“Unlike Paul, I do think that new ICTs can play a potentially important role compared to traditional press releases, and unlike Paul, I won’t dismiss this potential until much more work has been done on the subject.”

In this post I was specifically responding to the example of Twitter, which was the example that you provided. I clearly think ICT plays an important role in public information (as my writing I think makes clear) but I think the proponents of Twitter vastly over-estimate what it actually does, and probably over-estimate what it can do.

My “comprehensive” (aha, cough cough, ahem, tugs at collar) response will post later today or tomorrow…

Reading your comments, one would think you started spreading the following rumor:

“Patrick thinks that all rumors in humanitarian crises can be stopped and that rumors are really not that important anyway.”

Wow. Clearly, blogs and comments do an equally good job as Jeff’s rumor mill. Very interesting.

You may all have given up on trying to counter rumors, and of course that’s entirely your prerogative, and of course, in many cases, the best you can do is run. Absolutely. And I know just how serious this is. I’m talking about these issues with UNDP/Sudan every day. The latest story is a rumor about international humanitarian workers putting poison in the water of an IDP camp. The result was serious. Who ever said rumors were funny?

But I’m simply not content to say “alright, nothing we can do, nothing to be done.”

I’m far more interested in re-doubling my study of rumors to better understand them, eg., as a dynamic network phenomenon (this should appeal to Paul), in order to try and get insights on how one prevents or mitigates this kind of tipping point. Patterns vs anti-patterns.

Have I quelled the rumor about “Patrick and rumors”?

Unlike Paul, I do think that new ICTs can play a potentially important role compared to traditional press releases, and unlike Paul, I won’t dismiss this potential until much more work has been done on the subject.

Cheers!
Patrick
I only have one question: what about the rest of my comprehensive answer to Paul’s concerns about crowdsourcing in crisis?