Help out converting data for Haiti

January 23, 2010 1:56 PM

Calling all backtaggers- want to help out in Haiti? Consider doing some data entry from an SMS-based missing persons system to the centralized Google People Finder for Haiti: details here.
posted by potch to MetaFilter-Related at 1:56 PM (19 comments total)

Thanks for posting this.
posted by Elmore at 2:03 PM on January 23, 2010

Erm, I stupidly started one before realizing that (of course) you'll usually need a little bit of French to interpret the messages. Oh well. Thanks for posting.
posted by Salvor Hardin at 2:16 PM on January 23, 2010

Not all records are in Kryol/French- you can put the ones you don't understand back in the queue.
posted by potch at 2:17 PM on January 23, 2010

Or Creole. I wouldn't know the difference.
posted by Salvor Hardin at 2:17 PM on January 23, 2010

Ok, good to know - maybe I'll try a few more.
posted by Salvor Hardin at 2:17 PM on January 23, 2010

Yeah, you're right - the first two I got were in French, so I got discouraged. The next five or so were in English. Sorry!
posted by Salvor Hardin at 2:23 PM on January 23, 2010

Thank you, this is great. I don't know if there's any work going on to translate the French texts into English, but I'm ready and willing if anyone needs vocab assistance.
posted by oinopaponton at 2:31 PM on January 23, 2010

There are plenty of English ones available, so I'm plugging through them as best I can. I've already donated, so something else coming along that I can help with is brilliant.
posted by saturnine at 2:37 PM on January 23, 2010

If you're interested in other ways to help out, today there are CrisisCamps all across the world-

crisiscommons.org is organizing, and there will be ongoing projects for the forseeable future.

The list of non-technical ways to help out:

http://wiki.crisiscommons.org/wiki/Simple_Tasks_Anyone_Can_Do
posted by potch at 2:40 PM on January 23, 2010 [1 favorite]

even though I checked the french, I've been getting mostly english.

I'm glad for this source but I wish the site were designed a little better to explain who is looking for whom and who is contacting them.
posted by Solon and Thanks at 2:55 PM on January 23, 2010

Oh, gosh, I see that it does once all of my javascript was enabled... so watch out for that. Thankfully I just entered/explained the extra information in the description field.
posted by Solon and Thanks at 3:01 PM on January 23, 2010

There's also this, matching news coverage photos with family-submitted photos of missing people.
posted by roll truck roll at 3:51 PM on January 23, 2010 [2 favorites]

That site seems to be taking lots of information from the comments of konneksyon.com, which is in the midst of relaunching—all the comment pages where people were seeking information are gone. Sigh. You'd think that they'd keep the old pages archived, even if they're reconfiguring it.
posted by ocherdraco at 5:06 PM on January 23, 2010

koneksyon.com, rather.
posted by ocherdraco at 5:07 PM on January 23, 2010

Thanks for posting this. I know enough French to get through some of them. Others I'm putting back into the queue.
posted by 26.2 at 7:24 PM on January 23, 2010

I've been working on matching the pictures roll truck roll linked to for a while now. Little things, like the shape of an ear or slightly crooked teeth make for possible matches, but it's quite tough.
posted by misha at 8:40 PM on January 23, 2010

Thank you for posting this. I have an infant and a two year old and I'm broke, so I'm pretty limited in my ability to help. This is something I can do.
posted by Dojie at 5:38 AM on January 24, 2010

Records Converted: 3,396 | Messages in queue: 0

Wow, good work, Internet!
posted by hattifattener at 5:12 PM on January 24, 2010 [2 favorites]

Yeah nice! Went to help and it was done!
posted by Kimberly at 10:15 AM on January 25, 2010