Hi Elisabeth and colleagues,

What a pleasure to see these important Wikipedia articles coming to this stage of being made available in updated versions! And how important these Wikipedia articles are, and what a good feeling of being able to contribute with them!

My experience with them was very simple. Initially, I thought I would be able to participate only next year, because of current engagements. But Elisabeth started working very efficiently, and once in a while asked for a discussion on one or another topic. This made me immerse more in the whole content, and I found that it would be easier if we concentrated our efforts in order to converge to an acceptable version as soon as possible. We then intensified our communications, and things were made easy because I was able to make my reviews, comments and suggestions in the Word file of the Wikipedia article (I dind´t need to learn how to edit inside Wikipedia, what was a relief to me).

Elisabeth was extremely responsive, and our interactions were very dynamic and pleasant. Once I got immersed, there was no point in thinking about postponing the delivery date. Everything worked very well, and I think a similar approach could be adopted with other contributors.

Thank you very much, Elisabeth, for this top quality work you have been doing!!!

Another point I would like to mention is the pleasure of contributing without thinking in productive terms of publishing papers, like indices of publications per year, impact factors etc. All of this is secondary when we think that there are so many people in the world in need of simple and readily available information. There is room for all types of knowledge dissemination, and Wikipedia is certainly one of the most relevant ones. Our knowledge is not to be shared only among our peers in scientific papers, but also to the large population in need.

Finally, another point I found relevant is the democratic process involved in writing a Wikipedia article. Elisabeth handled very well the different opinions given by another contributor, and had to be flexible to converge on the different views and suggestions. I learned that the articles may not reflect exactly what we think or how we may wanted it to say, but their views are democratically shared among those who contributed to it. Different views need to be accommodated in order to reach a common basis. Very reasonable, and very encouraging to all of those who want to contribute.

Sorry for this long post, but I would like only to share my pleasant experience, thank and congratulate Elisabeth, and encourage many of you to give your share of experience and knowledge in other important Wikipedia articles.

All the best,

Marcos

On 30 August, Marcos von Sperling wrote in this thread "I will give a look at them later on and am willing to contribute.". Two weeks later he followed through with his promise and sent me two marked-up Word documents and provided detailed comments on the two Wikipedia articles on " sewage " and on " sewage treatment ". I attach one of the Word documents to this post so that you can see the amount of work he put into this and how much his comments improved the article. After I received his reviewer's comments, I then inserted his comments into the Wikipedia article, and we had some to and fro e-mails, in order to fine tune some of these changes further. 

The purpose of my post today is to:

1. Show you how much work goes into Wikipedia articles in the background to make them better and better.
2. Show you how much of his time and brain power Marcos contributed to this effort and to publicly thank him. Thank you, Marcos, your reviewing work is highly appreciated!
3. To encourage you to also take part in this exciting work, either for this topic or for any other topic that you feel strongly about.

See here a list of content experts that have so far contributed to this project that is improving Wikipedia articles about SDG 6, SDG 13 and SDG 14: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/S...SDGs#Content_experts

Oh and I also changed the image that appears in the lead of this article. It used to be just one activated sludge treatment plant in the US. Now it show various types of treatment processes in four different countries (this could be worked on further).



Regards,
Elisabeth

Hi Elisabeth and colleagues,

I am very glad that the books have been useful. Congratulations on the very important initiative of updating the Wikipedia articles on wastewater treatment. I will give a look at them later on and am willing to contribute.

For everyone, to facilitate understanding about the open-access books published by IWA that you mentioned, I am attaching here a file with a short list, with their title, cover and link for downloading.

Best regards,

Marcos

Providing an update here for a thread that was started 8 years ago. The mentioned textbook "Biological wastewater treatment in warm climate regions" whose pdf file is available for free online came in very handy to me when I recently reworked the Wikipedia articles on sewage and sewage treatment:

• en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sewage
• en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sewage_treatment

It's great (and rare) to have a textbook available for free online, so I have now used it as a source about 30 times in each of the two articles.* It contained exactly the kind of information that I felt the general public should know about. I replaced a lot of content that was US centric without even saying that it was US centric. With that I mean a statement such as: 

The volume of domestic sewage produced per person varies with the availability of water and cost of water, ^[12]  and is typically within the range of 190–380 l (42–84 imp gal; 50–100 US gal) per capita per day. ^{[4] :296}

That's how it was worded in the Wikipedia article on sewage on 25 July, see here . It is a pet hate of mine when Wikipedia articles make it sound like whatever the situation is in the United States, the same applies at the global level! (sadly, it's still like this in many Wikipedia articles; that's why we need more editors from other countries). 

I have changed the wording now to this (see here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sewage#Flowrates):

The volume of domestic sewage produced per person (or " per capita ", abbreviated as "cap") varies with the water consumption in the respective locality. ^{[2] :11} A range of factors influence water consumption and hence the sewage flowrates per person. These include: Water availability (the opposite of  water scarcity ),  water supply  options,  climate  (warmer climates may lead to greater water consumption), community size, economic level of the community, level of  industrialization ,  metering  of household consumption, water cost, water pressure and system losses in the  water supply network . ^{[2] :20}

[...]

With regards to water consumption, a design figure that can be regarded as "world average" is 35-90 L per person per day (data from 1992). ^{[5] :163} The same publication estimated water consumption in China as 80 L per person per day, Africa as 15-35 L per person per day, and Latin America and Caribbean as 70-190 L per person per day. ^{[5] :163}

With this post today I'd like to encourage you to help improve those two Wikipedia articles further. You can either make edits directly yourself or you can tell me what you think should be changed. For example, are there any gaps in current issues that ought to be mentioned?

For example, I feel like something about antibiotic resistance spread via untreated sewage discharges should be included but I don't know yet how and where. (there is a bit of content in Wikipedia's article on "antimicrobial resistance" but it should be improved and updated: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antimicrobial_resi..._sanitation,_hygiene)

Regards,
Elisabeth


* I used this reference, cited as follows based on its DOI: 
Von Sperling, M. (2015).  "Wastewater Characteristics, Treatment and Disposal" . Water Intelligence Online. 6 (0): 9781780402086–9781780402086.  doi : 10.2166/9781780402086 .  ISSN   1476-1777 .

The different books were a bit confusing to me but Marcos explained it as follows:

"A general book that could be cited is:
VON SPERLING, M., CHERNICHARO, C.A.L. (2005). Biological wastewater treatment in warm climate regions. Two volumes. IWA Publishing. 1496 p. ISBN 1843390027.
iwaponline.com/ebooks/book/127/Biologica...ment-in-Warm-Climate
 
This book was later on (2007) split into six volumes (with a seventh volume, Treatment
Wetlands, added in 2017). Volume 1 covers this topic:
 
VON SPERLING, M. (2007). Wastewater characteristics, treatment and disposal. Volume 1.Biological Wastewater Treatment Series. IWA Publishing. 296 p. ISBN 1843391619.
iwaponline.com/ebooks/book/72/Wastewater...eatment-and-Disposal "
 

Thanks a lot for your fast response, Marcos!

And yes, December is still fine for reviewing the Wikipedia article on waste stabilization ponds. It would greatly benefit from a once-over review by an expert such as yourself!

Remember that the target audience is the general public and also people whose native language is not English necessarily. We therefore recommend simple sentences to improve the readability score.

Also keep in mind that some of the authors of the article might have been laypersons and they may over oversimplified things and therefore introduced errors. This we need to correct. The aim is to have a text that is simple, easy to understand but correct and well referenced (e.g. by using your publications; if we reference your book then giving chapter numbers or page numbers would be really helpful).

Regards,
Elisabeth

Dear Elisabeth,

Indeed, the link to the Open Access books changed. Initially, they were hosted at IWA Water Wiki, which no longer exists as such. Now they are hosted directly on IWA Publishing website, on the Open Access link (exactly the link you found and mentioned in your e-mail).

Yes, a new book is being launched. Treatment Wetlands will be volume 7 of the "Biological Wastewater Treatment Series". All the seven volumes are freely available for downloading at the link mentioned. The new book has been written by a team of experts in wetlands, and turned out to be very good and practical. When it is launched (which is likely to be in the next few weeks) we will mention it here.

I gave a look at the existing Wikipedia text on Stabilization Ponds, and think I can give a contribution to it, mostly in the reviewing process. The only limitation I have in the moment is my immediate time availability. I will be travelling during most of November, and will be able to deal with it only from sometime in December. Is this still acceptable?

Best regards,

Marcos

Dear Marcos,

The link that you provided in your post in October 2013 for the free download of your book no longer works.

But good news: I found another one that does work and that is even more comprehensive, listing a whole range of books related to developing countries issues now freely available:
www.iwapublishing.com/open-access-ebooks/3567

That's great!

You had mentioned above:

I would like to see IWA investing more on this direction of making books relevant to developing countries freely available. I contacted IWA President (Glen Daigger) and he also thinks that this is a good idea

Sounds like you were successful!

When I look at this page: www.iwapublishing.com/books/bookarticle-.../marcos-von-sperling
I see you have a new book on Treatment Wetlands coming out in November which will be freely available as an open access text? That's great.
Please make sure you advertise it here on the forum once it's out.

The reason why I was looking for these free download links today is because I was doing some work on the Wikipedia article on "Waste stabilization ponds": en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_stabilization_pond

Up until today, none of your publications had been cited in there which was not good. I have now added a reference in two places (much more could still be done; replacing some other less suitable citations). Any chance you or anyone from your team would like to work with me on that? See also our Sanitation Wikipedia drive announcement here: forum.susana.org/forum/?view=topic&catid=213&id=21749

Regards,
Elisabeth

Dear colleagues,

Many thanks for the positive replies.

I would like to see IWA investing more on this direction of making books relevant to developing countries freely available. I contacted IWA President (Glen Daigger) and he also thinks that this is a good idea, and pushed further the approval for our book. But I think if more of you contacted IWA reinforcing this idea, this would assist in creating a basis for more free books.

Thre was a question by Christoph regarding availability in other languages, particularly Spanish. The freely downloadable version of the book
"Biological wastewater treatment in warm climate regions" is available only
in English, via IWA WaterWiki. A Spanish translation is being done by a
colleague from Universidad de Nariño, Colombia (Iván Andrés Sanchez Ortiz),
and so far he has already finished the more introductory book and the one on
anaerobic reactors (both already available). The Spanish and the Portuguese versions are only printed.

Best regards to all,

Marcos

Dear Marcos,

what a great work! Thank you for the shared insights.

Parabéns Marcos,
that is a very very good iniciative.

Yours Christoph

Dear Marcus,
congratulations and thanks for your efforts to make the books available for free for all now,
great, Guenter

Dear Mr. Marcos,

Profound thanks to you for making the two volumes free. People from the developing countries, who are poor and cannot afford to pay for the books, due to the rising cost of living (like me) will greatly benefit by this free publication offer.

Is there any way, you could request IWA to make more books available free, for downloading? That would be a great, great service to the financially hard-pressed professionals.

Thank you again

Regards,

F H Mughal