Disaster Research Wiki Summary

Considering that I have spent a good portion of my last year working in this field, I felt like it would be good to start my own wiki article on Disaster Research.

For my first edit, I decided to create a strong foundation on which to build by basically defining disaster research, adding an extensive history (including key figures), and adding links to two of the main Disaster Research Centers in the United States. While there is really no wiki community along with this article, I did get some help from some of the wikipediabots with ‘wikifying’ the article and with basic organizational troubles I was having.

For my second edit, I decided to discuss the main purpose of disaster research as well as list some of the main funders of this type of research. I also put up a list of the academic and national policy boards that are in the disaster research world.

Lastly, for my third edit I decided to add a section discussing undergraduate and graduate opportunities in this field considering the field is greatly expanding and getting degrees in this or similar fields will be a very wise decision for students. When I searched on google and other engines I could not find a comprehensive list of institutions offering these degrees so I decided to add my own list to the wiki.

Overall there is basically no community surrounding this wiki at the moment. There are thousands of people involved in disaster research so I am sure eventually, individuals will start adding and editing and ‘wiki wars’ will begin. Until then, I am going to continue adding on to this wiki article and monitor the page. It is pretty cool knowing that I, Scott Golden, am the sole creator of one article in WIKIPEDIA. Not bad, eh?

Sunday River (Maine) wiki Summary

Considering it is one of my favorite places to vacation, I figured editing the Sunday River (Maine) wiki would allow me to think about the good times while doing work.

For my first wiki edit, I decided to edit a lot of spelling and grammar mistakes that were causing the article to lose credibility as well as add facts about the snowmaking capacity at the mountain and a link to the mountain’s e-newsletter. While the wiki community liked my grammar changes and facts, they did not approve of the so-called ‘commercial link’ and removed it right away.

For my second wiki edit, I added a section full of facts about the mountain’s terrain, lift capacity, elevation, skiable area, etc. I think this section made it easy for a wiki user to quickly get the facts they were looking for. I believe the community approved of this addition because it is still up in the same form as when I added it.

For my third wiki edit, I added a big section discussing one of the great attractions to the resort in the summer, the Sunday River Golf Club. I added a lot of facts about the golf club as well as some recent rankings it had received. Again, my edits seemed well-liked and remain on the site.

While this wiki article does not have a very active or aggressive wiki community, I did learn that you have to be careful when doing wikis for places such as this to avoid using point of view. A couple of edits by others were edited by one user who felt it sounded too much like an ‘advertisement’. I guess there is a very fine line you must walk when you are putting tourist attractions into an encyclopedia. However overall this was an enjoyable article to edit and I believe that since I am one of the main editors, I better continue to watch the page.

Boston Marathon Wiki Summary

I decided to edit the Boston Marathon wiki this semester because I have always been an avid spectator of this event.

For my first wiki edit, I decided to add some cool facts discussing the international magnitude of the event and added a big section on Dick and Rick Hoyt, two inspirational figures in the marathon. While one fellow wiki editor did not like my facts about the race, saying that they were ‘iffy at best’(despite me getting them from a credible online source), the community liked my idea of including the Hoyt Family and continuously added on to that section.

For my second wiki edit, I decided to discuss the unique aspect of wheelchair and disabled divisions in the Boston Marathon. The wiki community seemed to agree that this was a section that should not be missing and showed that they liked my changes by pretty much keeping them in their entirety.

For my third wiki edit I made a pretty big expansion onto the history of the Boston Marathon by finding various sources and constructing a summarized version of the origins of the race. While I thought I wrote a pretty good addition, this one wiki editor did not like it and removed the entire edit. Maybe I’ll start a wiki war with him in the near future!

Overall, the Boston Marathon wiki was harder than I thought it would be to edit because there was an active community constantly putting up new things and they were all very crazy about what should and should not be on there. However, I think my additions, particularly with regard to the Hoyt family and Wheelchair Divisions were very necessary and beneficial changes.

Westborough, MA Wiki Summary

Westborough, MA Wiki

For my first wiki edit, I decided to give a basic overview of the structure of the school system in my hometown as well as the range of extracurricular options in sports and the fine arts. The wiki edit made my mom (a fifth-grade teacher) proud, and apparently the wiki community proud as a majority of the added section is still there, apart from one or two edits and sentence structure changes.

For my second wiki edit I thought that it might be nice to include some information for individuals considering moving to my hometown. Therefore, I added a lot of material discussing the various religious organizations in the town, leisure and cultural activities, a short section on crime as well as some rankings by Money Magazine listing our town as a ‘100 Best Place to Live’. The wiki community was not completely supportive of my second wiki edit. While they liked most of it, they deleted my entire section on crime, stating that ‘it was based on a non-governmental metric’. I guess you can’t always win!

My third wiki edit returned to the topic of the school system as I added a HUGE section that listed facts about our school system and rankings in the state. I think these facts really supplemented the earlier section I had made by giving concrete data to support my claims. While a few minor fixes were made to this edit, the wiki community liked the idea and kept it.

I really believe that I did a good job on the Westborough, MA wiki edit, and was very happy to receive mail in my wikipedia account the other day from this guy who said the following: “Hi Scott, thanks for the good work adding to the Westborough article. I made a few minor changes, hope you don't mind.”--CapitalR 18:12, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Whoever this guy is, it was great of him to tell me that he liked my work and since he is the major contributor to the wiki, I feel as though I have earned my stamp of approval. Considering there were few changes to the wiki made by anyone except me and him over the course of my edits, I think that if we work as a team we be able to make sure that our town will be nicely represented on wikipedia!

Third and Final Westborough, MA wiki edit

I just made my third and final wiki edit to the Westborough, MA entry that I have been adding to throughout the semester. I decided to add more on the school system, especially concrete facts that I knew potential settlers in our little town may appreciate. I found the results of our town's MCAS tests, which are newly-implemented state tests that allow twons to make sure they are teaching the correct curriculum and that students are progressing well. Students must now pass these tests if they want to get their diplomas upon graduation. I added a lot of great facts about how many teachers our town has, student-teacher ratios, drop-out rates, special education percentage, as well as rankings compared to the other 328 districts in Massachusetts. As you will see, our town consistently ranks very high on these rankings.

I also made a few small edits to some of the demographic and town census information that was outdated, including an update on the population, unemployment rates, etc. I believe that my changes today were definitely pretty significant, especially to the school system section, and that they were a nice last edit to make.

Disaster Research Wiki Edit #3

I just made my third and final wiki edit to my article on Disaster Research in which I added a large section titled 'Emerging Opportunities in the Field'. In this section, I discussed the fact that the disaster research field is currently expanding a great deal due to the fact that we have had so many catastrophic disasters recently that have effected the entire world on a global, not regional scale. Events such as September 11th, the South Indian Ocean Tsunamis, and Hurricane Katrina have made inviduals and organizations aware of the fact that they must engage in some type of continutity planning or else they are really gambling. Therefore, getting degrees in fields such as Emergency Planning and Public Policy are starting to be very highly encouraged and lucrative degrees to have as one enters the job market. I thought it would be good to add this section along with a list of many of the schools I know to be the best schools to go to in this field (due to the fact that I have been working/researching with nerdy disaster people for over two years). I searched on google and could not really come up with any good list, so I made my own. I think this definitely adds nicely to the wiki and will come in handy with the technologically saavy students who might be considering a degree in this field and are smart enough to browse on Wikipedia.

Boston Marathon Wiki Edit #3

I just made a pretty significant edit to my Boston Marathon wiki article. I just realized that the history section of the Boston Marathon was really lacking. There was no information on how the race was started or who started it. The section merely discussed how the race had grown from a local event to worldwide event. I ended up finding some great sites discussing the real origins of the Boston Marathon. I found out that John Graham was actually responsible for starting the marathon in 1986 and found some cool information on how the course layout and distance has changed throughout the years. I feel like the two big paragraphs I added definitely give the wiki a lot more credibility and nicely explain how the Boston Marathon, which is now considered one of the greatest marathon races in the world, originally began.

Sunday River Wiki Edit #3

I just made my third and final wiki edit for Sunday River (Maine). I decided to update what was then the 'Summer' section of the wiki article. In this section there was merely one sentence saying that the Sunday River Ski Resort transforms into a golf course in the summer. I decided to add some details about the course, including information about the designer, the awards the course has won, the 'Stay and Play' options, etc. Basically, I give the wiki reader a pretty good idea of what kind of a golf course Sunday River Golf Club offers and what features the golf course presents. I then switched the title of the section from 'Summer' to 'Sunday River Golf Club' considering that the entire emphasis of the section was on the golf. I tried to maintain a fairly objective tone considering that the wiki community hates when you express opinion since it is an encyclopedia, but this was hard because I was fortunate enough to play on this course a year ago and it is absolutely AWESOME. Oh well, I guess if I can't say my opinions in the wiki, I can always unleash them on my blog.


Cheers!

Wiki Edit #2: Westborough, MA

I just completed my second wiki edit for my hometown of Westborough, Massachusetts. As I tried to think about how I wanted to contribute to the wiki I started thinking to myself who I thought would be using wikipedia to try to find out about my town. First, I thought the most hits probably come from individuals looking for historical figures such as Eli Whitney. However, I couldn't help but think a lot of individuals who look up Westborough, Massachusetts are probably potential homeowners or individuals thinking about moving to New England but not sure of where to settle. I thought it was important to include some information that would help them try to determine whether Westborough would be a good fit for them. While I had sort of done this with my first wiki edit with the school system, I continued by putting up data discussing the religious organizations in the town, the leisure and cultural activites, and a short section on crime in the town. Oddly enough, I also found out that not only was our town ranked one of the 100 Best Places to Live in 2005 by Money Magazine but also one of the 100 Best Places to Retire 2005 by Money Magazine.
While I lived in Westborough for 18 years and thought it was fairly boring, evidently these people at Money Magazine think the town is a pretty hip place to live. I posted both of the articles discussing these rankings in the external links section of the wiki. That is about all I did on this wiki edit. I hope that my additions helped round out te wiki definition for my town which was mostly discussing the history.

MySpace Issue Hits My Home State

This past Wednesday, we were lucky enough to have a Skype Presentation by Travis Katz, a Vice President at the hugely popular social networking site MySpace.com. Travis gave an incredible overview of the business model at MySpace.com and gave a great history of the company and idea of what the future may hold.

I decided to travel home to Massachusetts this weekend and as I sat and relaxed on Saturday morning I grabbed the newspaper to be met with the headline "Massachusetts Requests Higher Age Limit for MySpace Users". I found a similar article online that discusses this 'hot debate' that is currently brewing in my home state.

The long story short is that our current Attorney General, Tom Reilly, believes that MySpace has not taken enough precautionary measures to ensure the safety of minors. This follows the recent arrest of a 27 year-old man for illegal sexual contact with a minor he met on MySpace.

Christina Slenk, the director a nonprofit internet safety organization called Web Wise Kids discusses the amount of sexual predator crimes related to social networking websites stating, "It's happening more and more all the time, both through MySpace and through chatrooms and other blogging sites." Despite reports by MySpace saying that they have numerous measures in place to protect minors, including verification systems and flags for words that would most likely be used by children under 14, Reilly and his staff claim that their investigation proves that these safeguards fail, and that more precautions must be taken.

Reilly and his staff call for numerous new measures to be taken, including the installation of an age and identity verification system. Additionally, they are asking for the site to equip Web pages with a "Report Inappropriate Content" link allowing users to help the site flag potentially disturbing material. The Attorney General also wants MySpace to respond to any disturbing content within 24 hours and in order to do this, to hire more staff to review images and content on user profiles. Reilly wants the site to blcok any explicit images, to delete profiles or users who have used the site in abusive ways, and to take off any advertisement that are not well-suited for children. Last but certainly not least, Reilly wants the site to provide parents free softward allowing them to block MySpace.

While Reilly's actions seem very extensive, he has a lot of support from the public, especially worried parents who are aware of the real dangers posed to their children on a site like MySpace. However, there is also a strong following on the other side of the issue, saying that it is impossible to protect children in all aspects of their life, and that as long as good parenting has instilled within them good values and judgement, children will remain safe.

Travis Katz spoke briefly to our class concerning this issue and seemed to echo what many of the spokespeople at MySpace are saying, that there are adequate safeguards in place and that as long as base rules are set by parents, MySpace should be enjoyed by anyone age 14 or older.

I will definitely be following this controversy and will let you know how Reilly makes out with his campaign for a higher age limit.

Have a great week,
Scott

P.S. I have to thank Professor Brown quickly. My family was watching the Kentucky Derby on Saturday and as is tradition, we made some bets about who was going to win. I am not very horse saavy, so I usually pick whoever the news has made out to be the underdog. However, I had some faith in Professor Brown and his knowledge or horse racing, so I decided to go with Barbaro as he suggested. Let's just say that the rest of my semester's bar tabs will be paid thanks to Professor Brown!

'Blog Editor' position listed as Top 7 Trendy New Jobs

Considering that I am a huge AOL News geek, I was recently perusing the fun and weird news that I can always rely on them to provide and stumbled upon the following article I thought the class might enjoy: Seven Trendy New Jobs. While there were some funny positions you would never think existed, I was shocked to find 'Blog Editor' rounding out the list. The following description was listed under the position:

I blog, you blog, we all blog apparently, judging from the proliferation of blogs in the past two years. The success of influential ones like Wonkette.com has companies wanting in on the perceived edginess of the blogosphere.

"Blogging" is not only starting to creep into people's job descriptions, but recruiters are starting to see blog-related job listings.

One on Monster.com seeks a blog editor "to manage and moderate blogs for clients and to write for the company blog on PR and new media topics."

All I can say is that I definitely am starting to realize the advantages of this class. The fact that we all know about the blogosphere and are developing blogging skills puts us far ahead of the majority of college graduates. I am definitely going to at least discuss the fact that I am a proficient blogger in my upcoming interviews and am starting to think it would be a wise idea to throw 'blogging ability' onto my list of skills on my resume. As I think about potential jobs I would possibly enjoy doing after graduating, I wouldn't throw 'blog editor' out of the picture. Who wouldn't like to know they were working one of the 7 most trendy jobs out there?

Disaster Research Wiki Edit #2

I decided to edit the Disaster research wiki tonight. Just last week I traveled to Puerto Rico to present my undergraduate research in the disaster research field. What I noticed while there was that there is a general lack of understanding as to the benefits of disaster research. For this reason, I added a paragraph to the wiki discussing the impacts disaster research has on developing more effective policies, programs, and planning to reduce disaster impacts. Additionally, I added a section discussing the various organizations that fund the researchers who dedicate their lives to researching the social science impacts of disasters. I also included a section that lists the different advisory boards and committees that have been created as forums for this field of research. I hope to continue to add to this wiki but am kind of disappointed that no one has been contributing to the wiki. I am thinking of possibly sending out an email to a big listserv I was put on when I attended a convention at the Natural Hazards Center in Boulder, Colorado in order to see if some others will start to contribute to the wiki. This listserv is full of crazy graduate and post-docs and I think they would go wild if they knew that there is a wiki for the field of research about which they are so passionate.

Sunday River (Maine) Wiki Edit #2

I recently updated the Sunday River (Maine) wiki with some important facts and figures about the mountain, including information on when the ski resort opened, the number and types of lifts, the lift capacity, elevation statistics, and information on the types of runs (i.e. the percentage of beginner runs versus intermediate, etc.). I thought it would be important to include these in bullet form due to the fact that most people looking at this wiki will probably find this information very useful in order to compare the mountain to other mountains of their liking, to figure out whether the mountain is the right skill level for themselves, and for other fact-related purposes. Therefore, having these facts in nice bulleted form makes them easy to find and nicely breaks them down. Though I doubt the wiki will get many views until next season considering this season recently ended, I hope my edits will increase the usefulness of the wiki!

I love Southwest Airlines and you should too!

I was recently reading one of our required class blogs, Naked Conversations, and was struck by an article discussing Southwest Airlines and recent efforts by a man named Brian Oberkirch to show Southwest what he could do for them if he helped them start a blogging campaign. Clearly Mr. Oberkirch is a huge admirer of the service and overall aura of Southwest Airlines and would like to offer the company his ideas. He offers four examples of the types of blogs he would start if he were in charge of Public Relations at the company. You can find these examples here, here, here, and here. These ideas basically all involve harboring the widespread public admiration and loyalty for Southwest Airlines and placing it on a blog for all to see.

I think that Oberkirch's ideas are brilliant and would be the first to comment on the blog if Southwest took his ideas and ran with them. I started using Southwest Airlines my sophomore year of college when I realized that instead of purchasing a $180.00 roundtrip ticket on Amtrak to travel home from Delaware to Massachusetts, that I could fly on Southwest from Philadelphia to Providence, RI for a mere $70.00 roundtrip. Not only did I love the price, but the service I have experienced over the past two years has been incredible. I have had one bad experience with the airline which I wrote to them and told them about. Within two weeks of sending the letter I received an apology letter with a $200.00 voucher that I can use within the next two years.

In the article, Robert Scoble discusses the fact that he has also offered Southwest a free half-day of his services yet they have politely declined his offers. I do not understand why a cutting-edge, fun company like Southwest would not be quick to jump into the world of the blogosphere but I am sure they must have some good reason. I have learned about Southwest Airlines in numerous marketing classes and have always thought of them to be on the forefront, willing to take risks and try out things that others would think to be 'out of the question'. Therefore, I am surprised they are being kind of hesitant about a blogging PR campaign. I am definitely going to keep my eye out and will let you all know if they finally cave-in and accept Scoble and Oberkirch's advice.

This article only makes me more excited to try to incorporate some type of blogging into my internship this summer at Amelia Island Plantation in the Real Estate Marketing department. Considering that I have hit the point in school where all I can think about is summer, I have been doing a lot of google searches about the company and the island where I will be living. I have stumbled upon so many blogs discussing the great experiences people have had on the island and blogs by individuals who live on the island and love the close-knit community the island provides. I truly hope that I can talk my boss into letting me create a blog where current homeowners can post their experiences, where I can post news about new houses on the market, and where prospective homeowners can ask questions and find out what the island has to offer. I guess I'll have to wait to see if this will be possible, but the more I read about businesses using the blogosphere, the more pumped I get about the possibilities.

I guess that is all for now. I can't believe I am truly becoming a blogosphere nerd!