Archive for August, 2009
In the second of this series of posts I want to look at how Help Me Investigate used game mechanics - how they worked in practice - and some of the plans for future development in this area.
Too small to be a game
When HMI first quietly went ‘live’ there were almost no game elements. We [...]
Tags: critical review
In the first of a series of posts reflecting on the first 10 weeks of Help Me Investigate I’m going to look at how social dynamics played out on HMI, and what we might do on that side of things if we move into full development.
What sort of community?
One of the most exciting points of [...]
Tags: critical review, social dynamics
I recently had something of a mini-crisis of confidence: “Was Help Me Investigate really needed?” I was asking myself. Given that investigations already take place on blogs, on forums, and in Facebook groups, is a tool like this really needed?
The original idea behind HMI was inspired by investigations like these. Imagine, I thought, if there [...]
There’s been a lengthy conversation taking place on Twitter today between myself, Steve Jackson (@ourman) and Jon Hickman regarding a tweet I posted inviting someone to submit an FOI request:
“Anyone want to send their first Freedom of Information request? It’s already written for you. Invite to @helpmeinvestig8 thrown in.”
The rest of the conversation is captured [...]
Tags: freedom of information, jon hickman, ourman, steve jackson, twitter
“An investigative team that’s bigger, more diverse and more skilled than any newsroom could ever be”
That’s the way Tom Scotney describes Help Me Investigate in a recent article where he talks about his experiences of the site for Journalism.co.uk.
Tags: cuttings, journalism.co.uk, tom scotney
I’ve used Widgetbox to create a simple little widget that you can use to show the latest investigations on your Facebook page or blog. This will help spread the word about various investigations.
You can find the widget listed on Widgetbox here. Click on any of the boxes to the right which will help you embed [...]
Tags: blogger, facebook, igoogle, investigations, myspace, widgetbox, widgets, wordpress
This is from a conversation I’m part of which I cannot quote from by name, but I thought my response might be worth recording under ‘FAQ’:
Q: “Journalism, especially investigative journalism, is labour-intensive and expensive. citizen journalists cannot expend the time required to uncover what centres of power are really up to. “
A: “…In just a couple of [...]
Tags: citizen journalism, faq
Last week Radio 4 broadcast a special edition on the future of journalism in which they featured Help Me Investigate. Here’s how they introduce the HMI interview, which amused me:
“Now, people – bloggers and the like – doing things for nothing on the internet, untrained and unsupervised. Sounds like the very opposite of paid-for professional [...]
Tags: media show, radio 4
