Re: wiki, medic guides
Subject: Re: wiki, medic guides
From: Ayla Noland <ayla.noland@gmail.com>
Date: 2/21/11, 12:31
To: Medics4 Tahrir <medics4tahrir@gmail.com>
CC: Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com>

Hi Grace,

Your priorities make sense to me.  The main thing is to get critical information out as quickly and efficiently and broadly as possible, as we are still behind the curve at the moment in spite of all our overtime. Sharing to do lists is logical - maybe we could set a time to collaborate live regularly.  Project PM has an IRC http://webchat.freenode.net/ enter a name, the channel is #projectpm. You can "drop by" anytime of course. Everyone is friendly with diverse interests and expertise. In the topic is the forum link with ongoing projects.

Are in the UK? Maybe weekends would be best d/t time zones, I'm flexible and don't mind a wee hours time, but maybe a weekend evening for you guys would work for everyone since usa time is 6-7 hours behind.

A medical guide wiki is the best plan imo, with printable pamphlets as you describe; we can help with the information review, and others may be recruitable to help with the forum management.

We have some translation capability but it is nebulous and time-unreliable at the moment, depending on who shows up with what capability. Somebody is working on a crowdsourced translation tool tentatively named BabelCrowd or something similar, which should be really helpful. I'm looking for the email to forward but seem to have misplaced it.  Basically, text will be posted for translation and anyone can submit translations for review by others.  It sounded pretty cool and will use ISO codes for each language and some technical stuff I don't understand. We have been trying to round up some more permanently available translators. French hasn't been such a problem but Arabic has been a bit more challenging.

 Ayla

On Mon, Feb 21, 2011 at 8:21 AM, Medics4 Tahrir <medics4tahrir@gmail.com> wrote:
I am thrilled that we are in touch! There is much work to do, and I am
feeling the fatigue of a month and a half of this work. New
inspiration and collaboration is very important!

Perhaps we can share to do lists, and begin from there. Several
members on m4t read this email account, and they may chime in too.

I have three high-priority action items right now:
- We have to get feedback together on the layout and content of the
first edition of the english-language booklet for protesters at
http://m4t.wikidot.com/upload so the designer can finalize it while
she is still motivated. It needs a lot of work, but it is a strong
start, and she's releasing her files so that other designers can
improve upon it for future editions.
- Two developers with the wikidot system where the site is posted
offered to help improve the site in several areas like including
forums, improving multilingual support, simplifying navigation, and
setting up an on-site blog with RSS and twitter feeds, while also
working to make it more readable on mobile phones. This tech stuff
really matters... we have already lost more than three arabic
translators because they cannot use the site - the learning curve is
too steep. And the lack of public forums means that decisions like the
scope of practice represented by the site are made autocratically.
- Translation. As soon as we have enough in Arabic or French, we can
produce a print booklet in either of those languages. This means we
need to improve the existing translations, help translators to use the
site (or stay in close contact and post their work ourselves), and
find more translators.

What are your current priorities?

Grace for m4t
http://m4t.wikidot.com/