[WSIS CS-Plenary] Upcoming Prepcom

Tue Jan 18 14:08:59 GMT 2005

David Steven, Rym Gacem and the DailySummit team were really great at 
the last WSIS, particularly since they were blogging in both English and 
Arabic. They've been very quiet since then, only blogging at a CHOGM 
meeting last year if I remember correctly. I was also blogging from 
WSIS, as were representatives from OneWorld TV and Highway Africa News 
Agency, coordinated by Megan Knight in South Africa.

At the last Prepcom, there were very few of us blogging: Ralf, Bertrand, 
Rik and I were posting content on our respective websites, while others 
were good at posting updates to the plenary. But I think we can have a 
more coordinated blogging presence both at the next prepcom and future 
meetings, most importantly Tunis itself.

Like I said in previous emails, I'm planning to put together a basic 
aggregator for WSIS-related blogs, probably initially on my website but 
eventually at wsisblogs.org. So anyone who's planning to attend the 
prepcom and plans to blog, please send me their blog URL and RSS feed as 
soon as possible.

It might be also be worth encouraging prepcom attendees who've never 
blogged before to try it themselves, particularly if they can write 
fluently in languages other than English. We could either set up a 
dedicated blogging site for them, or use an existing tool, like my 
digitaldivide.net, which has free blogging on it.

Maybe we could set up a conference call or virtual meeting for this week 
or next week to talk about these various online ideas?

ac

Taran Rampersad wrote:
> Robert Guerra wrote:
> 
> 
>>At 9:34 PM -0500 1/17/05, Taran Rampersad wrote:
>>
>>
>>>I'd like to see some more weblogs on these things. They allow for
>>>transparency. This is the World Summit on *Information Society*, last
>>>time I checked, and honestly it does seem as though things have become
>>>more bogged down in the last WSIS - I followed through the Daily Summit
>>>(a weblog; http://www.dailysummit.net/ ) as best I could. I would think
>>>that Caucuses and Plenaries discussing technology would use the
>>>technologies available. It's pretty hard to make excuses for that.
>>
>>
>>surprisingly people in the past haven't really blogged. Well, that's
>>with the exception of the youth caucus that has always been much
>>better at not only communicating, but also providing details of
>>activities.
> 
> 
> See the link above....
> 
> 
>>
>>>(Yes, Robert, I do read your weblog. It lacks an RSS feed, perhaps that
>>>could be fixed? If you need help, let me know)
>>
>>
>>hmm. It does have a RSS feed, and should be auto-discoverable.
>>(has the RSS feed icon turned on in firefox..)
> 
> 
> You might want to clear the cache in your browser, I'm not seeing it.
> And I'm doing some playing with some code on FeedReader, which doesn't
> auto-discover. To my knowledge, only Mozilla does autodiscover. Viewing
> the source shows a relative link with a title, but the CSS class 'RSS'
> doesn't appear to be used.
> 
> 
>>if it doesn't work, just add "rss.xml" to any my main WSIS blog
>>address...
>>
>>http://www.privaterra.org/activities/wsis/blog/
> 
> 
> http://www.privaterra.org/activities/wsis/blog/rss.xml does work.
> 
> 
>>>Funding is not an issue for weblogs. Neither are Wikis. Perhaps it's
>>>time for people discussing technology to use it at the same level or
>>>better than the private sector. I've been rather perturbed by the fact
>>>that the average person doesn't know what is going on in WSIS.
>>
>>
>>a couple of comments...
>>
>>1.. if we identify, as we have now that better communication is needed
>>and that blogs and wikis can help then we need to have a group of
>>people who are available and dedicated to use them, who in turn have
>>the resources where to post them, and know that people will read it.
>>
>>The closest thing to a blog is this site -
>>http://www.worldsummit2003.org/ . It's where I turn to for news,
>>analysis and commentary on what's going on. It's not live, but good
>>nonetheless.
>>
>>WSIS has been a goldmine for academics - they are researching it, and
>>it's starting to generate a considerable about of documents and
>>research. Are the resulting documents being shared so that we can all
>>find out ...well, not in all cases. At times documents are shared,
>>other times articles are published in subscription only journals (ie.
>>http://tinyurl.com/59zvq) and out of reach to the general public
>>
>>For example, it would be nice if the SUMMER 2004 edition of the
>>journal for Information Technologies and International Development
>>(http://tinyurl.com/4gjd5 ) which was specifically dedicated to WSIS
>>could be made available under a creative commons license of some sort.
> 
> 
> Agreed.
> 
> 
>>2. if we want the "average public" to know about WSIS, then we need
>>people who can translate the WSIS geeky terms like WGIG, WEOG, GRULAG
>>and other terms into something that is more understandable.
> 
> 
> http://www.knowprose.com/node/1197 -- Acronyms are only good for one
> language.... ICT becomes TIC in Spanish, etc. So yes.
> 
> 
>>we need more journalists not only participating, but also reporting
>>and informing the public. allafrica.com did cover PrepCom 3 and the
>>summit well, probably far better than any of the north american press
>>that , to be honest, really ignored the summit.
> 
> 
> I really think you should click the link http://www.dailysummit.net/
> which I provided above. In fact, if you scroll down you'll see an old
> link to my site, when I was using MovableType.
> 
> 
>>In summary we need to have an effective press strategy and way to
>>effectively engage the press. Who will do that? Having identified the
>>need, we then have to find out who could do the task. Believe it or
>>not this - WAS - done at prepcom 1 (first phase), but never since.
>>Perhaps with the time we have now to prepare we can ....
> 
> 
> Perhaps I could bring this up to the WorldChanging.com team. It's right
> up our alley, actually, but we'll need stuff to report. Which means that
> we'll need information off of the web. However, one of the guys who was
> running DailySummit contacted me recently about the Alert Retrieval
> Cache project, so I do have an open line of communication.
> 
> Of course, how open is the whole thing going to be?
> 
> 
>>>The Civil Society Plenary, especially, should be doing this sort of
>>>thing.
>>
>>
>>who, how, in what language ? let's make sure its not only in English,
>>but also in other languages.
> 
> 
> Well, if people who speak English are the only ones who write, you get
> English only. That's the way it works. I'm certain that people of other
> languages can write.
> There's always automatic translation, but that can be dangerous.
> 
> 
>>It takes people who have the time, the resources and access to the
>>technical tools to make it happen.
>>
>>
>>
>>>In all, I think that there would be a lot of interest demonstrated on
>>
>>the internet.
>>
>>agree.
>>
>>
>>
>>>My main weblog is at http://www.knowprose.com - I'm not a direct
>>>participant, but as things unfold in the world I have a tendency to
>>>write about them. Prepcom will be one of them, of course.
>>
>>
>>make sure to feed it to a aggregation site like technocrati -
>>http://www.technorati.com/ that way, your wsis related articles can be
>>found be others (and be available as a feed as well).
> 
> 
> Umm...
> http://www.technorati.com/cosmos/search.html?rank=&url=knowprose.com
> http://www.technorati.com/cosmos/search.html?rank=&url=www.privaterra.org%2Factivities%2Fwsis%2Fblog%2F
> 
> I've been at this a while, Robert. Since blogging started, actually. ;-)
> If you're interested, offlist me and I'll point you at some useful
> stuff. That goes for anyone else who wants to hop into the blogosphere
> for this.
> 
> Do you have trackbacks, Robert?
> 
> (In fact, I'm knee deep in MySQL rescuing eAsylum.net while I'm writing
> this.)
> 
> Incidentally, another solution for some might be email posts to RSS
> feeds, and so on.
> 
> 
>>Getting back to preparations ....
>>
>>one of the items that I raised was how to more effectively use ICT
>>tools for CS. what do people think? how do we deal with offers people
>>have come forward with - and run with them.
> 
> 
> More action, less talk.
> 

-- 
-----------------------------------
Andy Carvin
Program Director
EDC Center for Media & Community
acarvin @ edc . org
http://www.digitaldivide.net
http://www.tsunami-info.org
Blog: http://www.andycarvin.com
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