Mt transcript 2005-09-13
From Katrina Help Info
Attendees
Sue Cline
Deborah Finn
Dan
Lindy
Jon Lebkowsky
Alan Sun
Franklin Moon
Heather GM
Wendy Edwards
Judith Barnett
Ka-Ping Yee
Steve Stucket
Mark Rauterkus
Franklin - first time on the call. run a site doing own relief database. would like to help technically
Jon - katrinahelp.info created restructure
Jon reviewing wordpad document sent out by Karen which includes overall project structure
Jon - background. first conversation between ethen, david. need to create links to data to ensure that original content doesn't change. Then noticed that linking didn't work as data shifted between screens. So they started scraping data [essentially a snapshot of the screen] to separate page that is managed and static for linking purposes. What is a wiki: a wiki is a text-based system that allows any logged-in user to edit a page. Wiki is utilized to allow project team members to go in and edit pages such as "claim" tasks. One thing realized over last few days in response to questions from data-entry people. There was confusion about how to mark something "claimed" so there has been duplication in effort. Jon has changed instructions to make more sense.
???: Agreed that the instructions were confusing.
Jon: back to organization: four main areas:
1) chunking the data into approx. 1 hr of data entry.
2) data entry
3) database and all its components
4) marketing/outreach - increasing awarness and connecting with other sites.
Jon: Jon has been overseeing data entry. Looking for back-up. Hasn't been deluged with questions - been a constanst stream. Ping, Jon Plax, Josh Kleinpeter originally worked on database.
David: getting back to the agenda
1. katrinasafe.com is going to be the official database.
2. what is the purpose of the peoplefinder process? Marty has been on the phone for the last 18 hrs to keep maintaining their lists. People should be shutting down their existing sites, uploading existing data into katrinalist.net and directing all new data entry into katrinasafe.com.
Jon: Getting data from a lot of sources and sharing data with anyone who wants it.
David: We have both inbound and outbound PFIF feed to support sharing data. We are sharing data to SDSC where they're trying to make sense of all the data
Jon: A question about the formatted records online. John Galloway talking about privacy - what are we doing about it.
David: Philosophy is that spammers got records a long time ago.
Jon: We didn't create these records. We're taking them from other sources which were very accessible upfront. Anybody out there who was getting data already got them, so our priority is for connecting people.
David: 3 days lost on Red Cross deal based on lawyers talking about privacy. We're 5 days away from unified data. What can we do to move it all.
___: Will the database be shared in public domain format? what's the license?
David: No license. Just a PFIF feed. Once katrinasafe goes up, they'll have the list, we'll shut down.
<missed something>
David: Structured for redundancy. Only thing I care about is that people can find people
???: Put pressure on the people allowing new entries.
___: Is that just the shelters?
Jon: Many forums, maybe craigslist
___: 3 calls trying to get MSNBC to take down their forum and point to katrinasafe.
___: 2 schools of thought - 1.distributed data model, 2. centralized single database. concerned about all data in one place
Jon: There are so many pockets. Trying to shut down unstructured data and get entered into a central repository or distributed data repository.
____: Disagree with shutting down sites. If there is a distributed database, why shut down sites. keep them up and have them search all others behind the scenes.
Judith: Google incorporating data from many other sites. ShelterFinder collecting data different from what's contained in katrinalist
____: Want to tie shelterfinder in with katrinalist information
Judith: there is confusion on what the shelterfind project is. It's to create a list of shelters and associated contact information, idea of how many people are there so that volunteers can make better informed decisions. The issue with interoperability is that the PFIF structure is closed and has no field to capture this information.
Ping: PFIF is frozen because developers don't want the format to continue changing. Doesn't affect shelterfinder progress and db development
Judith: Issue is getting data and making connection. Can't do that until she gets dump.
Anon: Need to make interfaces as simple as possible to cater the needs of the users.
____: Make a link from katrinalist from last known location which takes the user to the shelterfinder info.
____: What is the role of this project if we're directing folks to katrinasafe when we may have be offering unique features.
Ping: Need way to structure communication between volunteers at the shelters and folks who want to help.
David: Notes about shelters. katrinasafe has a client application that is designed for shelters to maintain a registry for the people at that shelter. Red Cross committed to rolling out to all the Red Cross shelters which leaves out the non-Red Cross shelters
???: which leaves 80% of the beds
David: That's where, Judith, you have a huge contribution to make.
Judith: We have over 1000 shelters in the database, which is about half of the shelters. If we can get the rest. We started with a list of aide agencies and began the list from them.
Jon: Somebody asked about katrinahelp earlier on. We needed a wiki space and they seemed like the logical place and they've been supportive through this process.
Judith: Added Karen's document to meeting wiki
Jon: Started talk about who's doing what Zack Rosen, Kieran working on technology. Steve Fisher: from salesforce Steve Write and Jon Plax had been working on this previously. Dan Robinson is out, not sure about Paul. Marketing: Sue Cline. Sue would you like to say something.
Sue Cline: Want to thank everyone, expecially Debra, for her volunteer story. Asking others for their stories. Marty and several other people ensure that we're on message with the press. Especially story interested in reunion stories. Press Releases out to major outlets and getting some interest. Primarly at this point, we want to talk coherently about all aspects of the project. Knowing that we had 1100 shelters is important especially to Debra, who is doing the nonprofit outreach. We need this information desperatly. People are frantically trying to re-connect. The goal of the project is to reunite people - we need to focus on that. We're trying to be clear that there is significant need for this product. Microsoft won't be around. Mission is getting all sites on PFIF so that all data is interchangeable.
Jon: likely to happen - we're going to continue to have hurricanes
Sue: should be a module that can be plugged in. If not, they leave the unstructured format alone. It's maddening otherwise because they're dialing in at 28kb modems. The actual mechanics long-term needs to be leverage the power of this. Forget about page vies and increasing ad-revenue and focusing on helping the people out.
David: Within 4 days we would have had all the evacuee information if we didn't have to build all the technology from scratch.
Franklin: We have a site livewirefm and we had a database until today when we updated our data in PFIF
David: Have you added a search box to your site
Liza: Can you do that?
Franklin: This system is being built for reuse.
David: grab HTML and put it on our site - it's a post.
Liza: Just to give you an update with the liberal blogger sphere. With the John Roberts hearing, people are veering attention to that. There are two humungous focuses. The hearings will go for 20 days until the end of the both. Expectation for him starting to work Oct. 3. The meeting was with Sen. Ted Kennedy. Asking us to focus on putting pressure on the senate during this time. For dealing with the liberal part of the bloggers here, we need to make this a high-focus of attention quickly.
Sue: We need to get some linkware so that bloggers don't have to write, but the tools are there.
Liza: Talk to Ted, get him a tool so that folks can click on a link and that's it. Would be useful if Ted can upload it as a tool.
Sue: Talked to someone who creates buttons for nonprofits to add button on blog, he may be calling you.
Lisa: have him look into specifications for blog adds so that he can send a message to any ad blog holder.
Sue: Who can I send him to on this call.
Sue: Can we get paul form wizbang as the voice of the hurricane and get syndication on other blogs.
Liz: We need to do an outreach for the conservative bloggers here. We need to work on one statement that can be sent to both left and right. Unless we do that, not putting wizbang on my blog.
Sue: We have katrina blog that's already there. Maybe not have it only on katrinahelp. We have guest bloggers all the time. Why not have three guest bloggers from the left, right, and center.
Liz: Have you gone to technoratti, click on katrina, you will see links to all people writing about the disaster right now. there is a section of blogs specifically focusing on katrina.
David: put tool on my search blog - need to edit query. We should make a box, make it pretty, spread it virally with instructions to have them upload their PFIF and add the search interface to their site.
???: Getting back to agenda. The message that we're putting out there. People looking for people should search on katrinalist. People entering data should enter data on katrinasafe. What is the role of existing katrina list forms. What should our volunteers do.
Jon: Operating under the assumption that we should continue to use our forms
David: I will go with everyone - I'm flexible. But I'd like to point people as soon as possible to katrinasafe. they're going to eventually get their butts together.
Sue: Red Cross is not dispersing any of the resources at the moment.
David: We share our data - number one rule, let's operate on katrinalist until red cross gets their act together.
Jon: people worked hard on data interchange format and red cross isn't using it right?
David: Judith has biggest and most significant commitment, Anand is right behind her. There's another company that does project management. Sue has been extraordinary, part-time. Marty was full-time for a few days and then had to move off. Need to continue central information so everyone stays informed eliminated the stop/start.
Franklin: from livewirefm wants to volunteer, how do we do this.
David/Ping: sign up to list, list archive on wiki
Ping: folks to continue using katrinalist forms. Should we continue development on the forms or wait for katrinasafe forms.
Jon: We should add update functionality and instruct volunteers on how to do that.
David: salesforce not structured to move quickly enough so any further development should be done elsewhere such as on RData. Ping, you're in charge of choosing platform. This conversation should go offline.
Ping: Want to review short-to-medium term goals before call is done
Kieran: 3 big issues in my mind 1. this project started with sharing list of victims/survivors - need to close this out and get data from salesforce 2. we need to do some interviews and evaluate what went well. 3. privacy issue: we need to be careful. there are huge volumes of data sitting out in the public
Debra: David had conversation with [___] who specializes in nonprofits and informatics. Also got call from Paul Resnick who specifically wants to evaluate successes.
Jon: We have data of found people and data for folks looking for people - we need to match this up and contact the folks looking for people with found information
Franklin: Has done that on site and would like to offer that technology.
____: we've been receiving faxes and making phone calls from the beginning
Jon: there is a privacy issue, but on the other hand, privacy is secondary in a time of crisis and our priority is to reconnect people.
David: proposing shutting down PFIF outbound feed and managing/controlling CSV distribution. Or put PFIF outbound feed behind a password or something.
Franklin: we just moved away from a distributed database.
Debra: Are we interested in getting advice on this nonprofit and privacy issue? Got a query from folks with the expertise?
___: Until we get people connected, leave the beaurocrats out of it
Kieran: Jon Gallaway and I have been reviewing federal legislation and if we know that this information can be abused you may be breaking federal law
Jon: I can't see a way that we could get in trouble for this.
???: It's not just katrinalist, it's 30 disparate sites, get everyone on a call and come with a consensus
Sue: Big story here. We need to be clear about the narrative behind this. we need to be clear about the URLs and brand.
