Area of Focus Editors
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Area of Focus (AoF) Editors | Discuss | Visit or Join the AoF Editors Group
What are Areas of Focus?
WiserEarth includes the largest, free, publicly-editable directory of Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs) in the world. It is organized by nearly 400 areas of focus, which have been created to provide a comprehensive categorization or taxonomy of all the different areas of activity relating to the environmental and social justice fields.
All entities entered into the WiserEarth database (organizations, people, resources, events, jobs) can be tagged with multiple areas of focus. This tagging enables you to find organizations, people, groups etc. within their issue area. Each Area of Focus links to a mini-website, where you can see a collection of information specific to that topic of interest.
Why do we need Area of Focus Editors and How Do You Become An Editor?
The majority of content within these Areas of Focus (AOF) is unmoderated (i.e. there is no single person that is looking after this content). Most of the current AOFs consist of data that is not always relevant or up-to-date. There is a lot of content that should be reviewed and monitored so that it would be more useful to the users of WiserEarth (representatives from nonprofit organizations, concerned citizens as well as students or teachers).
Many people are also not aware of this directory that is available. An AOF Editor would also be encouraged to publicize the directory and specific areas of focus. In order to fulfull this need, WiserEarth is seeking interns or volunteers to take on the position or be assigned the role of AOF Editors.
Anyone can be a AOF editor and participate freely whenever they please. To ask for editor status on WiserEarth or to learn more information on AOF Editors, contact peggy.
What do AOF Editors do?
1. Edit and improve content in the area that you are most interested in
- Edit the group content and layout (See Area of Focus Editors group for examples)
- Add additional organizations, resources, events, jobs, and so on
- Monitor, browse and remove or update, organizations, resources, events in your area of focus
- Tag organizations who should have your areas of focus listed under their 'Area of Focus' list
- Improve the overall look and feel '"Areas of Focus" pages by adding videos, images, blogs, whatever you think is needed
- Edit the AOF portal to raise awareness of the topic and showcase/highlight organizations, resources, etc. and send links of the portal to your friends, colleagues, associates and organizations who are listed there.
2. Build a group of people who want to help edit this issue area with you
- Build a WiserEarth group based around one or more areas of focus - use the groups functionality to help project manage the area of focus
- Invite friends, associates, organizations to join your WiserEarth group!
- Share the Area of Focus with...
- Organizations
Websites - Blogs
- People that have tagged themselves with this AOF
Discuss | Visit or Join the Area of Focus Editors group
- Organizations
Comments (1 - 14 of 14)
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>> David: "ARRRGH!! How do we create such parallel discussions?! More importantly, how do WE reduce and minimize them? WE need have to have a mechanism by which editors can move, redirect, or delete redundant or disjointed comments and the discussions that they produce. There is an almost identical thread (and the same cast of characters!) in the Discussion Forums! This mechanism needs to support continuity."
Yeah, this is a problem indeed as John Coate mentioned a few times earlier (in various threads!). Here's a rather old thread in the Editors group on ideas to solve this problem: http://www.wiserearth.org/forum/view/68402e8890ae9aa0e8edd46dafba0121/group/WiserEarthEditors Maybe you (and others) can repost your comment in this thread there David, to add to the discussion. (by the way, another trick I'm using at the moment, is to direct readers of a wikipage/article I created to post comments in a discussion thread I created beforehand to discuss about the wikipage/article. I do this by posting some directions and link to the discussion thread at the beginning and the end of the wikipage/article.) As an effort to consolidate the two different thread on this subject, I've copied our whole conversation here into the link I provided before in the AoF Stewards group: http://www.wiserearth.org/forum/view/2f789feac329270c953783b46b525bcc/group/aof I've also responded further there, and I encourage others participating and reading the discussion here to do the same. |
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Hey, all:
Hey, Deborah: Oops, it is I who should apologize, since I was not directing my "tirade" at you. Indeed, I paint myself with the same broad brush! And I share with you the same problem getting around the site--the fact that I just saw this thread is evidence of that. So it is definitely not a problem unique to you. By the way, call me David. It seems part of the problem is that practically every page has a Comment opportunity and the potential for threads, and no way (visible to me at least) to manage the overlap except the kinds of linking efforts that Michael and Bowo (and others certainly) carry out. I would do that, too, but I have difficulty with the mechanics. With regard to the subject of AofFs, one of the things WE seems to lack on the whole is the two-way interchange between WE and members. I get emails every day from Grist, Avaaz, MoveOn, Union of Concerned Scientists, plus several others weekly, and still others ad hoc, as examples of two-way interchange. If more recruitment was actively used, WE would have more volunteers, beyond just signing up on the site. Many of these would be happy to help steward the AofFs. I do agree it helps to experience the AofFs as stewards. My own experience, as I mentioned in the other thread, with editing AofFs, causes me to lean more toward Tags, but this is not a full solution, since the AofF pages and text do provide a very helpful resource. If the Tags were tied to the equivalent appropriate AofF, both benefit. And, Deborah, I think your idea of recruiting students as stewards is a very good one (wherever the idea is! Hah!) since it serves several purposes--and done on the broadest scale, i.e., global--it has great potential. Global should not be an issue from an organizational standpoint, since the same college student in India or Indonesia, or Ivory Coast have much the same interests and needs (and computer) as one in Illinois, or Indiana, Iowa, Idaho.... David Messages done with sustainable energy, with Wind and Sun! |
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Hi boatsie, I'm really glad to hear you're passionate about this idea and I definitely welcome hearing your proposal. Thanks for taking this on! Feel free to post it both in the AOF stewards group and in the Editors group.
The thread which bowo referred to, gives an idea of how we want to setup some foundations of the aof stewards group: http://www.wiserearth.org/forum/view/2f789feac329270c953783b46b525bcc/group/aof I posted this discussion's link on that thread too. David, right now all we can do is make sure we share related links with each other, which bowo does a great job with. My main point of concern is making the role of "AOF Steward" an exciting one. Before we initiate the program, I think we need some of us to experiment a little bit and actually be stewards so that it would be near-crystal clear how to best steward an aof. Perhaps, I am thinking too far down the line, and that it will be quite easy to integrate people in. But I'd just like to feel a little more comfortable though before an aof program is launched... because the AOF stewards group is just beginning to get organized. As for an IT intern idea, so far NCI has not hired any. I'd be interested in seeing a proposal but I would not be too hopeful of this happening, as the tech team has its hands full with projects. |
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bowo , i'd like to take this up with NCI ... so I post the idea in Editors group or should I write a short proposal offering my services to handle the contacts, etc so we can expedite making this happen?
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SD,
i feel this is directed 'direcctly' to me because I am just feeling my way around here and not always able to locate my postings .. and so I post similar topics in different sections ... sorry. but on the other hand, I have mentioned elsewhere that I find the UI difficult, not intuitive enough, and groups keep popping up. this if it is a problem and not just my conception (learning curve) should not be difficult to adddress. |
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Hey, all:
I apologize, but this is going to be off topic, for reasons which will be apparent: ARRRGH!! How do we create such parallel discussions?! More importantly, how do WE reduce and minimize them? WE need have to have a mechanism by which editors can move, redirect, or delete redundant or disjointed comments and the discussions that they produce. There is an almost identical thread (and the same cast of characters!) in the Discussion Forums! This mechanism needs to support continuity. This works in every direction, by the way. I want to read and understand what others provide, and I want to have some confidence others have a full opportunity to read and understand what I offer. Of course, this is a situation where it can be said, "Editor, heal thyself!" since we as more or less responsible participants started it. Organizing knowledge is essential to knowledge itself. Organic and 'from the bottom up' is great and everything, but time is not on our side. Can WE get a little better organized? David Messages done with sustainable energy, with Wind and Sun! |
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This interns idea is a winner all around. Deborah's idea of starting with three AoF's and connecting with university internship programs to fill those AoF Stewardships seems almost easy. Maybe it actually *is* easy! WiserEarth has enough cachet to make it a most attractive prospect for both universities and for the actual interns. Is it possible to ask Gen to check in here and give us her thoughts?
Bowo, do Indonesian universities have internship programs? |
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Deborah, WiserEarth is a projcet of the Natural Capital Institute, so you might want to contact one of their staff (most are WiserEarth editors) to explore the possibility of collaboration with universities in the form of "internships to steward WiserEarth's AoF".
And as I've said in another thread, ideas to integrate the "online" world of WiserEarth with the "onlife" world of concerned citizens are most welcomed and very much needed to help WiserEarth be the site it was intended to be. Prototyping ways to steward an AoF is one of our main priorities (IMO) and we sure could use an extra set of hands. Anyone reading this comment are also welcomed to join the discussion at http://www.wiserearth.org/forum/view/2f789feac329270c953783b46b525bcc/group/aof |
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bowo,
that's why I think the idea of from the governance or 'founders'? principles? (don't know; who is actually the person in charge of official WE business, we consider contacting various schools about offering an internship. How would WE be able to enter into alliances with universities to provide 'credit' for Independent Study? If We could determine, prioritize say 3 areas of focus, determine/design a working template for prototype, then 'hire' 3 interns who are studying in that area to 'fill in the blanks' and develop the actual content/connections/interactivities. To "own' the AofF... Also, there are several programs obviously in areas such as ITEC where WE could have interns working on implementing the suggestions which are prioritized in a more timely basis ... I'd love to volunteer to work on this idea ... Ive supervised apprentices and interns before ... |
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Getting students into the fold is an excellent idea. Getting the "mentors" however, is still a little bit further down the road, and as Michael said "we've barely touched the water". I think we first need to get more users to be knowledgable about, and actively involved in improving WiserEarth.
However, I think many undergraduate level students are passionate and knowledgeable enough about the issues in the areas of focus that, they can be stewards without any mentors, or better yet, they can be mentors for incoming stewards. And they tend to have one big advantage that older WiserEarth users don't... time! Finding these students (not just from North America) and help them become active users is another challenge though. |
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Glad you love this idea! Im working with our student intern coordinator, Gen, to see how WiserEarth Interns could integrate this into their workload, in addition to other content-related tasks on the site.
I think that if this idea expands enough among volunteers and casual users, we'd see an official intern position for the sole purpose of "aof stewardship". With more participants I figure we can get more ideas so that we have a successful and efficient model on how to be a steward...right now I feel we've barely touched the water. |
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This comment was removed by a WiserEarth editor for the following reason:
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I just love this idea and I think that if we promoted the opportunities for college students to serve as 'interns' as stewards of these areas we might be quite successful. Has WE registerted with any colleges offering internship opps. For example, while in the MA program at SFSU, the ITEC department was always searching for internships for its grad students. Similarly, my daugther recently graduated from University of Oregon, International Relations. WE could offer internships through many college departments ... we would have to have a group of people here volunteering to serve as 'mentors' ; ie, to be the person in charge of each internship or a group of internships. Wow, could we get a lot done!
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I have just completed a draft proposal for the creation of a WE AofF Internship Program and uploaded the file to his group for discussion. I hope we can forward this idea to the appropriate NCI decision makers... It would be great if we could start this program in Sept. and if so we could need to begin working on it as soon as possible to lay the groundwork.