PeopleFinderVolunteer

Volunteers: What YOU can do

The ultimate goal is for people to be able to search one consolidated database and find information about their loved ones.

[Help also urgently needed on sister ShelterFinder project to gather data and test our data input]

How can you help?

Create A User Name

• Click here (http://192.122.183.218/wiki/index.php?title=Special:Userlogin&returnto=PeopleFinderVolunteer) to create a user name at this project volunteer site. (The link to create a user name is also at the top right corner of each page in the wiki.) For help on this, read How To Create A Username.

Input New Data

Data entry form is here (http://www.katrinalist.net/katrinaPeopleFinder/volunteerSubmit.html)

• Carefully read the detailed instructions at PeopleFinderVolunteerInstructions - you must read these instructions before starting.
• Get an assignment from PeopleFinderAssignments and mark it as claimed
• Enter the data (http://www.katrinalist.net/katrinaPeopleFinder/volunteerSubmit.html) from the posts in your assignment
• Edit the assignment page to mark your assignment as completed, or note where you left off so that others may finish it.

Go on Clean Up Duty

• Since this is a volunteer-based effort, sometimes people get called away while they're in the middle of a "chunk" or list of names. Please consider going on "cleanup duty". Find an assignment that has been partially entered and finish it up, if it looks abandoned. Enter data. Edit the wiki.

Join The Volunteer List

• We may issue a call for volunteers from time to time over the next months to enter hurricane-related refugee data. If you're interested in helping, please add your name with the volunteer registration form (http://wasielewski.org/katrinapeoplefinder/volunteer).

Help With Publicity and Outreach

• If you'd like to help spread the word, visit PeopleFinderOutreach. We need help getting more volunteers, publicizing the availability of this resource, and working with the press. We also need to find pro bono PR help ASAP. We've been getting press calls from The Guardian, CNN, NPR etc. and are getting crushed under the weight... If you know a professional PR firm that could help pro bono ASAP, please let us know! (See site: http://civicspacelabs.org/home/node/14101)
  • A place to start might be the Public Relations Society of America (http://www.prsa.org/), phone 212-460-1400.

Share Success Stories

• Got a call from Andrea Israel, the producer for Anderson Cooper on CNN. They are looking to film two people who found each other using these web sites. If you have a story of people found, and they are willing to be video taped for CNN, please post it at PeopleFoundStories.

Upcoming Features

Editing

Currently there is no function to edit existing entries. If you have additional updates, create a new record for the same person.

Searching

The search page is up at http://www.katrinalist.net

"Who Do I Call...What Do I Do...?" Further Information on PeopleFinder

• Send general questions about this project to katrina-people@activist-tech.org
• To subscribe to an email list for data entry team, send a blank email to peoplefinder-subscribe@activist-tech.org
• Several questions are answered on Talk:PeopleFinderVolunteer
• For help visit #globalvoices on irc.freenode.net (irc://irc.freenode.net/globalvoices) or if you do not have an irc client, click here (http://www.setecsecurity.com/katrina/chat.html) - People there will be able to help you out.
• IRC Chat Logs (http://katrina.blueoxen.net/irc/globalvoices/)
• We have an email address for questions, katrina-people@activist-tech.org, and we have a discussion list for volunteers, peoplefinder@activist-tech.org. To join the discussion list, send a blank email to peoplefinder-subscribe@activist-tech.org.
• You can also post questions to the "discussion" tab of this wiki page, and we'll try to help you out.

Getting help with this wiki and the database

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• Send general questions about this project to katrina-people@activist-tech.org
• To subscribe to an email list for data entry team, send a blank email to peoplefinder-subscribe@activist-tech.org
• Several questions are answered on Talk:PeopleFinderVolunteer
• For help visit #globalvoices on irc.freenode.net (irc://irc.freenode.net/globalvoices) or if you do not have an irc client, click here (http://www.setecsecurity.com/katrina/chat.html) - People there will be able to help you out. This is not a reliable source of help. If you have questions, send to katrina-people (at) activist-tech.org
• IRC Chat Logs (http://katrina.blueoxen.net/irc/globalvoices/)
• We have an email address for questions, katrina-people@activist-tech.org, and we have a discussion list for volunteers, peoplefinder@activist-tech.org. To join the discussion list, send a blank email to peoplefinder-subscribe@activist-tech.org.
• You can also post questions to the "discussion" tab of this wiki page, and we'll try to help you out.

"What's that mean?" Words/phrases used in this wiki

chunk - part of a data set (list).

claim/claimed - means that the list is being worked on. "claimed" is added so that you don't enter the same information that someone else is entering.

completed - pretty obvious! :-) Means that list is already entered.

data set - also known as: "list" - list of messages to be entered. These chunks are gathered from hundreds of websites. Each data set is broken into "chunks," which are about 25 entries. This is done so that when you claim a set, you don't have to do 200 or more entries

wiki - A wiki is a web application that allows users to add content, like on an Internet forum, but also allows anyone to edit the content

Discussions

• We have an email address for questions, katrina-people@activist-tech.org, and we have a discussion list for volunteers, peoplefinder@activist-tech.org. To join the discussion list, send a blank email to peoplefinder-subscribe@activist-tech.org.

• For help visit #globalvoices on irc.freenode.net (irc://irc.freenode.net/globalvoices) or if you do not have an irc client, click here (http://www.setecsecurity.com/katrina/chat.html) - People there will (hopefully) be able to help you out.

• IRC Chat Logs (http://katrina.blueoxen.net/irc/globalvoices/)

Managing the Effort

Overall Katrina PeopleFinder Project Goals

1. Enter unstructured data on refugees from forums across the web to the highest data quality standards possible with volunteers giving a little as one hour of their time.
2. Enter data from databases across the web into the central database via the PeopleFinder Interchange Format
3. Minimize duplicate records
4. Support other organizations in implementing the PeopleFinder Interchange Format
5. Make the central database avaliable to be searched
6. Use the Salesforce API to implement innovative technology solutions to the missing persons problem

http://socialsource.blogspot.com/2005/09/overall-peoplefinder-project-goals.html

We are entirely volunteer driven, so you decide how we get there and where you can make a contribution.

Task Claiming System

Tasks will be posted to the email list from time to time. Please claim those tasks here so we can keep track of them. Task List

Creating Assignments

If you've got some familiarity with MediaWiki and have Perl/PHP/Python or other scripting chops and some free time, please give us a hand generating new assignment pages.

Benchmarks

Within 24 hours of the storm, more than 15,000 records were entered into the database.

At the outset of the disaster, The Times-Picayune Web site, NOLA.com (http://www.NOLA.com), posted missing-person accounts that told of nightmare conditions in a city adrift. As of Sept. 5, the Missing Persons Database contained 22,592 people and averaged close to 30 million viewers. Source: NY Observer (http://www.observer.com/media_offtherecord-2.asp)

Within 7 days of the storm, more than 85,000 records obtained from forums and other sites were manually entered into the central repository by volunteers.

Wiki log-in account growth:

• September 7, 2005 = 2,100

Buzz

The data from scraped sites has been parsed into PFIF, but has not yet been entered into the database. We would prefer that other sites implement PFIF so that survivor data can be exchanged among sites.:Geilhufe 21:45, 5 Sep 2005 (EDT)