Public Lab Wiki documentation



community development

This is a revision from September 01, 2015 23:51. View all revisions
3 | 98 | | #11292

This program area is dedicated to supporting Public Lab's unique combination of local organizing and distributed peer production.
Related website tags: community
Related program areas of the Public Lab non-profit: Web Working Group, Advocacy

Timeline

Here's a brief history of community infrastructure (online and off), and some notable milestones.

2015

  • Public Lab's 5th Anniversary (read about it in GrassrootsMappingForum #7))
  • Second Regional Barnraising: Midwest, held in Chicago, Illinois
  • first ever Organizers Survey. Key topics: decision-making among organizers, active/inactive status.
  • Organizers Welcome pack becomes a physical mailing, including printed Handbook and Event Packs (also new for 2015)
  • Public Lab Fellows Program created in program areas Open Air, Open Land, Open Water
  • MapKnitter2.0 launches
  • WhereWeBreathe project on indoor formaldehyde monitoring and mitigation
  • The blog is rebooted, reviving a type of narrative writing that had been somewhat lost since the shift from grassrootsmapping.org to publiclab.org
  • Early versions of "Lending Library" based out of Portland leverages the shipping experience of our kits program and our non-profit access to discount USPS Library Mail rates for moving more expensive tools or calibration equipment around the community. Existing chapter-based tool exchanges continue as usual. Two Open Hours dedicated to this topic.
  • the Public Lab non-profit organizes its programs into initiative areas -- Open Air, Open Water, Open Land and Civic Kits -- in order to enable cohesive community collaboration across hardware, software, expertise, and locale.
  • plots-nyc (also NJ!) becomes first local mailing list to top 200 members.

2014

  • by end of 2014, there are 62 organizers from 8 countries
  • PublicLabTV launched at Barnraising 2014
  • First Regional Barnraising: Northeast, held in Plymouth, Massachusetts
  • organizers handbook (including undersigning of statements, and nomination of new organizers by sending one's own filled-in profile)
  • "New organizer welcome & orientation" email is standardized
  • Organizers Summit (event type piloted in June during regional barnraising, full event held in November at Annual Barnraising)
  • paper research notes, notepads
  • community cards: "welcome to Public Lab" messaging printed on brown cardstock
  • "Ask a Question / Answer a Question" tagging system see all questions
  • new, simplified front page on publiclab.org
  • ability to award a barnstar & have it displayed on awardee's profile page via dropdown menu on research notes
  • subscribe to tag (RSS)
  • http://publiclab.org/tags lists popular tags on the site
  • http://publiclab.org/stats shows a year of activity at a glance
  • select the language of a research note or wiki page with power tag
  • co-authorship of research notes via powertag
  • images supported in research note comments
  • in-line wiki editing
  • callouts on publiclab.org via @username send email notifications
  • OpenHour / live call events is first community wide audio/visual channel
  • barnstar brainstorming
  • Event template and RSVP feature on research notes
  • international edition of Grassroots Mapping Forum features XXX countries/regions
  • chat room (IRC) integrated into all publiclab.org pages
  • regional "umbrella" mailing lists created for northeast, midwest
  • third top-level language specific list is created, Public Lab Portugues
  • plots-spectroscopy list reaches 1000 members, surpassing grassrootsmapping as the largest tool-specific list
  • publiclaboratory list reaches 3000 members

2013

  • ability to comment on research notes
  • ability to write one research note in response to another
  • ability to "like" research notes, and "follow" them to receive email updates
  • tabbed wiki pages
  • "toolshed raising" event type
  • lists created for software developers, education, and writing
  • Mapknitter Club / Cartography Collective
  • Start a chapter page created
  • Guide to starting new projects
  • PDF print stylesheets for wiki and research note pages
  • research note templates
  • Sign-up page integrated anti-spam questionnaire "Turing Test"
  • publiclab.org launched, replicating all publiclaboratory.org features + adding user dashboard, profile pages, and supporting international characters (UTF-8)
  • OpenID used across all sites to authenticate against one's PublicLab.org account
  • plots-infrared list launches, along with plots-airquality and plots-waterquality
  • publiclaboratory list reaches 1500 members
  • creation of github.com/publiclab community repo

2012

2011

  • barnraising event type
  • Grassroots Mapping Forum (print publication for offline data distribution)
  • publiclaboratory.org launches, pioneering the "research note" and creating the wiki knowledge base (January 2011)
  • publiclaboratory list
  • laboratoriopublico list (Spanish)

2010

  • BP Oil spill -- short story at the top of this page

2009