We developed arich and detailed custom map of Antarctica stitching together satellite imagery (it took a really long time!!!). The project went viral after being posted on BoingBoing.
Ann Arbor residents have documenteddozens of development projects and documentedmajor real estate projects of the 2000s. Additionally, they've documented theAnn Arbor Planning Commission's activities, shedding light on a process that's opaque in many cities.
Residents used the wiki to cover theAugust 2013 city election with information on key dates, races, and candidate positions written in a user-friendly format.
Residents used the wiki to document theAnn Arbor Greenbelt initiative, providing information on the project itself, along with information on the mechanisms used to fund the project with additional context this mechanism to others.
Threecommunity informatics classes at theUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Graduate School of Library and Information Science have incorporated work on LocalWiki into their coursework. They've created content, worked on outreach, and created a guide to help others join in.
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Davis, CA rally in response to the "pepper spray cop" incident as seen from a helium balloon. Thanks to Stewart Long, Liz Barry,MicheleTobias, and Alex. Photo CC-By-SA Public Laboratory.When apolice officer pepper-sprayed students sitting in the UC Davis Quad on Nov. 18th, 2011, it kicked off an international media frenzy. But while the world's presses buzzed, Davis residents were busy compiling every bit of information about the event on their LocalWiki,DavisWiki. Residents created an ever-updating chronology of events; posted and analyzed photos (including the first photo of the second police officer involved, who was identified on the wiki, videos and letters; discussed and debated the events; and countered incorrect information that was rapidly circulating. Even before the event occurred, the DavisWiki had extensive pages about theUC Davis Police Department, theUC Davis Chancellor, thehead of the police department, and thelocation of the event. With the DavisWiki, residents were able to share and learn about an important event in its full context, not just consume the latest new updates. During the week of the event, over 25,000 people visited pages on DavisWiki related to the pepper spraying, and the page about the event was edited over 700 times by over 100 different residents. But residents didn't simply read and share online — they turned this information into real-world action, including thelargest protest in the city’s history.
Oh my god it's hard to describe just how cool Davis Wiki is! Every bizarre and unique aspect of the city is covered including town characters, mysterious places, everyday phenomena, just random pets,night, all kinds ofknowledge passed down among PhD students in the UC Davis Entomology department,senseless acts of beauty,
Prompted by work done around the case of Helema Buzayan, a young Muslim student who was possibly the victim of racial profiling, the Davis City Council awarded a community engagement award to Davis Wiki. In the City Council's resolution, they state "The Davis Wiki provides a free, public forum for all to use and update, giving community members the opportunity to speak out against civic inequality and to support positive social movements within Davis."
Because the entire Davis Muncipal Code was posted on the Davis Wiki, residents uncovered an "annoying persons" law and successfully petitioned the City Council to have it removed.
Residents have documented and affected the outcomes of a number of planned city projects and initiatives. Here are a few examples:
People even use the wiki toreturn lost pets and help each otheridentify wild animals.
Denton must be a strange place because residents have used the wiki to document Nerd Life, Fry Street and Fry Rats, Coneheads,Cool Houses, cockroaches, Denton Characters, sidewalks, and slack.
Residents have mapped every building with historical and contemporary significance.
Screenshot from the augmented reality app developed by LocalWiki Japan foks!Residents in Natori, Japan, a city that was devastated by the 2011 tsunami, are using theNatori LocalWiki to track reconstruction efforts and also promote grassroots forms of reconstruction including lantern ceremony rituals for the dead by the Tsunami and the re-planting of trees. They have also worked with community members to map out and create a community memory project to document places that were destroyed in the earthquake. Read more about their work inthis blog post.
Residents in Japan have been mapping the tiny island ofIzu Oshima, both adding knowledge toLocalWiki and also improvingOpenStreetMap's coverage of the island. They even developed an augmented reality app based on LocalWiki and OpenStreetMap data! (There're more details in thisslideshow.)
Oakland Wiki volunteers at thefirst Oakland Wiki editathon in January, 2013.Residents have created over400 entries on local history (probably more like 1,000, since not allhistoric person andhistoric business entries also have the history tag), much of it original archival research published directly to the Oakland LocalWiki. A lot of the topics covered include histories that are often unwritten and marginalized, including histories ofChicano andAfrican American grassroots activism. Oakland volunteers also held a number ofin-person editathons in early 2013 in theOakland History Room (the official City archive) which is currently non-circulating and mostly undigitized. Volunteers digitized and publicized work that would otherwise be inaccessible to most of the world.
Residents regularly use the wiki to track the progress of a number of proposed city council measures and initiatives and organize directly on the wiki by providing information about upcoming meetings, etc. Examples include documenting aplanned surveillance center (the Oakland LocalWiki was the first is now the most complete source of information about the surveillance center and almost certainly acted as the primary source for anarticle on the issue in theNew York TImes.), planneddog park, and manymore.
Oakland Wiki volunteers getting an introduction to theSanborn Maps at theOakland History Room.Anentirely internet-native unorganized City Council livetweet group is using the wiki to plan agrassroots-run candidate debate on twitter as part of theiractivities relating to documenting 2014 mayoral elections, increasing civic participation in local politics, and increasing candidate responsiveness to resident concerns.
Residents have been documenting protests (often in realtime) & instances of police misconduct.
Residents documented the typically convoluted and opaque2013 Oakland city budgeting process. Their efforts ledCity Councilmember Libby Schaaf to thank them for increasing transparency and citizen awareness of city proceedings (video here).
Residents have documented and mapped over 200 murals in Oakland, some of which have since been painted over and are now only documented on the Oakland LocalWiki.
Residents have mapped the open/p2p/collaborative/free/sharing landscape in Oakland, including free/collaborative spaces, organizations, initiatives, and also knowledge (urban farming information, etc.).
A neighborhood association used the wiki to map out all the businesses in the neighborhood and is now embedding the wiki entry in theirown website.
In Feb. 2014 Oakland Wiki won theOakland Heritage Alliance's 2013-2014 Partners in Preservation Award in the Education category for all of the amazing work that wiki contributors have done documentingOakland history.
Residents are documenting colloquial and tacit local knowledge includingpet shelter slang for common breeds of strays,fluctuating trash piles,fluid neighborhood boundaries that define where the "bad" neighborhoods are,ad hoc street shrines,mystery cars, and dreams of thefuture of the community.
At a2013 National Day of Civic Hacking hackathon, a team that included Chris Alfano, Faye Anderson, and Jim Connor won the Random Hacks of Kindness hackathon with an app called “What’s Going On?” which aggregates after school programs across the city. To develop a database of after school programs for their app, the team had participants add programs to Wikidelphia, Philadelphia’s LocalWiki. The list of programs is now available both via the What’s Going On? app and on Wikidelphia.
Residents have documented over 50 past, present, and plannedcity development projects.
A small community of just over 5,000 people, the village has worked to document local history and architecture with over 6,000 entries atlocalwiki.org/hsl/.
Residents have mapped hundreds of parks, found and documented a number of secret public spaces, and created animated gifs to better illustrate Seattle in motion.
TheSeattle Wiki is run in conjunction with theCode for Seattle Code for America brigade and they've hacked a bunch on the LocalWiki platform,creating a ruby gem for the LocalWiki api, a node module for the LocalWiki api, a patch method for the node module request and more.
During the Civic Workers Strike in 2009, The City of Toronto decided to turn many of the larger parks into temporary dump sites for residential garbage. That did not go over very well with residents who lived nearby. TheParks are Not Dumps! wiki page became an on-going point of reference for media, activists, neighbours and politicians.
The wiki page also helped break the news of a leaked City of Toronto document listing dozens of new parks being considered as additional temporary dump sites. Its online posting and subsequent publicity followed by public backlash likely delayed the City's decision to proceed with that decision.
The wiki also documented University of Toronto ProfessorBoris Steipe'sA Walk For One Bag of Garbage, during the Strike.
ProfessorSteipe completedA Walk For One Bag of Garbage from the temporary residential garbage dump site inside the outdoor hockey rink inChristie Pits Park to the Transfer Station in the Portlands area.
That wisdom about turning every crisis into an opportunity was seen asMark The Litter Guy suddenly became in demand during the entire strike.
The TorontoWikiKaraoke page is currently the city's most complete listing and helps people who sing in the shower, sing in front of strangers and friends instead.
TorontoWiki also introduced the concept ofTorontohenge to the City with its dedicated wiki page. It's now become a regular semi-annual observance by photographers in the city'sDowntown Core.
Mark The Litter GuyJane Jacobs was a self-taught Urbanist, Activist, and Public Intellectual who made Toronto her adopted home city upon leaving New York. After she passed away in 2006, the following year on her birthday weekend, her friends organized a series of neighbourhood walks lead regular everyday people.
Jane's Walks has grown from 30 walks that first year to hundreds of walks in dozens of cities around the world today. The TorontoJane's Walk wiki page has been there from the beginning and Sponsors walks with co-listings every year since. There's even an Oakland LocalWikiJane Jacob's Walk connection!
Residents have mapped a network ofnature paths throughout the city. Residents laterused the LocalWiki API to create amobile app that helps residents find the nature paths in the city.
Over 50 people gathered to participate in an edit day in Raleigh.
At a2013 National Day of Civic Hacking hackathon, a team that included Luke Crouch, John Dungan, Blixa Morgan, and Patrick Forringer developed a mobile app called LocalTour which uses map and entry data fromTulsa Wiki to power self-guided tours of Tulsa.
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