Missing the missing: a proposal for a tag
Staci and Rex are right: We need a better, unified way to use this wonderful internet to connect people who lose each other in catastrophes such as Katrina. Lots of good people are setting up separate forums, blocks, and such to facilitate this. But there’s no one place to bring it all together. The missing will still be missing. The old-world solution to this might be for someone to start one big center; this morning on TV, the head of Homeland Security said they were starting to work on that (starting!).
The new-world way to do this is to tag all the distributed efforts with one tag so that they can be found via search engines (Technorati, IceRocket, Google). This is a job for a microformat.
I propose a missing tag. It won’t be perfect. But it will at least let someone comb through all these efforts and put them together.
Technorati tag: missing
September 1st, 2005 at 3:49 pm
The key word missing is already in use by a UK organization which does what you envision - in the UK. And incidentally, reports are that Fats Domino is missing in New Orleans.
September 1st, 2005 at 4:18 pm
For this catastrophe, I think Wal-Mart’s people-search board can be that “one big center” — and it already exists.
In addition to easy web access, it is available free to all users in all its Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club stores and distribution centers (although I haven’t tried to use it in the stores).
It seems to me a sensible focal point for a national database that, due to Wal-Mart’s dense national presence, most everyone in the US can post to and search.
September 1st, 2005 at 5:14 pm
josh benton of crabwalk.com is working with textdrive on a hosting solution for his site katrinacheckin.org, which received so many hits yesterday it overloaded his server. the site was a good resource for “i’m okay” and “looking for” messages.
September 1st, 2005 at 5:16 pm
Surely a national, government run site would be preferable to a commercial one.
September 1st, 2005 at 5:40 pm
I would propose “missingka” (ka for Katrina) with future instances of the tag being used modified by the first two letters of the name of the hurricane (tornado, wildfire, etc.)
September 1st, 2005 at 9:26 pm
[...] I’ve been looking for better ways to harness the flow of Hurricane Katrina information, expanding online at an incredible pace fed by a wealth of individuals and organizations. Collecting links helps but it isn’t enough. Tagging isn’t used widely enough yet to make a big difference; it’s also ad hoc (as is the best of the web), which means a lot of different tags are in the mix. (Even so, if you’re collecting information about people caught in the hurricane, please add the “Missing” tag, as Jeff Jarvis suggests.) Just to narrow it down to one very specific area, can anyone help figure out how to aggregate all of the personal status reports (missing/safe/lost/found, etc.) into one searchable database or other searchable format? Ideally, we’d be able to do the same by zip code, neighborhood, parish and other formations but if we could just accomplish an aggregated people finder that would be a huge accomplishment. The same could happen for jobs, housing, etc. but first things first. I think I see some other opportunities, too. (Some of you may already be working along these lines; please let me know about those efforts.) — I was approached by someone from New Orleans desperate for help from Google. I forwarded the request to someone I’ve interviewed there but Google isn’t the only place that could do what he wanted: tie “flood levels, body counts, trapped individuals etc.” to maps. What if local search sites applied some of those resources to New Orleans, Southeast Mississippi and other areas battered by the hurricane? Instead of pointing to restaurants and businesses that no longer exist, they could provide zip-code information centers incorporating data, maps and photos from FEMA, the Corps of Engineers and other resources. (I’ve been collecting some at an OJR wiki.) Create spaces for people to meet online — and publicize it. — Create an uber-directory that pulls it all together — volunteer efforts and professional — in one place. — Work together to span sites and portals. Create a network. I know this doesn’t sound like much in the face of such tragedy. But it could make a difference. These are just ideas. You may have your own; there are many ways to improve on mine. E-mail me at kramersd@gmail.com, or comments open above… [...]
September 1st, 2005 at 9:28 pm
[...] [by Staci Kramer] I’ve been looking for better ways to harness the flow of Hurricane Katrina information, expanding online at an incredible pace fed by a wealth of individuals and organizations. Collecting links helps but it isn’t enough. Tagging isn’t used widely enough yet to make a big difference; it’s also ad hoc (as is the best of the web), which means a lot of different tags are in the mix. (Even so, if you’re collecting information about people caught in the hurricane, please add the “Missing” tag, as Jeff Jarvis suggests.) Just to narrow it down to one very specific area, can anyone help figure out how to aggregate all of the personal status reports (missing/safe/lost/found, etc.) into one searchable database or other searchable format? Ideally, we’d be able to do the same by zip code, neighborhood, parish and other formations but if we could just accomplish an aggregated people finder that would be a huge accomplishment. The same could happen for jobs, housing, etc. but first things first. I think I see some other opportunities, too. (Some of you may already be working along these lines; please let me know about those efforts.) — I was approached by someone from New Orleans desperate for help from Google. I forwarded the request to someone I’ve interviewed there but Google isn’t the only place that could do what he wanted: tie “flood levels, body counts, trapped individuals etc.” to maps. What if local search sites applied some of those resources to New Orleans, Southeast Mississippi and other areas battered by the hurricane? Instead of pointing to restaurants and businesses that no longer exist, they could provide zip-code information centers incorporating data, maps and photos from FEMA, the Corps of Engineers and other resources. (I’ve been collecting some at an OJR wiki.) Create spaces for people to meet online — and publicize it. — Create an uber-directory that pulls it all together — volunteer efforts and professional — in one place. — Work together to span sites and portals. Create a network. I know this doesn’t sound like much in the face of such tragedy. But it could make a difference. These are just ideas. You may have your own; there are many ways to improve on mine. E-mail me at kramersd@gmail.com, or comments open above… [...]
September 2nd, 2005 at 1:36 am
Under normal circumstances, NowPublic is a place where the general public can post news reports for others to read. It’s like a newspaper except all the news comes from the readers.
In order to help people cope with Hurricane Katrina, NowPublic is asking people to post reports of missing people. NowPublic makes these reports public on our site and also makes them available on search engines like Feedster, Ice Rocket and Technorati. You can also add photographs of missing people to your posts.
Originally we set up this page to collect reports all in one place but we’ve discovered that there are more effective ways of posting this information.
To help you maximize your chances of finding who you’re looking for please follow the instructions below. By using the system properly you are more likely to succeed.
How to Search for a Missing Person Notice
The best way to find out if someone has already posted a story about a missing person is to include that person’s name in a NowPublic website address. In the address bar of your browser type an address with the following structure:
http://www.nowpublic.com/tags/Name
So, for example, if I was looking for someone called ‘Michael Tippett’ I could type in any of the following:
http://www.nowpublic.com/tags/MichaelTippett
http://www.nowpublic.com/tags/Michael Tippett
http://www.nowpublic.com/tags/Tippett
To find out how to post a report go here:
http://www.nowpublic.com/node/17228
Best,
Michael.
September 2nd, 2005 at 8:59 am
I’m already doing the tag thing, and some of us have opened up our blogs (via guest logins) or comment boxes for people to post information on for whom they are searching. We also cross-link to each other and encourage people to post the info on multiple sites.