Community
EveryBlock
The tools we're building to find, aggregate and consume tailored, filtered and hyperlocalized information are still nascent. My motto: register for everything, see what sticks. In the last few months, I've been hooked to EveryBlock, which lets you dive deep via street address and zip code, or pull back for city-wide look. The amount of data that's fine-sliced by location, neighborhood and zip code is just amazing. Beyond mentions of specific hoods in the mainstream media or blogs (including Yelp restaurant reviews), what EveryBlock does really well is provide a user-friendly, easy-to-digest interface for exploring public records: every building permit, restaurant inspection, police call, zoning agenda item and more. You can hone searches from a one- to eight-block radius around a particular address. And you can set daily/weekly email alerts, as well (I prefer a weekly update, but search via the site now and again).
There are handful of news-y aggregators like Placeblogger (which I've not tried) and Outside.In (which I enjoy). Much like the previously-reviewed PopUrls, Outside.In gives you one place to go (or email/RSS) to monitor a variety of outlets -- in this case location-specific "news, views and conversations" slotted into categories like food, music, real estate. Good stuff, but a little different. With EveryBlock, you get the actual public records, which tend to provide the most interesting tidbits, for me at least. In addition to suspicious people alerts, car break-ins and violent crimes, I discovered a person on my block is intending to tear down a one-story, single-family home and build a four-story condo -- yuck! (Beware: you really can spend hours with all this data.)
The only catch: EveryBlock is only available in 11 cities (as I write), but more are certainly on the way. If you're using any similar sites/services you love -- especially those covering areas EveryBlock does not -- please tell us about them in the comments below.
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Favorite (15)Wikipedia: The Missing Manual
Just because anyone can edit Wikipedia doesn't mean it's easy. Sure, you can edit anonymously and say anything you like, but if you want to make edits that last and if you want to participate in a meaningful way that complies with community guidelines, well, there's a lot to learn. Guidelines can be hard to find on the site, and for better or worse, they're always evolving.
As the pull-quote on the cover of this book indicates, Cool Tools has previously-recommended other Missing Manuals from O'Reilly. Like the other books in the series, Wikipedia: The Missing Manual is logically structured, includes lots of screen-shots, and is infinitely skimmable. A great introduction and a handy reference, the manual starts out with the basics: editing, creating articles and maintaining them (yes, that's just the start). More advanced topics include collaboration, advanced formatting, broader site structure, and interface customization.
Documentation at the website is not particularly searchable given the site's relatively simplistic one-box-fits-all search interface; browsing through documentation and discussion can be difficult and, frankly, overwhelming. In addition to the quite readable, cover to cover flow, the book has a comprehensive index that allows for quick navigation that delivers precise answers to the myriad questions that inevitably arise, especially when you're just getting familiar with this medium.
Make no mistake, community consensus is always the last (ever-changing) word. But John Broughton, who has also overseen the Editor's Index to Wikipedia project, can help you ease into editing without committing any major blunders.
-- Camille Cloutier
Wikipedia: The Missing Manual
John Broughton
2008, 502 pages
$20
Available from Amazon
Update: O'Reilly recently announced that the Manual has been migrated to Wikipedia. Checkout the dynamic incarnation at Help:Wikipedia: The Missing Manual .
Wikipedia's rate of change has presented a challenge in writing this book. It's as current as it can be, but if you notice that a screenshot isn't exactly the way Wikipedia appears to you on screen, the something (minor) has changed since just before this book was published. You will see mentions in a number of places in the book about where change may be just around the corner (a WYSISYG edit box, threaded discussions on talk pages, single sign-in across all Foundation projects, and more). These changes could happen just as you're reading this book, or not for a year or two.
Nevertheless, you'll find the core of Wikipedia changes very slowly--after all, it does have an established base of active editors, and a history of success that makes editors reluctant to chance processes that aren't considered broken. So the changes that aren't covered by this book won't prevent you from gaining great Wikipedia editing skills.
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You don't need to know everything about Wikipedia to edit an article. Wikipedia has literally hundreds of pages of policy, guidelines, and how-to information on topics such as capitalization, categorization, citations, copyrights, disclaimers, foreign language characters, headings, indentation, links, lists, neutrality, pronunciation, quotations, tags, and templates, to name just a few. If you don't get something exactly right, don't worry--no one else gets everything right every time either.
You don't need to know everything about your subject to edit an article. If you add something that's constructive and 90-percent right, that's far better than not doing an edit at all. As in sports, you don't need to hit a home run or score a goal on every play to be a valuable contributor. If you don't get something exactly right, someone else is likely to come along and help by fixing or finishing it.
You can contribute without editing at all. if you see a problem in an article, but you don't (yet) know how to fix it, or you do know how to fix it, but you can't edit the article (some articles are fully protected, typically for short periods of time), you can still help by posting a constructive comment on the article's talk (discussion) page. If you don't want to or can't edit an article directly, you can still help to improve it.
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A second role of WikiProjects is to maintain portals, mini-Main pages which are entry points for particular topics. ... Note: If you want to search for text or information on a portal page, you need to modify your search to include the namespace Portal, because the normal Wikipedia search is only for information on article pages (pages in the Main namespace). You can do this by modifying your search on the Wikipedia search page by checking the box for the Portal namespace, after doing an initial search to get to the main search page. Another is to change your preference sos that your searches automatically include both mainspace and portalspace.
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The phrase "For factual and other kinds of questions" means that the Help desk is not the place to look for information contained in encyclopedia articles. For questions like, "How long do butterflies live?" use the search box to find the article Butterfly, which probably contains the answer.
Some questions aren't answered in articles because they're not really encyclopedic, like "What's a good camera to buy for someone who wants to be a professional photographer?" Take those questions to the Rference desk (shortcut: WP:R), which is similar to a librarian service (and another place to put your question-answering expertise to good use).
Spectacle
Big crowds are potential incarnate. They're exciting, frightening and transformative -- often simultaneously. This photo-driven book surveys an extensive range of events, happenings, densely-populated locales and visually-arresting traditions throughout the world, from the deeply spiritual to the culturally eccentric. Included are the Kumbh Mela in India, the Tomatina Festival in Spain and Nascar. The book also features interviews with figures like Muhammad Ali (re: the Olympics), developer Steve Wynn (re: Las Vegas) and Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberte (re: circus/street performance). If you're heading to Burning Man, this will get you in the mindset. If you're not heading to Burning Man, this could motivate you to turn out for 2008.
-- Steven Leckart
Spectacle
David Rockwell & Bruce Mau
2006, 256 pages
$33
Available from Amazon
[Disclosure: This book features an interview with Kevin Kelly, publisher of Cool Tools. He did not give me the book or suggest I cover it. -- sl]
Sample images:
Nascar
Brussels Flower Carpet
Running of the Bulls (Spain)
Kumbh Mela (India)
Ritual Bathing (India)
DonorsChoose
At DonorsChoose you can be a philanthropist for ten bucks (or more). Go to the site and choose from among thousands of projects submitted by public school teachers -- everything from books needed to technology to class trips. Once the project's been funded, DonorsChoose buys the materials for the teachers, and you get a package of letters and photographs from the students.
-- Mike
Sample request:
I am a primary grade Special Day Class teacher with 16 students. All of my kindergarten, first and second grade students are in need of enrichment for language and speech development. They also display very different learning styles and preferences.
In the past year, I have discovered that Scholastic's "I SPY" series and the spin-off series, "Can You See What I See?" are effective books and materials to enhance the learning of state standards. These beautiful photograph books are perfect vehicles for teaching vocabulary, sorting, colors, rhymes, critical thinking skills, graphing activities, letter and number identification and many more standards.
The children must analyze each photograph carefully to identify objects in the riddles. They must think outside of their basic conceptions of what an item might be. (For example, a "bunny" could merely be a shadow or cloud in that shape.) My students have been able to list items that begin or end with a particular letter, have counted objects and categorized them into various attributes, have seen and heard word patterns and basically have had a ton of FUN!
We would like to continue adding to our library of "I SPY" books. We feel that this is an exciting way to learn all of the basic skills we need in math and language arts. We can reinforce our basic instruction in science and social studies as well, simply by admiring a little photograph!
My class and I would like to add more "I SPY" and "Can You See Wht I See?" books to our collection, with difficulty levels varying from preschool to second grade. Thank you very much for considering our proposal and helping us propel our learning into new areas of exploration! The cost of these "I Spy" Books for the Classroom Library is $193, including shipping and fulfillment.
BookCrossing
Read a good book. Register it at BookCrossing. Label the book with its BookCrossing registration number and a short note about BookCrossing. Release it for someone else to read (give it to a friend, leave it on
a park bench, donate it to charity, "forget" it in a coffee shop, etc.) and be notified by email each time someone records a journal entry for that book on BookCrossing.
The very first book I released was picked up the next day and is now heading for Alaska.
-- Barbara Young
[The BookCrossing web site takes pains to reassure publishers and authors that this system will not discourage people from buying new books. Some BookCrossing enthusiasts, they claim, actually buy two
copies of every book, so that they can set one free and keep the other. BookCrossing claims almost 3 million members and half-a-million books registered. --CP]
BookCrossing
Free
Networking on the Network
I know of no better guide to becoming a researcher than this book, which exists only online. Written by a professor to help his PhD students learn how to network and develop their professional skills, it is great advice for anyone who wants to create a place for themselves in the information economy. It's all about finding, feeding, and harvesting networks of other like-minded folks, and growing your own distinctive node. While the author naturally focuses on how academia works, there is enough valuable wisdom here for anyone doing original research (and you should!) -- whether corporate, journalistic, or part-time blogging.
-- KK
Networking on the Network:
A Guide to Professional Skills for PhD Students
Phil Agre
56,000 words; 2005
Free
[Note: short version here]
Sample excerpts:
You are not choosing which network to join; rather, you are creating a new network of your own.
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If this seems like a lot of work, think of it as shopping: the library is a giant department store, and you are shopping for professional colleagues. Accumulate a "long list" of potential colleagues. Study their work and learn from it. Figure out what elements your work has in common with theirs. Then practice explaining your research in a way that puts those elements in the foreground and the other elements in the background. The general formula is "I'm interested in [elements you have in common with the person you're talking to], and to this end I'm studying [elements that you don't have in common with them]". For example, "I'm interested in how teachers adopt computers, and to this end I'm conducting an ethnographic study of some grade-school teachers' strategies for including computers in their lessons", or "I'm doing ethnographic research on people adopting computers, and my fieldwork concerns grade-school teachers ...". Now you are ready to build a community for yourself that includes relevant people from several different research areas. These people will be like spokes in a wheel, of which you are the hub.
In working through this exercise, you are already encountering two fundamental principles of professional social life, both of which will recur throughout this article. The first one was already well-known in classical rhetoric, and I will call it "articulating commonalities". The point here is to develop relationships with people. And relationships are founded on commonalities. These commonalities might include shared values, shared research topics, shared goals, or anything else of a professional nature that you might share with someone. To articulate a commonality means formulating language for it.
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It is especially important to put your publications on your Web site. This can be difficult, given that publishers generally ask you to sign over your copyrights. But even when this happens, you can still amend the copyright form with a marginal phrase like "I retain the right to post the paper on my Web site".
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Here is the procedure: (a) choose someone you wish to approach and read their work with some care; (b) make sure that your article cites their work in some substantial way (in addition to all your other citations); (c) mail the person a copy of your article; and (d) include a low-key, one-page cover letter that says something intelligent about their work. If your work and theirs could be seen to overlap, include a concise statement of the relationship you see between them. The tone of this letter counts. Project ordinary, calm self-confidence. Refrain from praising or fawning or self-deprecation or cuteness or making a big deal out of it -- you're not subordinating yourself to this person; you're just passing along your paper. Don't sound like you're presupposing or demanding that you'll get a response. Try a formula such as, "If you should happen to have any comments, I would be most interested to hear them". A good final sentiment for your letter is, "Will you be at such-and-such conference?".
Register to Vote
A million sound bites have announced: every vote is gonna count this election year. If you haven't registered, well it's really damn easy these days. Online voter registration sites can register you online in a few states, or at least give you the printable forms for your area. Some sites will even address the envelope to your local precinct for you. So whether you be anarchist, communist, libertarian, consigned to one of the two parties, or just really apathetic (that would be me) getting your voice into the electoral process has never been easier.
-- Andrew Jones
Start here:
Just Vote
Or here:
Declare Yourself
The New Farmers' Market
How to make a Farmers' Market in your town succeed for everyone. Selling on your own is scary; and buying at a stall is different. This fun book is chock full of great advice about market smarts, guerilla marketing, niche marketing and having fun peddling good food to eager customers. Tons of "what's worked" for many others. And if you haven't been to a local one lately, check one out.
-- KK
The New Farmers' Market
Vance Corum, Marcie Rosenzweig & Eric Gibson
2001, 257 pages
$18
New World Publishing
Available from Amazon
"Making Lemonade from lemons." For example, when drought in '91 left the couple swamped with golfball-sized potatoes, they promoted them as gourmet "PeeWee Potatoes" in $2 pint boxes. The lemonade theory worked in other ways, too. They put 8-10 peppers of various colors that were too small to sell individually into $1 "Bag O'Peppers." They almost always sold out, Peterson notes.
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Farmers' markets offer:
minimal marketing start-up costs - requires only truck and selling area;
exemption from standard size and pack regulations (at most markets);
little or no packaging, advertising and promotion costs - farmers' markets are usually well established and centrally located;
better prices - substantially higher than wholesale; and
immediate, direct feedback. Customers are the best ones to tell you about price, quality, variety preferences, and ideas for other crops to plant.
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One Southern California farmer was considering pulling out his exotic chocolate fuyu persimmon trees, but when he tried selling them at the Santa Monica Farmer's Market, at least 80% of those who tried his samples bought a bag! Instead of ten flats a week on the wholesale market, he was moving a full truckload because of direct consumer contacts and aggressive sampling.
An intriguing press release may focus on a unique, humorous event which has human interest. Be sure to set the scene with a specific reference to the visuals that a photographer or news team can capture as at this individually oriented, all-you-can-carry pumpkin contest (Santa Monica FM) for $5.
Community Quilts
Modern quilting bees. How (splendid detail in color here) and why (because you make more community than quilt).
-- KK
Community Quilts
How to Organize, Design & Make a Group Quilt
Karol Kavaya and Vicki Skemp
2001, 136 pages
$28
Lark Books
Asheville, NC
Also available from Amazon
Excerpt from book:
One advantage of group quiltmaking is that one person doesn't carry the entire load. The desire to create and the willingness to work with others are all that is needed.
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Some of these quilts took hundreds of hours to complete, many of those hours spent in the convivial company of old and new friends. The subjects that we covered in conversation while quilting allowed us to get to know each other, and sometimes ourselves, better.
Every year we have a party in the spring. We gather the quilts together and hang them up for all to see. It is our time to remember, to reminisce, and to celebrate where we come from and who we are. These quilts are a record of our lives as a community.
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In general, we think it is a good rule to allow participants no less than two weeks for completing and returning an easy pieced block, and not more than six weeks for a difficult block involving fine embroidery. When you give participants more time than that, blocks seem to get forgotten, lost, or eaten by the dog.
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We often hang the quilt rather than gift wrap it. This provides for a
wonderful shock effect. Furthermore, people are able to enjoy and admire the quilt all through the party.
Community Boatbuilding Manual
Building a boat together has proven to be a community and family builder because it allows a bunch of novices to jointly create something they didn't think they could -- and to make something immediately and wonderfully useful. WoodenBoat magazine publishes this handy booklet presenting the experience of about a dozen communities and schools who have tried this. It includes suggestions of boat plans that are doable. Each year the magazine itself has hosted a family boatbuilding weekend. It's a sight to see 20 families end the weekend by launching, in unison, a simple boat they've made themselves.
-- KK
Community Boatbuilding Manual
$13
Wooden Boat Books
Excerpts:
Problems can crop up when you have too many kids for the boat you've chosen. Younger students are not as well equipped as older ones to handle the idle time that comes with too many people working on a boat. An ideal class size might be 10-12 if you had three boats under construction, but putting that number on a single boat is a strain.
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Participants in the program are generally lured by a photo advertisement in the local newspaper. Some children and teens come to build with a parent, but most participants are adults -- either individuals or couples. Over the years they've built an estimated 60-70 small craft, most of them skimming the coastal waters from Boston to Portland, Maine.
