Category Archives: social media

I’ve written before about what open licensing is and how to apply it to your pictures; and I’ve called for councils and other public bodies to open licence as many as possible of their photographs.

There’s recently been a welcome and encouraging increase in the number of councils that are live-streaming, or videoing for later consumption, their meetings. Such videos — and similar audio recordings — should also be made available to the public for reuse under open licences, which means no unnecessary restrictions such as “no commercial use” or “no derivatives” (the latter prohibits people from providing edited highlights or making compilations).

Some councils have an old fashioned attitude to the reuse of their videos
Photo by Taki Steve, on Flickr, CC-BY

There are a few reasons why this doesn’t currently happen, and they’re based on reasonable but unfounded concerns. Some council people (employed officers and elected members) are worried that they’ll lose control. They think that people will edit the videos in such as way as to misrepresent what was actually said. And some people will — but such people will do that regardless of the licence in place, and will misrepresent councillors even if only text minutes are available. Councils’ responses should be to point members of the public to the unedited originals, which they will of course host themselves, or on a service such as YouTube, using an account which they control. Are councils really going to resort to copyright law to stifle satire or prevent lobbying? Perhaps they should read about the Streisand effect (where resorting to legislation focusses greater attention on one’s actions than the subject of that action ever could).

Another issue is that some fear that if councillors use videos for political campaigning, that would break the rules on misuse of public money and council resources. The answer is simple: remind councillors of such rules and let them be responsible for their actions.

Such concerns are vastly outweighed by the potential benefits of allowing free (both senses: as in beer and speech) reuse of videos of our democratic processes in action. Bloggers (hyperlocal and others), journalists, lobby groups, Wikipedians and documentary makers will be able to report on the issues discussed by our elected representatives; and this can only encourage more involvement from lay people in the running of the services that they pay for.

Restrictive, non-open licences do not harm mendacious armchair activists, nor satirists, nor rogue politicians; they only hinder people who wish to use the material in a law abiding way to increase such engagement.

What licence is your council using for its videos of meetings?

My thanks to Tom Phillips for suggesting I write this post, for discussion in this evening’s #lgovsm chat on Twitter.

Thank you Herkimer Elementary for a Twitter spam case study

9 Replies

0000-0001-5882-6823

As my Twitter followers and other friends will know, I actively campaign against balloon releases — they litter, and harm wildlife.

This post isn’t about that, but about something odd which I discovered while doing so.

Each day, I search Twitter for people who are planning a balloon release, and politely ask them not to do it. A sufficient number to make this worthwhile, oblige.

About a year or so ago, give or take, I saw a tweet, the URL of which I have long since lost track of, saying:

Thank you Herkimer Elementary for a beautiful balloon release. Headed to Slavic Pentacostal Church.

(Both venues are in Herkimer, New York, USA, if you wondered.)

But then a while later, I saw exactly the same text tweeted by someone else. Then again by another account, a few days later, then again. This went on, week after week. Gradually, the frequency increased, and now at any time there are hundreds of recent tweets with that text:

https://twitter.com/charolettetm/status/292294397670850561

https://twitter.com/lashernndshane/status/292287884197773312

https://twitter.com/janinemccormi/status/292286193079566336

https://twitter.com/trishadicksonuk/status/292270073828212737

https://twitter.com/lavelleboothjnu/status/292224663940128768

You can try the ‘Herkimer Elementary beautiful balloon release’ search yourself.

If we examine one of the accounts tweeting that, say @janinemccormi (picked at random), we can see he’s tweeted other things:

https://twitter.com/janinemccormi/status/291091194732244993

https://twitter.com/janinemccormi/status/289943029542961152

(Interestingly, a Google image search shows that @janinemccormi’s avatar is shared with @sanevekaxu7, whose account is suspended.)

Those messages have each been tweeted by lots of other people:

https://twitter.com/AugustaGriffit9/status/292298948205502465

https://twitter.com/ChristyFry7/status/292288707422220290

https://twitter.com/GustavoMcclain/status/292285011686723585

https://twitter.com/lawanavdqplaza/status/292249058641338368

https://twitter.com/RenaldoJames2/status/292231467197661184

(‘ASOS Topshop killlllllllling meee’ search).

and again:

https://twitter.com/darcijvgsledfor/status/292313158306111489

https://twitter.com/Berenic71145467/status/292252812744728576

https://twitter.com/ErickStephenso2/status/292137319039893504

https://twitter.com/LillianRogers18/status/292135322765103104

https://twitter.com/YolandePowell/status/292116140837191680

(‘preciso sair e passar nos outros fcs ‘-‘ beeijos.’ search).

And so it goes on: hundreds of identical tweets, from accounts making hundreds of other duplicate tweets. You’ll be able to find plenty more examples.

Now, at the risk of casting aspersions on innocent bystanders, I think it’s safe to assume that those are not genuine accounts (or if they are, they’re compromised).

If I were Twitter, I’d be looking into this and suspending some accounts. A lot of accounts.

For I’m a Jolly Good Fellow (of the RSA)

7 Replies

0000-0001-5882-6823

I may have been overlooked, once again, in the new year’s honours list, but in mid-December I received an unsolicited and very flattering email; I’d been nominated, by their Regional Programme Manager, to become a Fellow of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (the Royal Society of Arts, for short, or RSA, for shorter). The nomination was “for your work on open data, Wikipedia and social media”.

You could have knocked me down with a metaphor.

Royal Society of Arts - from the Strand, London

RSA headquarters
Photo by Elliott Brown, on Flickr, CC-BY

Founded in 1754, the RSA is an independent enlightenment organisation committed to finding practical solutions to today’s social challenges (their email pointed out). That sounded right up my street. I was delighted to accept, and confirmation arrived by e-mail on Wednesday.

I’m in some illustrious company. My fellow fellows include Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Dr Sue Black, Stephen Hawking and Gareth Malone. Past fellows have included Charles Dickens, Benjamin Franklin and Karl Marx!

As a fellow, I shall have use of facilities at the RSA headquarters, off The Strand, pictured above. I shall henceforth refer to this, tongue firmly in cheek, as “my London club”.

My fellowship also means that I now have extra initials after my name. I’m “Andy Mabbett, FRSA”.

But you can still call me Andy.

Teaching OpenStreetMap and Wikipedia editing, Tupperware Party style

5 Replies

0000-0001-5882-6823

I’m writing (and posting — thank you Chiltern Railways’ free Wi-Fi!) this on the train home from High Wycombe. I’ve spent a fun day there with Louise Brown, her husband Simon, and three of their friends, teaching them to edit OpenStreetMap and, after a fab lunch cooked by Simon, how to edit Wikipedia.

This came about after I mentioned on Twitter some other Wikipedia training I’d delivered, and Louise said she wished I lived closer, so she could have attended. I said I’d be wiling to travel to her home to do so if she could get a few like-minded friends together, to justify me giving up a day of my time and making the journey. This she quickly did.

Though we didn’t add much to OpenStreetMap to start with, I’m confident that the attendees will soon fill in the gaps around their homes and work-places in High Wycombe, West Wycombe and Marlow. We certainly improved some Wikipedia articles though, and created some new articles, including:

St Lawrence, West Wycombe
Photo by amandabhslater, on Flickr, CC-BY-SA

Microsoft HailStorm
St Lawrence’s Church, West Wycombe (pictured, thanks to an open licence)
St Paul’s Church, West Wycombe (we had the vicar among us!)
Guy McCrone
William Barribal

I’ve previously taught Wikipedia and OpenStreetMap editing, separately, in a variety of situations including universities, council offices, at Social Media Surgeries, at hackdays, and elsewhere, but this is the first time I’ve done so in someone’s home, in an informal and social setting.

A bit like a Tupperware party in fact, but without the plastic kitchenware.

If you have skills in editing Wikipedia or OpenStreetMap, or using social media, or indeed anything else that can be done around a domestic dining table, why don’t you see if you can share them in a similar way. If you’ve not delivered training before, it’s a good way to get experience.

It’s also a great way to sign up new contributors to these worthwhile crowd-sourced projects, in a fun, friendly and supportive environment. There are no venue costs to worry about. And you’ll meet some lovely people!

So what are you waiting for?

Open Up Your Content – a piece written for Hyperlocal West Midlands

1 Reply

0000-0001-5882-6823

My friends Kate Sahota, Dan Slee and Simon Whitehouse, and Liz O’nions from our sponsors Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council, and I ran the ‘Hyperlocal West Midlands‘ (‘HyperWM’) unconference today; the third of these annual events, for local government and other public sector workers, and hyperlocal bloggers interested in working with them. As usual, I got to be compère, a role which I greatly enjoy.

It was great to see many old friends, even though the opportunity to chat to them was of necessity limited.

For the event, we produced a newspaper. Yes, a real newspaper, made from dead trees. The idea was to give some information to the many attendees who are not yet fully engaged with the digital world.

A Hyper WM Newspaper by HyperWM on Newspaper Club

Two of my articles were included, a shortened version of my blog post “Tips for Unconference newbies“, and the following, written specially, and reproduced here in its original form, before Dan got his sub-editing mitts on it, and with added links:

Open Up Your Content

No doubt you’ve heard a lot about open data (and if you haven’t, you soon will do). But what about “open content”? And what is open content?

The commonly accepted definition refers to content (text, images, audio or video) which may be used by anyone, freely (free as in speech, and as in beer), under what is known as an open licence. The “four Rs” apply: people should be able to Reuse, Revise, Remix (combine with other content) and Redistribute (give away or sell) the content. There may be a requirement to give attribution (in other words, you have to say who the author or owner of the content is) and an open licence does not negate moral rights (so you shouldn’t misrepresent the author or owner).

Open content sources include all of Wikipedia (except a few images, such as DVD covers), everything on Wikimedia Commons, many images on Flickr (check the individual licences, or use the “Creative Commons” option in their advanced search) and much, much more, and you can use any of that, on your website and in your paper publications and reports. For free!

So how does open licensing work, in the public sector?

Suppose you’ve written an FAQ about food hygiene. If a blogger, or a neighbouring council or health authority, or suchlike, ask for permission to use some or all of it, you’d probably say “sure, just give us a mention”. If you receive a request for a photograph of your new chief executive from the same people, you’d probably provide them with one. You’d do that, even for a local newspaper which makes money by selling adverts, and by being sold in newsagents.

An open licence, such as one of those provided by Creative Commons as a set of boilerplate terms which you can use without paying a lawyer to write them, simply formalises such sensible responses.

Better still, you can apply an open licence in advance of receiving a request, or many such requests, thereby relieving you of a tiresome administrative burden.

If you have useful content (of course you do!), and you’re not going to sell it (of course you’re not!), make it available (on your website, or a third party one like Flickr or Wikimedia Commons), and let the community you serve and the world at large benefit from it. You might be surprised at the uses they put it to, and how you and your customers can benefit from them.

Licence

This post is available under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (3.0 Unported) licence. Attribution should include a link to the post, or, in print, the short URL http://wp.me/p10xWg-qV.

Don’t link to my Twitter profile!

2 Replies

0000-0001-5882-6823

From time to time, people are kind enough to mention me, with a link, in their blog posts. Usually, in a positive way. I’m very grateful when they do.

Lovely links (geddit?)
Photo by pratanti, on Flickr, CC-BY

But…

They often link to my Twitter account, like this::

Here’s something about Andy Mabbett.

or like this:

Here’s something about Andy Mabbett (he’s @pigsonthewing on Twitter).

(the relevant HTML markup being, in the first example,
<a href="http://twitter.com/pigsonthewing">Andy Mabbett</a>).

Now, like I say, I’m very grateful for the attention. But I do wish they would link to my website, instead:

Here’s something about Andy Mabbett.

or even both:

Here’s something about Andy Mabbett (he’s @pigsonthewing on Twitter).

(the relevant HTML markup being
<a href="http://pigsonthewing.org.uk">Andy Mabbett</a>).

Why?

For two reasons. Firstly, though Twitter is fun, and I use it a lot, it’s ephemeral, and not everyone reading those post will want to use it. My website, on the other hand, has more about me and the work I do. Secondly, I need the Google juice (the value afforded to incoming web links by PageRank, the Google search algorithm ) more than Twitter does.

This isn’t just about me, though. The same applies every time a blogger or other web page author — and that probably includes you — links to anyone or any organisation, with their own website or blog. Please don’t just link to their page on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or on some other social networking site. Of course, do that as well, or if it’s the only online presence they have.

But if they have a website, as I do, please make that the primary destination to which you link. And hopefully, they will reciprocate.

Thank you.

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Open Up Your Content

More from HyperWM

Licence

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this: