Quickbits April 2009
- Citizen Journalism and the War on Gaza – an article describing the recent Ushahidi deployment in the context of social media in the recent war. Good coverage of good projects.
- Documenting Darfur and south Sudan – an old article from Tom Adami, then-Chief of Records Management & Archives Unit for the UN Mission in Sudan. This is an area that continually gets overlooked, and I hope to write more in the future.
- If you’re looking for a Video Introduction to Crisis Mapping, Patrick has just what you need. This is a clear and comprehensive briefing on his line of work and research, including an overview of actors in that field.
- Sahana gets blogged at Gartner blogs. These are interesting times for the Sahana project, as it’s now becoming a project independent from its original host, the Lanka Software Foundation. Look for big developments by end of year…
- Rob Crilly confesses that he doesn’t know how many people have died in Darfur – don’t worry, he has a good rationale. Lesson for the month: don’t imagine that the UN has any more of a clue than anybody else about big numbers…
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@Paul: “Lesson for the month: don’t imagine that the UN has any more of a clue than anybody else about big numbers…”
Too true – only a few people have Big Numbers expertise in this area, but they have documented their techniques exceptionally well. The question “how many died?” is the first thing anyone with any curiousity asks, but what is the actual value of knowing a Big Number? They’re meaningless to regular joes, and unless care is taken to accurately source the data, weed out duplicates and correct known biases, the number is almost certainly wrong.
For a masterclass in how to go about a definitive body count, check out How many Peruvians have died? An estimate of the total number of victims killed or disappeared in the armed internal conflict between 1980 and 2000″ by Prof David Sulmont et al.
Tom Longley
29 Apr 09 at 13:27