Disaster Microsyntax: Project EPIC, Tweak The Tweet, And Emergency Codes
A number of folks working with Project Epic are scrambling to devise a workable microsyntax to help with disaster relief in Haiti.
Project EPIC has a larger charter, but this Haitian response is directly in its area of focus, for sure:
Project EPIC, which launched in September 2009, is supported by a $2.8M grant from the US National Science Foundation. It is multi-disciplinary, multi-university, multi-lingual research effort to support the information needs by members of the public during times of mass emergency. In this age of social media, we bring our behavioral and technical knowledge of “computer mediated communication” to the world of crisis studies and emergency response. As researchers, we are committed to careful study of socio-technical transformation and building human-centered computation. In addition to empirical observational study that requires new ways of studying massive “widescale” coordination across the internet, we conduct “action research” and employ “participatory design” oriented approaches. We aim to look beyond today’s state of the art and anticipate future socio-technical change.
The Haitian earthquake has led to the spontaneous use of Twitter to communicate about missing people, request help of various kinds, and other disaster-related needs. The group is promoting ‘Tweek The Tweet’, a collection of defined hashtags (‘beacons’) and related microsyntax. One of the drivers for this is the desire to use existing twitter applications and search tools, which prohibited the development of anything radically different, a topic I will return to.
Here’s what is proposed:
Real Tweet Examples for Haiti
On 2010-01-16 06:15:45 RIElliott said:
#Haiti #Need Dr treating survivors need people & supplies #Contact Dr Denis Cyrille Rue Monseigneur Guilloux #556 Cell# 3555-1406 via@MejidX
On 2010-01-16 06:09:46 RIElliott said:
#Haiti #Need generator & water pump repair, tents #Location Leogane, Haiti Nursing School #Contact @nursetim www.haitinursing.org
On 2010-01-16 05:56:28 407underground said:
#Haiti #need #rescue #name American & UF Alumni Lee Strickland is stuck there alive #location Hotel Montana. Please RT send help now!
On 2010-01-16 05:56:28 407Rob said:
#Haiti #need #rescue #name American & UF Alumni Lee Strickland is stuck there alive #location Hotel Montana. Please RT send help now!
On 2010-01-16 05:33:19 RIElliott said:
#Haiti #need #rescue #name American Christine Legagneur is stuck there alive #location UNIBANK Bourdon (via @carodefay)
Our team and collaborators are proposing a Tweet-friendly hashtag-based syntax to help direct Twitter communications for more efficient data extraction for those communicating about the Haiti earthquake disaster. Use only requires modifications of Tweet messages to make information pieces that refer to #location, #status, #needs, #damage and several other elements of emergency communications more machine readable. This allows for easier automated collation by any number of groups and good samaritans from any number of sources. HELP US SPREAD THE WORD!!! Read on for immediate simulated life examples, instructions for deployment, and the initial tag folksonomy for the Haiti disaster. Tags in French are now also available. We welcome ongoing assistance in language translation for on-the-ground use when that becomes possible, and international deployment.
Tweet Examples In Use (See New Real Tweets to Right):
EXAMPLE1: #haiti #imok #name John Doe #loc Mirebalais Shelter #status minor injuries
EXAMPLE2: #haiti #need #transport #loc Jacmel #num 10 #info medical volunteers looking for big boat to transport to PAP
EXAMPLE3: #haiti #need #translator #contact @pierrecote
EXAMPLE5: #haiti #ruok #name Raymonde Lafrotune #loc Delmas 3, Rue Menelas #1
EXAMPLE4: #haiti #ruok #name Camelia Siquineau #loc Hotel Montana
EXAMPLE6: #haiti #offering #volunteers #translators #loc Florida #contact @FranceGlobalMission/Instructions for a Two-Pronged Deployment:
1) Promote grammar through available digital communication channels to get immediate pick-up by people, including those who are affected, emergency personnel, and—perhaps most usefully for immediate use—volunteers
To this end, please send out prescriptive examples, such as these:
#haiti pls tweet in the format: #haiti #ruok #name [first last] #loc [location] #contact [@ or #]
#haiti pls tweet in the format: #haiti #imok #name [first last] #loc [location] #status [status] #contact [@ or #]
#haiti pls tweet in the format: #haiti #need #medical #loc [location] #num
#haiti pls tweet in the format: #haiti #offering #shelter #loc [address] #num [amount] #contact [@ or #]
#haiti pls use these 1st hashtags: #imok, #ruok, #offering, #need, #damage, #status
#haiti pls use these 2nd hashtags: #food #water #shelter #transport #volunteers #translators #fuel #information
#haiti pls use these data hashtags: #name [first last] #loc [address, intersection] #num [amount] #contact [@ or #]
#haiti pls use these end hashtags: #status [status info] #info [more information, comment]
And here’s some real examples:
Real Tweet Examples for Haiti
On 2010-01-16 06:15:45 RIElliott said:
#Haiti #Need Dr treating survivors need people & supplies #Contact Dr Denis Cyrille Rue Monseigneur
Guilloux #556 Cell# 3555-1406 via@MejidXOn 2010-01-16 06:09:46 RIElliott said:
#Haiti #Need generator & water pump repair, tents #Location Leogane, Haiti Nursing School #Contact @nursetim www.haitinursing.org
On 2010-01-16 05:56:28 407underground said:
#Haiti #need #rescue #name American & UF Alumni Lee Strickland is stuck there alive #location Hotel Montana. Please RT send help now!
On 2010-01-16 05:56:28 407Rob said:
#Haiti #need #rescue #name American & UF Alumni Lee Strickland is stuck there alive #location Hotel Montana. Please RT send help now!
On 2010-01-16 05:33:19 RIElliott said:
#Haiti #need #rescue #name American Christine Legagneur is stuck there alive #location UNIBANK Bourdon (via @carodefay)
A Few Observations, To Be Considered After The Disaster Is Over
One of the problems with microsyntax based on hashtags is that hashtags are words in specific languages, so there is an immediate divergence in this case with English and French, and perhaps Creole, as well?
This is countered by the creation of a second glossary of hashtags in French, but the equivalence is not immediately obvious.
The second problem is that people aren’t using the templates as defined. For example, “#name American & UF Alumni Lee Strickland is stuck there alive’ does have a name in it, but it’s buried. To use a simple metric, a stupid program wouldn’t be able to extract ‘Lee Strickland’ from that.
I think that a few other approaches could work better even given the requirements that a disaster imposes:
- People will have only the most primitive communication capabilities, like cell phones, or public computers. (We have to imagine these at least, or Twitter and microsyntax can’t play a role at all.)
- We have to rely on Twitter as the basic platform, although it is possible to imagine external applications that are designed to work with Twitter, so long as they don’t require specialized software or hardware on the communication device. This means that specialized applications can be developed that interoperate with Twitter. As just one example, geolocational elements could be used to display messages relative to locations in a stricken area, like Haiti in this case.
- Hashtags are a general purpose tool, like a hammer, but even the best hammer can’t be used for all purposes. A hammer is a bad wrench, for example. In general, hashtags are intended to represent themes or topics that a post is about. Extending them to act as keywords is attractive at the moment, because various search tools currently identify the ‘#abc’ structure. But using hashtags consumes too many characters unnecessarily in a 104 character contex.
Other microsyntax has emerged, like @user and RT, that have become implemented directly in Twitter, and a wide variety of other microsyntax is in use, informally. I have even set up a non-profit organization, Microsyntax.org, to research and advocate microsyntactic conventions. (In a supreme proof of the bad timing inherent in the universe, I am currently involved in rebuilding the Microsyntax.org website, so it is in
disarray. I hope to have it reworked in the next few days, however.)
My recommendations at this point for Disaster microsyntax are these:
- We should dedicate ‘!’ to indicate that a message is associated with a specific named disaster or emergency. This use of ‘bang’ or ‘exclamation mark’ should take precedence over other possible uses of the character. I propose we call these ‘Emergency Codes’. Some international organization — perhaps the UN? Red Cross? — should be responsible for the naming of the disaster. This should be the first element of the post. For example, ‘!Katrina’ would have appeared at the head of all emergency tweets related to Katrina. Note that this is in distinction to the use of #katrina in a post, which does not indicate that it is an emergency post, just someone commenting on Katrina, for example in regard to local Lousiana politics.
- Twitter and related applications, like Twitter cllients, should be extended to support the use of bang in obvious ways. Note that this possibly means that Twitter could give preference to the passing of emergency messages, if necessary.
- Geolocation is more general than emergency, and some general convention should be used for that. I have advocated the so-called ‘geoslash’ notation, but this is a critical part of the whole picture.
- The syntax of emergency messages should be structured enough so that all parts of the message are defined elements, but loose enough that order of the various elements is arbitrary.
- A collection of two and three character codes based on bang should be developed to indicate various sorts of information useful in emergencies. For example, ‘!@’ could stand for the name of a person, based on the use of ‘@’ in Twitter and other applications. ‘!@@’ could be used for organizations, businesses, and so on. ‘!?’ could represent a question being asked, and ‘!!’ could be used for things desired, needed or the like.
- A general model for adding a note or status to any defined element could rely on ‘:’. For example, ‘!@john jones: alive’ would indicate that John Jones is alive (in English).
Here’s an example, for a hypothetical disaster, a hurricane called ‘Bette’ that has hit the eastern seaboard of the US:
!bette !@john jones: alive /wellfleet hospital/
This is an emergency message stating that John Jones is alive and is located at Wellfleet Hospital. Alternatively, the hospital could have been identified as an emergency-related organization or business, with ‘!@@wellfleet hospital’ instead of being treated as a location.
!bette @carlabreck !?@sam ying: with you?
This is directed to @carlabreck using her twitter ID, asking the status of Sam Ying, specifically whether he is with her.
!bette /usps, provincetown MA/ !!food blankets: 20 people stranded here !!medevac: 1 compound fracture
This indicates a request ‘!!’ for food and blankets for 20 people stranded at the post office in Provincetown, and a request for a medevac for someone with a compound fracture.
Note that this message could be jumbled in different ways — !bette !!medevac: 1 compound fracture /usps, provincetown MA/ !!food blankets: 20 people stranded here — and it would still have the same meaning.
!bette /usps, provincetown MA/ !@hassan haque: compound fracture of the lower right leg
This is an accompanying message to the previous, indicating the name of the person with the compound fracture.
!bette /home depot, hyannisport/: roof has blown off the main building and is blocking Main Street www.sto.ly/8797gd
This is an informational post, identifying a hazard so that authorities monitoring might do something.
Note that these could be translated into other languages, and all the microsyntax would be the same: an international code for emergency messages.
Lastly, specialized applications could be developed to capture the emergency messages and track them in various ways: collating all the requests for medevac, for example, so that helicopters could be scheduled more efficiently, or collating all the request for blankets and food.
I plan to contact the folks at EPIC and volunteer to work with them on these and related ideas, as soon as possible, as well as kicking off a new project at Microsyntax.org, developing these ideas more
completely. I also invte others to get involved, and in particular, I would welcome developer support in building an open source example web application that would parse Emergency Codes and aggregate the information in useful ways. Others could take that code and create other more specialized applications for various purposes.
I hope that EPIC, Microsyntax.org, and others can harness the attention caused by the tragic event in Haiti to come up with something to help the next time.
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Update 30 March 2011 — See Bang: A Microsyntax For Emergency Messaging
