September 1, 2005
still utterly failed by words
The Slidell wiki that I set up this morning (where people from Slidell, Louisiana go to post info re. missing persons) is getting heartbreakingly long. [SEE ALSO: The Slidell Damage Blog.]
A lot of people leaving messages, not surprisingly, aren’t too wiki-savvy. That’s OK; I go back and tidy up things every couple of hours. If anyone wants to lend a hand tweakin’ & a’tidyin’, I would appreciate it.
Also, Alan has set up a comprehensive Hurricane wiki. Well done, Alan: http://thinknola.com/wiki/
[UPDATE:] Alan says in the comments:
I’ve overwhelmed, communicating with people within New Orleans to communicate with people outside of New Orleans. The links really help.
1) Survivor Database —
There are many forums, blogs, email lists, web sites, but no one directory. We need to pick one and stick with it, so people don’t have to scour all the different forums. I chose to flog this one because it was running first.
http://www.familymessages.org/index.php
Turns out the programmer behind it is a web application wizard. He’s been whipping up new features all day, and the program has been rock solid stable.
You fill out a card, name and home town and it goes into the directory. You can add notes to each name.
It’s got RSS feeds for everyone’s notes.
We need to get critical mass. It’s only as good as the size of the database. Network efffects, and son on. You know all about that.
Please get the word out.
2) Effective Wiki — Wiki is great for spot emergencies, I’m finding. People need a place to rally, and a Wiki page goes up instantly.
The Xavier evac taught me this. It became a temporary clearing house until XU could set up their own page.
I wish I could do more, but I can’t keep up the Wiki trying to get the word out about the survivor registry.
Please, if anyone knows how to Wiki, get in touch with me.
Thank you, Hugh. Please get the word out.
[UPDATE:] Amazing pictures.
[UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE: MORE FROM ALAN:]
Hugh,
I need your help. There is a problem with New Orleans. Reporting has been given over to the media, and they are talking about the looting, the shooting, the crime. It’s a great big show. It’s anarchy, it’s chaos. No information to be had.
But, in reality. There is A LOT of information to be had. It’s simply not presented in a way that is at all useful to the citizens of New Orleans.
There are land lines working, SMS messages are working on cell phones, people are running all sorts of information through the http://nola.com/forums/ .
That’s the problem. It scrolls off the screen and gets lost.
I gathered some of that information into a Wiki page. It was information about about Xavier University. A faculty member posted a list of trapped students. I formatted it and put it on a Wiki page.
Then people started to send me updates in e-mail. Someone thanked me for the page. So, I made point of gathering and formatting all the Xavier messages I could find onto the page.
The Xavier Wiki page became an unofficial web page, and kept it up until I couldn’t stay awake an longer, and sadly, went to sleep.
When I awoke, I found that the Xavier families, has simply kept the Wiki page going without me. I cleaned up the their markup, buth the information is there.
Now, I’m finding the page gets updated, nice and neat.
http://thinknola.com/wiki/index.php?title=Xavier
Wiki works.
Okay, cute. But this helped. Maybe only a tad, but tad more than nothing.
I wish I could create a page for every university, school, hospital, nursing home, apartment, etc. Gather photos off of Getty and AP and organize them by neighborhood. I wish I could key in more names from the myriad message boards into a real survivor directory like:
http://www.familymessages.org/index.php
The people in crisis don’t have time to fiddle with a new technology. But, we could help, by gathering and organizing this information for them. The journalists won’t do it. Someone has to.
Please, help me figure out how to get more people involved organizing all the loose information. There is a problem that we can help to solve from our keyboards. There really is.
Get a conversation going. It’s not about the software. It’s about getting the data organized. Giving people places to rally.
Alan
Resources re Hurricane Katrina
Resources re Hurricane Katrina
Hugh
Thank You! I’ve overwhelmed, communicating with people within New Orleans to communicate with people outside of New Orleans. The links really help.
1) Survivor Database -
There are many forums, blogs, email lists, web sites, but no one directory. We need to pick one and stick with it, so people don’t have to scour all the different forums. I chose to flog this one because it was running first.
http://www.familymessages.org/index.php
Turns out the programmer behind it is a web application wizard. He’s been whipping up new features all day, and the program has been rock solid stable.
You fill out a card, name and home town and it goes into the directory. You can add notes to each name.
It’s got RSS feeds for everyone’s notes.
We need to get critical mass. It’s only as good as the size of the database. Network efffects, and son on. You know all about that.
Please get the word out.
2) Effective Wiki — Wiki is great for spot emergencies, I’m finding. People need a place to rally, and a Wiki page goes up instantly.
The Xavier evac taught me this. It became a temporary clearing house until XU could set up their own page.
I wish I could do more, but I can’t keep up the Wiki trying to get the word out about the survivor registry.
Please, if anyone knows how to Wiki, get in touch with me.
Thank you, Hugh. Please get the word out.
Hugh,
I need your help. There is a problem with New Orleans. Reporting has been given over to the media, and they are talking about the looting, the shooting, the crime. It’s a great big show. It’s anarchy, it’s chaos. No information to be had.
But, in reality. There is A LOT of information to be had. It’s simply not presented in a way that is at all useful to the citizens of New Orleans.
There are land lines working, SMS messages are working on cell phones, people are running all sorts of information through the http://nola.com/forums/ .
That’s the problem. It scrolls off the screen and gets lost.
I gathered some of that information into a Wiki page. It was information about about Xavier University. A faculty member posted a list of trapped students. I formatted it and put it on a Wiki page.
Then people started to send me updates in e-mail. Someone thanked me for the page. So, I made point of gathering and formatting all the Xavier messages I could find onto the page.
The Xavier Wiki page became an unofficial web page, and kept it up until I couldn’t stay awake an longer, and sadly, went to sleep.
When I awoke, I found that the Xavier families, has simply kept the Wiki page going without me. I cleaned up the their markup, buth the information is there.
Now, I’m finding the page gets updated, nice and neat.
http://thinknola.com/wiki/index.php?title=Xavier
Wiki works.
Okay, cute. But this helped. Maybe only a tad, but tad more than nothing.
I wish I could create a page for every university, school, hospital, nursing home, apartment, etc. Gather photos off of Getty and AP and organize them by neighborhood. I wish I could key in more names from the myriad message boards into a real survivor driectory like:
http://www.familymessages.org/index.php
The people in crisis don’t have time to fiddle with a new technology. But, we could help, by gathering and organizing this information for them. The journalists won’t do it. Someone has to.
Please, help me figure out how to get more people involved organizing all the loose information. There is a problem that we can help to solve from our keyboards. There really is.
Get a conversation going. It’s not about the software. It’s about getting the data organized. Giving people places to rally.
Alan
I’m sure I’m not the first to think of this (because I’m not that smart!), but many of my friends and family aren’t happy members of the blogosphere like me.
I have put links to these sites in an email and forwarded it to everyone I know, in hopes that they will forward it, who will forward it, etc.
Anything to get the information out.
More to the Media Story in NOLA , the Power of Wiki and More Ways to Help
From Alan, via Hugh at gapingvoid.Hugh, I need your help. There is a problem with New Orleans. Reporting has been given over to the media, and they are talking about the looting, the shooting, the crime. It’s a great big
Blogger goodness for Katrina victims
In yesterday’s edition of For Immediate Release: The Hobson
Keep it up– then keep it up some more.
Hugh MacLeod at gapingvoid is helping folks get information through. He’s also getting out the word about people who are on the scene, doing the same. Link: gapingvoid: still utterly failed by words. Media reports of violence and looting, and
Thank you. And please keep up the effort. Longer than you think. People who don’t make exciting media footage are equally devastated. As people are moved from NOLA, surrounding shelters are full and new ones filling as fast as they open. Bear in mind that “surrounding” in this case, can be literally hundreds of miles from home — with, potentially, no home to return to. This won’t be over in days — or even weeks. Emergency information is critical now. When it becomes less of an emergency, it will remain a catastrophe, and the need for information will still be there.
Katrina Wikis Come To The Rescue
Alan Guterriez of Engine Room blog asked me to help spread word. Those that know either a bit about using wikis and/or about about the lay of the land in New Orleans are needed to help wiith organizational structure/information architecture
Kevin — I wrote a response to you, but it never posted. Too many windows open.
You are right. There needs to be an enormous effort to key in, format, cut and paste.
Ernie — Thank you. Getting things together is difficult.
I’m pulling together a Wiki for New Orleans communities. I’ve not got some friends from the School of Information at U of M helping me out. We’re hoping to launch the site Monday.
It’s like about.com for New Orleans communities. A tech savvy person becomes a “Community Guide” and helps that community by creating web pages. Many communities are without their IT, and many communities never needed IT before, because New Orleans is so cozy.
Can you help me by answering, what are the best online web applications? For groups? For todo lists? What free tools are available that people can use to organize and rebuild.
Or just forward this question to someone who’s willing to blog about it. I’ll check back later, or e-mail me directly, or edit this wiki page.
http://thinknola.com/wiki/index.php?title=Web_Applications
Thank you.
Still utterly failed by how fucking lame the blogo sphere is. While everyone is under Murdoch’s spell, these people have flocked to the only place that is online that has New Orleans in it’s naem.
NOLA.com Forums.
I’ve tried to organize the organization of these forums, and, and… BUPKIS!
A liter of diet code at a time, though, I’m starting to get it under control ALL BY MY SELF.
There are some amazing stories, amazing reports.
You could all be reading this from RSS…
http://thinknola.com/wiki/index.php?title=NOLA.com_Forum_Feeds
..but, uh, no, let’s talk about Bush.
Hey, why don’t we write an AJAX application? Huh?
Why don’t you subscribe to those forums, because when people get to a computer. That’s where they go, and they will say, Call me at X with any info about my neighborhood, and then they are off.
Well? Do it! Call them at X. Find information. Answer their questions when they are asked, don’t wait for them to find you’re blog. NO ONE IN NEW ORLEANS CARES ABOUT YOUR BLOG RIGHT NOW!
Okay, stories…
http://thinknola.com/wiki/index.php?title=Uptown_The_Trudge_Report
Or read through the wonderful self-organization of citizens Uptown…
http://www.nola.com/forums/townhall/index.ssf?artid=23899
Please don’t tell me the city is doomed. The’re drinking (hard won) Margaritas again.
And best of all, Humor:
http://thinknola.com/wiki/index.php?title=Humor
Okay. Back to work. Shame on you all.
Much love, though. I know we are all suffering. I wish I’d pulled together the team, but I just couldn’t figure out how. God bless you all.