsmile (talk) 08:08, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I hope that everyone interested in this subject has seen https://xkcd.com/2982/ on water filtration. :-D WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:52, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]