On Wed, Sep 19, 2012 at 1:29 AM, Donna Baranski-Walker <dbw@...> wrote:

Hello Heather and Community,

Thank you for your encouragement and for introducing me to the BuildingBridges project in Kenya. That introduced me to the Peace and Development Network, Kenya, a much older organization. I am learning a lot... there is a lot to learn. The AlNur.crowdmap offers an opportunity to think about the messaging and connectivity that may help prevent conflict.

Should I be working with an Ushahidi mentor or is it ok to ask questions and explore lessons learned right here in this forum?

For Example:
1) When someone submits a report, I want to be able to automatically email them back right when I approve their report. Is there a way to do this now? How? Wishlist: It would be great to set-up an email template, then customize it if I want to add something based on their message.

There is no feature at this moment to auto-email people back when approving a report. However, under "Settings" you can change your "Submit Report Message". This might be more helpful for engagement.

Would anyone else like this feature to know if your reports have been approved? I have seen some deployment like http://www.cic.mx/tehuan/ do this type of customization. If so, I can add it as a feature request in github.

2) From time to time, I want to be able to mass email everyone who submitted a report. Doable? How?

You could export the reports, but there is a current bug with this feature. The fields may be scrambled. You would need to sort the export and then take the emails to a email communication platform.

3) Are there any Ushahidi implementations that encourage discussion among people who submit reports? Are public comments to a report possible? Wishlist: threaded discussion list associated with the map.

You can post comments and make them public. I agree that a threaded discussion list would be helpful. We are collecting feature requests on Github and on our wiki : https://wiki.ushahidi.com/display/WIKI/Ushahidi+3.0+Wishlist

4) What if the best thing one can do with a widespread event is to focus it, like a beach ball bouncing above a crowd. Maybe sister cities can be depicted together and they could choose to do neighborhood-wide events on the same day...

map.occupy.net did an amazing job of cross-city collaboration using Ushahidi. There are a few other deployers working on multi-country deployments. One example is http://map.globalanimalwelfare.org/

5) How do reporters from print media cover specific Ushahidi crisis map reports? Do they ask the superadmin for contact info to allow them to interview?

This really varies by the deployment and the partners. Each map is so different. Some deployers are main stream media and others prefer to not collaborate with media. It is really the deployers decision on how they want to interact with media. One deployers in Panama has used Ushahidi to collect media stories (as a journalist), but he had some security concerns about doing this.

It comes down to the discussion of trusted reporters and unverfied media. This is the subject of many academics and researchers. Heather Ford wrote this article on it. http://www.scribd.com/doc/102445246/Wikipedia-Sources-Managing-sources-in-rapidly-evolving-global-news-articles-on-the-English-Wikipedia

Hope this helps,

Heathr

I look forward to your thoughts.

Sincerely,
Donna

On Tue, Sep 18, 2012 at 5:51 PM, Heather Leson <hleson@...> wrote:
All, please find this note and request for help from Donna about her map. https://alnur.crowdmap.com/

Donna, Peace-building maps are so important. See Unsung Peace Heros (from Kenya:

Donna, we've changed our community lists:
The main community list for Ushahidi and Crowdmap is community@.... I've shared your note with this group. You can join our list:

Ushahidi Community Mailing list: community AT list.ushahidi.com
To subscribe send an empty email to community-subscribe AT list.ushahidi.com
Thanks,

Heather

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Donna Baranski-Walker <dbaranskiw@...>
To: crisiscrowdmap@...
Cc:
Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2012 22:47:00 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: CandleVoice in memory of US Ambassador Chris Stevens
We are deploying @Crowdmap for a candlevoice memorial of US Ambassador Chris Stevens, https://alnur.crowdmap.com/, to find a way to calm the protests over a deliberately deceptive film. Please get in touch if you’d like to help!

I am here in the SF Bay area -- not far from Chris Stevens' home. I designed this Ushahidi Crowdmap to show a personal, neighbor-to-neighbor action through a symbol, a candle in the window. Nobel Laureates all say peace starts from within — they may be right, let's start here.
Some people at Meedan.net have offered to translate into Arabic and from Arabic into English.

Candles in windows were used to good effect in Poland in the '80s when Solidarity was placed under martial law, and again more effectively in the Czech Velvet Revolution. When I used it to send a message to the people of Iraq in 1990, some 10,000 Americans joined me (pre twitter)... now I ask you to place a candle in your window each night through the end of this month, and map yourself as participants on the Crowdmap -- all the way across the world.
I ask for your help.

Sincere thanks, Donna
https://alnur.crowdmap.com/

--
Heather Leson
Director of Community Engagement
Ushahidi
hleson@...
www.ushahidi.com
@heatherleson