Social Media

  • Document Freedom Day: why open standards matter

    Steve WoodsOpen Source, Open Standards, Social Media, Tech

    Document Freedom Day dove posterToday is Document Freedom Day, an annual international celebration of open formats and open standards and an opportunity to promote their use.

    The use of open standards is definitely gaining ground, particularly where it matters, such as in dealings with government bodies. This was amply illustrated last year by the UK Cabinet Office’s announcement of the adoption of open standards for collaborating on government documents.

    Why do open standards matter?

    Open standards are vital for interoperability and freedom of choice. They provide freedom from data lock-in and the accompanying vendor lock-in. This makes open standards essential for governments, companies, organisations and individual users of information technology.

    What is an open standard?

    An open standard refers to a format or protocol that is:

    • Subject to full public assessment and use without constraints in a manner equally available to all parties;
    • Without any components or extensions that have dependencies on formats or protocols that do not meet the definition of an open standard themselves;
    • Free from legal or technical clauses that limit its use by any party or in any business model;
    • Managed and further developed independently of any single supplier in a process open to the equal participation of competitors and third parties;
    • Available in multiple complete implementations by competing suppliers, or as a complete implementation equally available to all parties.

    How do open standards affect you?

    April, the French open source advocacy organisation, has produced a handy graphic in English to illustrate the difference between open and closed formats. Click on the image below for the full-sized version.

    April leaflet showing difference between open and closed formats

    Examples of open standards

    Many open standards are in wide use. Here are 3 examples:

    • Plain text (.txt);
    • HTML, the language of the web;
    • ODF, the default file format of free and open source office suites such as LibreOffice and OpenOffice. ODF can also be handled by Microsoft Office versions from Office 2007 onwards.

    Document Freedom Day is being promoted on social media by the use of the #DFD2015 hashtag.

  • Bristol City Council & open standards – more

    Steve WoodsBristol, Open Source, Open Standards, Social Media, Tech

    BCC logoFollowing the post on Friday on Bristol City Council‘s response to my open standards FoI request (posts passim), more information has come to light.

    It was all sparked by a discussion on Twitter between myself and Alex, a leading member of the Bristol & Bath Linux Users’ Group (BBLUG).

    It all revolved around what was really meant by the phrase “not fully digital” in respect of PDF files.

    My speculation was that if text documents are scanned, these are usually converted to image-based PDFs with which the screen readers used by blind and visually impaired people can have problems.

    It turned out this was a good point, but not the real reason.

    The latter was supplied by Gavin Beckett, BCC’s Chief Enterprise Architect, who actually responded to my FoI request. It seems Gavin’s main reason for describing PDFs as “not fully digital” is that PDF is basically an attempt to make electronic files emulate paper. The move by the council away from PDF to HTML when responding to citizens is that more mobile devices (tablets and smartphones) are now being used by the public to communicate with the local authority and the latter wishes to provide the same – i.e. “fully digital” experience to all.

    Finally Gavin promised to follow up with his colleagues my gripe about using MS formats for responding to FOI requests. He conceded this was one example where PDF would be better.

  • Party political hypocrisy

    Steve WoodsPolitics, Social Media

    Yesterday, 5th February, was National Voter Registration Day.

    Many political parties, civil society organisations and others were yesterday encouraging the disenfranchised to register to vote for the forthcoming local council and general elections on 7th May.

    One of those parties campaigning was UKIP, which doubtless was ignorant of the hypocrisy of its message in the tweet shown in the following screenshot.

    image text reads Expats do your bit on May 7th. Register to vote online

    That’s right! A party actively opposing immigration to the UK is actively encouraging UK citizens who’ve become immigrants in other countries to register to vote in elections in the old mother country.

    You couldn’t make it up…

  • Je suis Charlie

    Steve WoodsMedia, Politics, Social Media

    Social media has responded quickly to the horrific attack on the offices of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris today, which resulted in 12 deaths and 5 injured. Four of those killed were Charlie Hebdo cartoonists Charb, Cabu, Tignous and Georges Wolinski.

    The press office of Amnesty International in France has described that attack as “A black day for press freedom”.

    Many Twitter accounts changed their avatar to the Je suis Charlie image shown below, whilst many tweets were also tagged with the #JesuisCharlie hashtag.

    Je suis Charlie

    Some of the harshest condemnations of the attack have come from the attackers’ co-religionists. The imam of Drancy, Hassen Chalghoumi, is reported to have said: “Their barbarism has nothing to do with Islam”.

    My deepest condolences to the victims and their families.

  • Gaunt’s Ham Park supports TidyBS5

    Steve WoodsBristol, Politics, Social Media

    This morning residents living around Gaunt’s Ham Park in Barton Hill became the latest to add their support for the TidyBS5 campaign to rid the streets of BS5 of litter and fly-tipping (posts passim).

    The picture below was posted online earlier this morning by Up Our Street.

    Gaunts Ham Park residents with banner
    Picture courtesy of Stacy Yelland

    The more support, the more chance there is that Bristol City Council will take the residents of East Bristol seriously when the raise their voices, something they have not always done in the past.

  • Thank You!

    Steve WoodsBristol, Social Media

    A week ago I was honoured to attend the annual Thank You awards organised by Easton & Lawrence Hill Neighbourhood Management to provide coverage of the event via Twitter.

    These awards are presented every year to people who make a difference in the part of East Bristol where I live. Nominations all come from the local community, i.e. friends and neighbours.

    This year the awards were presented by local MP Stephen Williams, whilst the event was compèred by local broadcasting husband and wife team Pat Hart and Sherie Eugene Hart. Those honoured ranged in age from people still at school to pensioners.

    The biggest cheer of the night was for Lil Stiddard, who received a standing ovation. Lili’s citation read:

    It was 32 years ago that Lil and her husband became involved in setting up a club for older people in the community. Before Easton Community Centre was built, they met at the Chelsea Road Old Co-op. The floor collapsed with all the dancing the first time they used a temporary venue. At the age of 97, Lil is still active in the club, setting out the tables and chairs, bringing the tea and assisting the treasurer. “We are all human beings,” she says, “and need to learn to pull together.”

    All the winners were photographed together at the end of the presentation.

    group photo

    Here’s a short film of vox pops shot at the awards.

    I happened to be nominated too…

    image of Thank You award

  • Overshare: Chambers word of the year

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Social Media, Tech

    speech bubble with speechLanguage is dynamic, constantly mutating and changing. One sign of this dynamism is the appearance of neologisms, i.e. newly coined word, or phrases or familiar words used in a new sense.

    There are plenty of neologisms in evidence in this year’s Chambers Dictionary annual search for its word of the year, many prompted by or associated with information technology.

    Chambers has this week announced that overshare is its word of the year for 2014, The Guardian reports.

    “Overshare” topped a shortlist compiled by the Chambers editorial board, which included “bashtag”, defined as “a hashtag used for critical or abusive comments”, and “digital native” – “a person who has learned to use computers as a child”.

    And the meaning of overshare? To reveal an inappropriate amount of detail about one’s personal life.

  • Jane Street, Bristol celebrates Zero Waste Week

    Steve WoodsBristol, Politics, Social Media

    Zero Waste Week, now in its seventh year, is currently taking place in the United Kingdom between 1st and 7th September 2014.

    The aim of Zero Waste Week is to “an opportunity to reduce landfill waste & save money“.

    The theme of this year’s event is “One More Thing“.

    Jane Street in Redfield, Bristol, shows in the picture below just what can be achieved with “One More Thing” in Zero Waste Week, in this case, one more instance of fly-tipping!

    Jane Street fly-tipping
    Image courtesy of Amy Harrison

    As part of the campaign to clear up Easton and Lawrence Hill wards (under the #tidybs5 moniker. Ed.), I recently attended a meeting with Marg Hickman, my local councillor, and council officers (news passim). At that meeting I was informed by the officers that the problem of fly-tipping in Jane Street had disappeared since a local mafrish – a café used for chewing khat – had closed down following the UK’s outlawing of khat. Obviously the council officers concerned hadn’t bargained for the persistence of Bristol’s filthy fly-tipping community!

    Besides alerting @BristolCouncil via Twitter, fly-tipping can be reported to the city council by:

    • using the dedicated fly-tipping report form on the council website (which also has a mobile version that works on smartphones);
    • a third party smartphone app, such as My Council (which is available for both Android and iOS; and
    • telephoning 0117 922 2100.

    The most direct reporting route is using the fly-tipping form as the report is sent directly to the department concerned, whereas the other methods require the report to be forwarded by its original recipient.

  • A confusing spell in Red(e)cliff(e)

    Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Oddities, Politics, Social Media

    One of the oldest districts of Bristol is Redcliffe (or Redcliff. Ed.).

    According to its Wikipedia entry, Redcliffe – the more common spelling – was once part of the manor of Bedminster before its absorption into the city of Bristol in the 13th century.

    However, the spelling of Redcliff(e) has long caused controversy.

    Richard Ricart, a town clerk of Bristol, in his The Maire of Bristowe is Kalendar, written between 1480 and 1508 and recording the history of Bristol since the 12th century, refers throughout to Redcliff, although there is also an occasional unusual reference to Redecliff. Both appear in this extract documenting the digging of St. Augustine’s Trench (later renamed St. Augustine’s Reach. Ed.) in 1240:

    This yere was the Trenche y-made and y-caste of the ryvere, fro the Gybbe Tailloure unto the key, by the maanovre of alle the Cominalte, as wele of Redcliff warde as of the Towne of Bristowe. And the same tyme thenhabitaunts of Redecliff were combyned and corporatid with the Town of Bristowe. And as for the grounde of Seynt Austyn’s side of the forseid ryver hit was yeve and grauntid to the Cominaltee of the seid Towne by Sir William a Bradstone then Abbot of Seynt Austyns for certeyn money therfore to hym paide by the seide Cominaltee. As appereth by olde writyng therof made bitwene the forseid Maire and Cominaltee and the seid Abbot and Covent.

    Redcliff these days tends to appear mostly in street names, such as Redcliff Street – the ancient road leading from Bristol Bridge to the former Redcliffe Gate in the city’s medieval walls – whilst Redcliffe is the more common version.

    A couple of quick text searches via Google of Bristol City Council’s website for Redcliff and Redcliffe gives the following results.

    • Redcliff: 1,120 results
    • Redcliffe: 4,020 results

    However, confusion as the spelling of Redcliff(e) has a long history. This is amply illustrated by the painting below by James Johnson entitled Redcliffe Street. It was painted around 1825 and hangs in Bristol City Museum & Art Gallery.

    image of James Johnson's picture of Redcliffe Street, c. 1825
    Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

    Kerry McCarthy, MP for Bristol East, has now stepped into this confusing orthographic and municipal muddle via the following tweet dated August 21st.

    Before boundary changes preceding the 2010 election, Redcliff(e) was part of Kerry’s Bristol East constituency.

    It has to be conceded that there is plenty of merit in Kerry’s suggestion, although she maintains she was only ‘moaning in Twitter’.

    Bristol is nevertheless one of those places which changes at a glacial pace and place names in Bristol are frequently named after long-vanished owners/occupiers. For instance, most older inhabitants of the city still refer to the local authority’s headquarters as the Council House (pronounced Counts Louse locally. Ed.), even though one of the first acts of elected Mayor George Ferguson was to rename it with the American-sounding City Hall in a cosmetic exercise.

    Does Kerry’s campaign have any chance of success? Your views are welcome in the comments below.

  • NL: PSV Eindhoven introduces wifi at stadium; fans protest

    Steve WoodsOddities, Social Media, Tech

    PSV Eindhoven logoPSV Eindhoven supporters launched a vehement protest against the introduction of wifi at the their Philips Stadion ground during their side’s 6-1 home victory over NAC Breda in their opening game of the season, according to yesterday’s Guardian.

    Fans displayed one banner reading: “F*ck Wi-Fi, support the team”. Placards with crosses running through the wifi signal were also held aloft before the match. Supporters’ groups believe the introduction of wifi is just the latest of a series of decisions by the club intended to gentrify the crowd at home matches.

    However, the club’s website has a slightly different take on the introduction of wifi. The game against NAC Breda marked the test phase of the ‘Connected Stadium’ project. All visitors had free access to the internet, social media and email via the ‘PSV’ network. This is the first time in the Netherlands that a stadium has been equipped with a wifi network. The club is also asking users for feedback.

    First posted on Bristol Wireless.

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