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A unique survey ran on O'Reilly's web site during the first three months of 2007, aimed at people who contribute free documentation to online mailing lists, web sites, and other forums. The survey garnered 354 responses, which in itself indicates the thriving state of free documentation and the dedication of the people who write it.
Professional computer users know well that computer documentation, like music and news, has moved online. What's truly phenomenal is the high rate of contributions by rank-and-file computer users. Thousands edit wikis, answer questions on forums, and blog about experiments with technology--mostly for free. Their contributions may go on sites that are advertising-supported, but they rarely share in the revenue. Some receive fees elsewhere for articles and books, but the writing done gratis often comes up in search engines at rankings equal to or higher than official corporate sites such as Sun Microsystems' Java documentation.
So why do computer users take time away from their own lives and work to help people around the world whom they don't even know? I've speculated about this for years--notably in the articles Splitting Books Open: Trends in Traditional and Online Technical Documentation (2004) and Rethinking Community Documentation (2006)--but this year I decided it was time to actually ask the people who do it.
This article summarizes some of the debates concerning online gifting, presents the results of my survey, and attempts to analyze the meaning of the results. In order to maintain a flow, I've relegated most discussions of methodology to sidebars. The article consists of the following sections:
Common Issues and Questions Regarding Community Documentation
Reviewing a bit of the research and conventional wisdom regarding online participation will help us understand the value of this survey and the courses of action suggested by its results. If you find this section too philosophical for your taste, feel free to skip right to the discussion of the survey.
Online documentation is plentiful, timely (you can often find a bug fix within hours of the release of a buggy product), available anywhere in the world that has Internet access, and (as if this hadn't been emphasized enough already) free. Why should we do anything but lie back and wash in its abundance?
In fact, several phenomena show that online documentation could use improvements:
This wastes everybody's time, frustrates experienced users, and causes intemperate outbursts on forums. New users don't have enough guidance to find existing answers--or possibly don't realize that the answers apply to their problem.
Information is usually forthcoming to those who ask, but first one has to know how to ask. Users bounce from forum to forum because they don't know the source of their problem. Reaching the proper forum, they may have to reformulate their question to use terms that are understandable in that forum, and submit new information during several rounds of interrogation to clarify the problem. At other times, eager users dump huge volumes of computer output and configuration information into an email message, prompting forum participants to complain that they're overwhelmed by irrelevant data.
Amateur writing can lead to problems as simple as an ambiguous phrase that readers interpret incorrectly, or as subtle as hidden assumptions that leave documents inscrutable. Incorrect or outdated instructions that can actually hurt people's systems still turn up.
People reinvent the wheel a lot. Many powerful libraries and tools lie in obscurity. And while fixes to particular errors are easy to convey, best practices are not.
These phenomena can be addressed in many ways. Perhaps forums can find motivations for expert users to participate more. Forums could try to organize frequently accessed information and make it easier to find. Providing background could help users recognize what they need, letting them formulate effective questions and search terms the first time. Forums that respond to technical problems could change the interactions from mere fire-fighting to real education, leaving users more equipped to handle future problems.
Because the survey covered in this article dealt with motivations to contribute, I will focus on that issue. I have explored the rest in other articles.
To explain why people contribute free information, the term gift economy is frequently invoked. Talk turns to economics to imply that contributions do not simply come from the heart, but can be grounded in an objective, self-interested response to the online environment.
Some researchers seem almost obsessed with proving that giving out information produces value in return--and therefore that it can be proven to be rational behavior. I'll use the data in the documentation survey to examine this economic question, to prepare us for the day the experts release a paper proving that the information being given out on the Internet is worth more than the value returned, and the World Wide Web (along with BitTorrent) collapses as a result.
So what value can someone get from writing computer documentation?
The most tangible reward is future payment. Therefore, some researchers suggest that people giving out free advice are trying to show their skills to potential employers, or are bolstering a business as consultant or trainer. Economists call this phenomenon job signaling, because economists like to make things more complicated than they have to be.
Blatant self-promotion is often softened in the research literature as a bid for reputation. Although reputation is a fascinating and infinitely diverse chain of causes and effects, well worth exploring (one could start by asking why I took countless hours away from my regular job to develop this article), some selfish goal must come at the end of the chain. People build their reputations in order to get something out of it--if not a job, perhaps a paid engagement to speak in an attractive foreign city, or some other perk.
Other people engage in altruistic behavior simply for praise or enhanced self-esteem. Although these rewards seem self-justifying, because of their emotional kick, we can't understand them without an enveloping context of goals and values. If I praise you for firmly reprimanding a child, but you've decided you came down too harshly and only made matters worse, my praise doesn't benefit you. So we have to seek out interests once again and ask, "What larger goal brings someone to work for the reward of praise or self-esteem?"
Another benefit of offering free advice accrues to the people who create or make a living from technology. Teaching people to use the technology brings in more users and keeps them happy. It also allows developers to hear about bugs, feature requests, and difficulties in understanding user interfaces. The Apache, GNOME, and KDE projects have practically turned this kind of feedback cycle into a science.
So does project support constitute motivation for writing documentation? When the project is free software, an affirmative answer seems to beg the question. But there are many well-established reasons to create free software, such as the chance of receiving bug fixes and enhancements that make the software more functional for the original programmer. Therefore, project support is a fairly tangible motivation for writing free documentation about one's own software.
I should make it clear my survey asked about contributions of free documentation, not free software. However, it's natural to use insights and research from one area to illuminate the other. And the two types of contribution often go together and are made by the same people.
As Tim O'Reilly has pointed out, "scratching your own itch" does not provide a motivation to write documentation, as it does to write software. (Incidentally, in the decade since that article went up, O'Reilly Media has released a large number of books under open licenses, including brand-new works.) People who write documentation know what they're writing about, so their effort is directed toward educating other people. Therefore, unlike software, an author does not release documentation in the hope that someone else's fixes, updates, or enhancements will directly aid the author's own work.
But Tim's observation has to be tempered in two ways that suggest that the sense of mutual back-scratching still extends to documentation:
Some people record the lessons they've learned from exploring and troubleshooting online, so they can be sure to find them later. In other words, some people have to relearn what they learned before. Putting it online allows other people to correct, update, and add depth to what they've learned.
As suggested by Rishab Aiyer Ghosh and others, people may not enhance an author's particular posting or wiki entry, but the author will be recompensed by other postings. Each contribution you make reinforces a culture of mutual aid that produces eventual benefits for you.
Faced with the surprising growth of free software, which has altered the landscape of an industry, some people re-evaluate their expectations of human behavior to the point of declaring free software communities to be more refined than other software developers and users in their motivations, and even their ways of dealing with collective decision-making. Free software developers and users supposedly recognize the value of working together, of sharing what they have without seeing any immediate reward, and of appreciating what every participant brings to the effort.
Yet vibrant communities also exist around proprietary software. Free tools and extensions to proprietary software have created enormous gift economies in themselves. When I troubleshoot Windows problems with a web search, solutions often turn up in material donated by unknown volunteers, just as with free software. And like me, large numbers of people interact with both free and proprietary software. Free software development introduces new modes of operation into the computer field, but we need to do a lot more investigation before concluding that the developers and users think, feel, or interact differently from their peers in the proprietary space.
With the questions from the previous section churning in my head, I wrote a survey in late 2006 to ask why people contributed their time to write documentation. Although a lot of online documentation is on corporate or advertising-supported web sites (including those put up by O'Reilly Media), I explicitly excluded such sites, asking for responses only "from people who do this for non-monetary reasons." [Full text of survey]
The survey collected three types of information:
My goal was to cast the net as wide as possible. A visitor clicking through to the survey was greeted with the question, "Do you answer questions on mailing lists about how to use a software tool or language?" By starting with the most casual, intermittent contributions to online documentation, I signaled that visitors should be very inclusive in thinking about their contributions. The survey continues to talk not only about writing but about translation, editing, technical review, and administration.
I was hoping to learn whether different types of projects garner different types of help--in particular, to test the thesis mentioned in the previous section that free software is unique in its patterns of participation.
This section was the crux of the survey. It listed eight reasons that I thought were likely candidates for people writing online documentation, along with a text box where respondents could list "other factors."
Two of my reasons tested the mutual back-scratching mentioned in the previous section: mutual aid and community building. I also put in gratitude, which I considered another angle from which to view mutual aid, but which I thought many respondents would see as a separate motivation because of its emotional connotations.Community building particularly interested me because I had mentioned in an earlier article on mailing lists that the key goal of a technical mailing list was to meet user's technical needs. A researcher in the field of democracy and policy bluntly informed me that I was wrong, and the main goal of the list was to build community. This challenge to my purely instrumental approach intrigued me, but I wanted to test whether contributors had more directly self-rewarding goals as well. I included two reasons that I thought would elicit self-seeking motives. The first was reputation building. I removed any ambiguity about its self-seeking basis, as I described in the previous section, by defining reputation building as follows:
Consultants, trainers, job seekers, authors, and others who hope to build a career go online to build up recognition and respect.
The other selfish reason I offered was personal growth. The inclusion of this reason drew on teachers' well-known observation that they learn as much by teaching as their students do.
Situated halfway between generalized, half-altruistic community building and directly self-seeking behavior was another reason: informal support. I could have tried to tie this reason directly to personal rewards by narrowing the definition to support given by product developers, as I defined in the previous section. But this would have been too hard to define, because as I pointed out there, it's hard to tell why someone is associated with a software project. I can't ferret out which people feel that they get a personal payback from offering project support and those who do it altruistically. So this reason remains ambiguous as a motive for writing documentation.
Finally, I felt I had to include two reasons that didn't fit in with any particular research agenda, in order to capture all the motivations I think of. The first was enjoyment of writing. I know from my own experience, and that of my authors, that this must usually be present for successful writing, although in the field of technical documentation it would hardly be the primary motivation. The last reason I offered was thrills, which I defined as follows:
There's pleasure in seeing your insights turn up almost instantly on a forum with worldwide scope, as well as watching others succeed with your help and praise you for it.
This reason was prompted by an idea I drew from Joseph Weizenbaum's classic Computer Power and Human Reason and wrote up in another article, suggesting that a quest for power drives contributions to free software.
My documentation survey, after some editing by O'Reilly staff familiar with surveys, went up in January 2007. I contacted many leaders throughout the software field, asking them to promote participation among people with whom they had influence, and called on my fellow editors at O'Reilly to make similar appeals to leaders in their technical areas. Tim O'Reilly featured the survey on his popular O'Reilly Radar blog, and an announcement appeared on various O'Reilly Network sites.
I allowed the survey to run for three months, as long as new submissions were being added. Finally, noticing that additions had essentially come to a halt in April 2007, I shut down the survey.
I should make it clear that the sample was self-selected, so we have to be careful when drawing conclusions from the collection of responses. To keep the survey short and make it easy to respond, I decided not to collect demographic information that could have been interesting, such as age, gender, or national origin. Any survey that tried to remedy these deficiencies would have to be backed up by a much more costly and professional strategy for recruiting respondents.
[Complete results as a CSV file] My only changes to the responses were to remove a few phrases that identified individual respondents, in order to adhere to the survey's promise: "Individual responses are strictly confidential and names of participants in this survey will remain private."
Personal connections and coincidences determined where the 354 responses came from. Communities where I am well-known (such as Perl and GNU/Linux) or where leaders encouraged participation (GNU/Linux and GNOME), contributed the bulk of the responses. When leaders failed to act on our requests for publicity and communities didn't take much note of our postings, few responses emerged.
Therefore, one can't draw any conclusions from the pattern of responses from different projects. The most serious consequence of the skewed responses is that only a dozen respondents claimed to contribute documentation on proprietary software. This crippled my attempts to test for differences between free and proprietary software communities, as described in the previous section. [Breakdown of submissions by major projects]
The reasons for contributing documentation turned out to be the data that offered the most insights.
Providing a familiar four-point scale made it easy for people to fill out the survey, but it created a dilemma during interpretation. Suppose Respondent A uses a lot of 3s and 4s, whereas Respondent B has mostly 2s and 3s. Does Respondent A really care more about writing documentation than Respondent B? Should zealots have a greater weight in the results?
My reference to "zealots," of course, is a joke. The problem of weighting responses is endemic to any research based on language, because phrases such as "extremely important" mean different things to different people.
To resolve the dilemma, I use two measures for every calculation. The first measure is just the raw data chosen by each user: a 2 is always a 2 and a 4 is always a 4. If someone doesn't choose a category, the submission is rated a 0. The people who use consistently higher categories have a greater weight on results. I call this raw results.
The second measure adjusts the eight ratings made by each respondent so that every respondent has equal weight in the results. Calculating this measure is trivial: just add up all eight ratings by each respondent and divide each rating by the total. Any reason that a respondent leaves unrated, or rates at the lowest level ("Not important at all"), takes on a value of 0. These adjusted results for each respondent add up to 1.
Raw results are more fair, but they might not be more accurate. It all depends on how consistently respondents interpreted terms such as "extremely." I believe such phrases lead to a wide range of interpretations, so I trust the adjusted results more.
Raw and adjusted results proved to be almost the same for the most basic measurement (Figures 1 and 2): what were the most popular reasons for contributing?
Figure 1. Total raw results
Figure 2. Total adjusted results
Maddeningly, I have come out the loser in my dispute with the policy researcher. Community building emerges as the most popular reason, with 1,076 votes (51.0 on the adjusted scale), whereas personal growth earned only 1,070 votes (50.6 on the adjusted scale).
Speaking seriously, the documentation survey has proven its value by demonstrating strongly that software users care about the communities that they feel they are a part of. Not only was community building the top reason, but the closely related reason of mutual aid was third, and gratitude fourth. [Exact results in tabular form]
Another chart (Figure 3) comparing the adjusted results for each of the eight reasons shows how powerful the community motivation is. The legend in the chart shows the reasons, ranked in order of importance. Uniquely, not only does community building come out at the top, but it's the only reason that more people rated at the highest level (4, extremely important) than the next higher level (3, important). Such results uncontestably affirm the contributors' attachment to their community, in whatever way they define community (we'll look a bit at that at the end of the article).
Figure 3. Reasons ranked by importance
The personal benefits of learning through teaching emerge as a top-ranking motivation, too. But reputation--that intricate mesh of information and relationships that lies at the center of so much research--falls to the sixth or seventh rank.
What does this say about suggestions by researchers that participation on forums could be bolstered by ranking contributors and somehow honoring those who make the best contributions? When the MSDN wiki began, for instance, the wiki's managers explained to me how they were planning to highlight experts they had come to know in the user community and within Microsoft, to let participants on the wiki know that contributions by these people were worth special attention. The Slashdot-style "karma" rating system offers another model for rewarding contributors.
The documentation survey shows that reputation is not one of the top motivations for contributing. But I wouldn't abandon efforts to provide technical and social support for reputation building. There are many reasons it still might be worthwhile:
Reputation building is less important than other factors, but it's not unimportant. It got 833 votes, a comfortable 75% of the top-ranking reason.
Rating systems help participants spend their time more wisely, by choosing what to read and how seriously to take claims. In other words, they have a benefit to the whole community, not just the person earning the reputation.
Reputation is not the top vote-getter across all participants, but for all we know, it might have been the top vote-getter across the most knowledgeable and articulate participants--the participants we most want to encourage. We won't know whether this is true unless we run a similar survey among a carefully selected group of contributors we consider knowledgeable and articulate. But it makes senses to me that someone knowledgeable and articulate has more demands on his or her time than other participants on a forum, and would also have opportunities to exploit a good reputation, making it more attractive.
Were simple and effective reputation-building mechanisms implemented, many people might start to take advantage of them. This premise lies behind the myriad systems for endorsements in social networks.
In regard to the third point made in this list, it would have been interesting to correlate responses with the quality of contributions. But I couldn't think of any effective way to ask respondents, "Are your contributions any good?" Nor was it ethical or feasible to seek out documentation from each respondent and judge its quality.
Nevertheless, the survey shows that participation is driven by many factors that don't bear immediate rewards. Responses to the "other factors" question, described later, demonstrate this.
As mentioned earlier, some people believe that participants on free software projects stress different motivations from participants on proprietary projects. I have found that people are people everywhere, and that generosity and empathy abound in all demographics. So I decided I would debunk the idea that something was special about free software projects by comparing the reasons given by free software contributors and proprietary software contributors.
My greatest disappointment in this survey is that only 13 people claimed to contribute documentation on proprietary products, and I had to eliminate 4 from my statistical results because they contribute to both proprietary and free projects. (You can't compare two samples if someone belongs to both.)
I couldn't in good conscience claim that nine samples were representative of all people who contribute to documentation about proprietary projects. But just for fun, I decided to create some charts (Figures 4 and 5). And I was a bit surprised by the results.
Figure 4. Free versus proprietary, raw results
Figure 5. Free versus proprietary, adjusted results
The free software contributors ranked mutual aid and community noticeably higher than the nine proprietary contributors--precisely the motivations where a difference would be predicted by the hypothesis that free software is different. Given the crudity of the four-point scale in my questions, and the tiny size of the proprietary sample, I can't make any claims about differences. I merely point it out as a suggestive coincidence.
As my exchange with the policy researcher about the importance of community showed, I began my inquiry into online documentation by asking how it could be delivered more efficiently. I took the utilitarian view that the faster people got information, and the fewer folks they bothered along the way, the better off everyone would be. Thus, I hoped to improve documentation by reorganizing what was already available, enhancing search tools, providing professional editing, and beefing up background information.
But if people actually like helping others--if, as results suggest, they get satisfaction out of answering questions--these goals can be modified somewhat. I wouldn't rush to the other extreme and look on happily while knowledgeable list members answer the same basic question for the 800th time. There is still good reason to save people time and trouble by writing better documents and making them more visible. But the community can be expressly drawn into the educational task.
Human interaction is powerful and precious. While answering a need from someone on the other side of the world, a forum participant can convey learning strategies as well as a positive culture for community participation. I have seen participants try to do this, but the forums are not set up to encourage intensive educational experiences. The tenuous connection each participant has to a technical list makes it hard to sustain true engagement around a troubleshooting problem and turn it into a motor for personal growth.
Perhaps, if we recognize lists as communities--as more than instruments for solving technical problems--we can make them more effective at solving those very problems.
Having offered all the insights I can by aggregating data, I now turn to what is in some ways the most fascinating part of the survey: the 109 responses given when survey takers were offered a text box in which to express their passions. [Full text of "other factors" field]
If anyone viewing the charts earlier in this article believes people support community merely for the rewards it returns to them, and that altruism plays a minimal role in participation, a perusal of the "other factors" field would dispel such cynicism. A burning desire to help others runs through the responses, although other interesting personal motivations also arise.
Empathy was a powerful force for some respondents:
The biggest motivation to me is making technical information clear and readily understandable so that people that come after me don't have to waste the same amount of time trying figure out how to do something that could have taken much less time if the documentation had been clear and complete.
Filling gaps in documentation so that people in the future do not expirience the frustration that I did while trying to solve the same problem.
Many respondents referred to the international reach of forums, web pages, and chat sites. This appealed to them for either political reasons or personal ones:
helpful for society--free documentation helps poor people especially in developing countries
Curious to see what joining an international project would be like.
Work with people around the world with similar interests.
I enjoy communicating with people that live in different cultures. I like learning about other ways that someone might use the software.
Other expressions of altruism showed that respondents felt it was a fundamental part of their being:
It's part of my personality to give advice.
I guess I am a person who just wants to help if she can: I although volunteer in other, not computer-related fields like community work ect. - I enjoy being helpful and helping other people to finde solutions and alternatives for themselves
Helping out is spiritually important to me. Also, the more people, institutions, corporations, schools, etc. use free and open source software the better it becomes which is better for everyone (including me)
As the previous quote shows, altruism mixes comfortably with self-seeking goals. The observation behind my personal growth question--that teaching enhances one's own knowledge--turned up in many responses, along with other personal goals:
To provide information to potential developers in the hope that they will improve the software in future
Promoting the use of my language.
Needed to learn how to use the technology, so I wrote documentation (so I remember what I did)
Further reference when I need it! I often bang my head against a problem for hours, so when I finally figure out what's going wrong I write it down in my blog/web pages/whatever. The next time I come across the problem, I either remember that it happened before and look for it on my site, or Google points me to my site.:-)
It provides a way to have the technical data *I* can use later. Sometimes I forget the details.
To illustrate the relevance of personal growth as a reason for contributing, several people aired the idea that teaching forces one to deepen one's grasp of a subject:
When I decide to write on something, I have to prepare even more thoroughly.
...it's all very well to learn something. But I find that to truly understand it it helps a great deal if you've written about it. The act of structuring your thoughts about something before (or during) writing about it forces you to make sure that you do actually understand what you think you understand.
Self-Education - I learn the software during the documentation phase - that is - I use "while explaining, I understood myself" technics.
Sometimes helps me to understand something better. It often prompts me to look at the source code for the item in question and understand how it works.
The word "fun" appeared in quite a lot of responses. The respondents apparently considered it a broader and more appropriate expression of their pleasure than my term "thrills."
A few indulged in a bit of levity while filling out the field:
avoidance of other work
I want to contribute something back and I do less damage writing than hacking
That last quote revealed, in a humorous vein, a motivation often voiced by contributors: they don't have the skills to write software for other people's use, but can make themselves useful through support and documentation.
I believe that behind the idealism, the empathy, and even the experience of fun cited by respondents lies a basic human imperative to educate others. This imperative allows children to pick up the skills and cultural traits they need to mature. How, otherwise, could the human race survive from generation to generation? Even after the invention of formal education, many of the most important skills have been passed on the way that human cultures have always done it: by people mentoring and guiding those who are just a few years younger.
If (as I believe) quite primitive drives toward power and magic fuel a lot of software hacking, the drive toward passing on facts and cultural norms fuel the burgeoning area of online documentation.
I started the survey with scads of ideas for comparisons and tests, but the ungainly and fragmented data did not permit me to follow through with most of them.
I hoped I could run sophisticated tests between the three types of information I collected: types of work, types of projects, and reasons for contributing. None of these ideas proved worthwhile, not even the comparison of free and proprietary software.
There turned out to be no point to comparing types of documentation (wikis, etc.). For one thing, I couldn't get many independent samples because nearly everyone contributed to more than one form. (A full 86% listed more than one form of documentation they contribute to.)
More fundamentally, I can't expect to learn anything useful from the comparison. For instance, one person may prefer to contribute to a wiki but be working for a project that doesn't provide a wiki. The available forms of documentation are not always under the control of the respondents.
I think this question was worth including because it informed the respondents about the range of behavior I wanted to track, and perhaps let them count as "documentation" things such as postings to mailing lists that they might have discounted otherwise. Because such postings serve as solutions to technical questions, and often hang around permanently in archives to be read much later, they definitely qualify as online documentation.
Community is an overused word, and claims to build online communities have been challenged by skeptics on many levels. So it's interesting to look at a bit of research on communities and community building.
Jürgen Habermas and Benjamin Barber provide starting points for many such discussions, but their work doesn't map well to the types of forums discussed in this article. For them, community is the culmination of a process rather than a starting point. Habermas uses community to understand truth, and Barber to create a vibrant democracy.
Certainly, the defining features of community in Habermas and Barber (tolerance, good listening, help for new members or those whose skills need strengthening) can teach a lot to people who want better technical forums. Such guidelines for productively managing developers and users online are offered by Karl Fogel in his book Producing Open Source Software: How to Run a Successful Free Software Project, which I edited and O'Reilly published.
More direct insights can be gained from The Great Good Place by Ray Oldenburg. One-third sociology, one-third nostalgia, and one-third exhortation, Oldenburg's popular text documents the gatherings of people who don't have any practical reason to be together but are drawn to bars, bistros, or even public parks by the chance to mingle and share thoughts.
Because gatherers are freed from the hierarchy and strict protocols of work on the one side, and from the judgments and emotional pressures of family life on the other, they can open up in this "third place" and be themselves. This in turn creates a sense of community that spills out of the cafe door into the greater town, thus civilizing it.
Oldenburg's third places are rooted in their physical communities, but online forums can create some of the same conditions. Participants are very aware that they are judged, as in a bar or social hall, by what they offer and how they behave, not by credentials and affiliations. "A place that is a leveler is, by its nature, an inclusive place. It is accessible to the general public and does not set formal criteria of membership and exclusion...Third places, however, serve to expand possibilities, whereas formal associations tend to narrow and restrict them."
Online forums act as third places in this regard. For instance, technical experts who are unemployed--and thus have no status in the work world--know they can be valued on an online forum for their contributions.
The free conversation in third places breeds independence and democratic spirit, to the point that tyrannical governments have regularly tried throughout history to shut down bars and cafes. One doesn't expect Jacobins to arise on a mailing list to discuss Ruby programming, but participants on all these forums are aware of their presence in a neutral zone not controlled by any vendor or authority, and exercise their rights to challenge and criticize accordingly.
Also like Oldenburg's third places, online forums are always active: "Third places that render the best and fullest service and those to which one may go alone at almost any time of the day or evening with assurance that acquaintances will be there." On a forum, you can log in at any hour and find both help and interesting conversation. Like a third place, you can come and go as you please.
One specific observation of Oldenburg is particularly relevant to technical forums: his lament that suburban environments are hostile to youth. The design of American cities around cars, and other social barriers to leaving the house, leave young people without any healthful place to congregate. Ironically, Oldenburg's cure for many problems of society consists of keeping kids on the streets.
I suspect that these all-too-familiar conditions are responsible for the tremendous technological fascination and online creativity shown by children and teenagers, whether it be shooting videos, synthesizing music, or coding up computer programs. For these young people, also, online forums provide the critical outlet for their gregarious nature. Places where they can share their work stimulate their creativity, and the results of the creatity encourage more sharing. Once again, community and mutual aid become reasons for a virtual something to emerge out of nothing. And in the places where people seek information to support their work with computers, such sharing can provide immediate solutions that would not have otherwise existed.
Readers can be forgiven for complaining that my survey of the documentation landscape has left them in the fog. Despite receiving 354 responses, many with fascinating and meticulous testimonials, I've established nothing for certain. Where do we go from here?
The tentative insights suggested by this survey's results make one yearn for more and bigger surveys. No one would enjoy doing another survey more than I, but it doesn't seem feasible to me.
It's hard to think of a way a survey could bring in more people and more diversity. What seems to get people's attention is an endorsement of the survey by someone they respect, and how could this be done better than by employing the formidable social capital of O'Reilly Media, as I did? To get the more responses would require buy-in from the leading individuals we already contacted and failed to interest.
Similarly, I feel the survey was about the right length, and that loading it up further would cause participation to decline. I would also be reluctant to ask for many personal details. To make the survey longer or deeper, we might have to offer some incentive--and what a perverse way to recruit respondents in a field driven by the willingness to give information for free! Any incentive we would offer risks attracting people whom we don't want and whose input we don't trust.
Finally, a more detailed and incisive survey would call for more professional control in everything from fashioning the questions and recruiting respondents to analyzing the results. I don't know who would be willing to pay for it.
In lieu of another survey, I recommend launching some projects to see their impacts on the issues I laid out at the beginning:
Because community building emerged as the dominant motivation for contributing to documentation, let's start with that.
Technical forums already play multiple roles, and are already employed to do a lot of explicit community building: participants share information about conferences and user group meetings, gossip about developers and other project leaders, argue about news events, recruit people for testing and other useful functions, and even crack jokes in conformance with Ray Oldenburg's observations of "third places." All this could be encouraged.
I'd recommend, though, that different types of discussions be clearly identified through well-established techniques such as keywords on subject lines, so that people can approach each type of discussion in the right spirit. Separating topics into different lists, however, would be going in the wrong direction because it segregates the community-building activities.
Asking people to mark their subject lines and separate the threads of discussion would also allow the list to tolerate contentious posters who bring up controverial subjects. You want these people around, but you also want to shut them out of your consciousness sometimes.
While we want a place for debate and criticism, most forum participants agree that it's important to maintain respect, at least when dealing with newbies. Self-moderation usually works well, but at least some veterans of a forum should stay conscious of the need to remind people of their manners. This is a difficult topic because different cultures have widely varying attitudes toward debate and authority, but the worldwide reach of technical lists is one of the features that makes them appealing to contributors.
Although forum participants love to help people, they also get tired of answering the same questions repeatedly and will probably contribute more if they feel their contributions go farther.
So when useful summaries exist, such as formal documentation, wikis, or FAQs, encourage their use at every opportunity. If you point a newbie to the wiki where the answer to his or her question can be found--instead of just tossing the answer into your reply--not only do you make it more likely for newbies to use the wiki, you also make it more likely for expert members of the forum to contribute to the wiki. They'll know that their effort will pay off.
Recognize that many people have trouble culling the information they need from sources such as wikis and FAQs. Teach them how to do so. Newbies benefit from training in how to train themselves, and perhaps expert list members can even get training in how to train others.
Although reputation seems to offer a smaller incentive than many people expect in drawing forth contributions, it's potentially powerful. Something as simple as a sidebar showing the most prolific posters can encourage participation. A few people may try to abuse the system by flooding the forum with irrelevant or low-quality postings, but eventually they'll almost always get flamed off the list.
Rating systems are heavyweight solutions that require too much effort for most forums, but one could try more informal reputation-building systems such as regular "recognition days" where people explicitly thank particular people who helped them, or vote for a roster of helpful list members.
The tools available for organizing documentation are still in their infancy. The tools available for organizing people into online communities offer even more potential. Both can be put to use to improve the education of computer users and to expand their sharing of that education.
Thanks to Bill Lebow for his advice on statistics and data display, and to several others who gave advice on this article.
Andy Oram is an editor for O'Reilly Media, specializing in Linux and free software books, and a member of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility. His web site is www.praxagora.com/andyo.
Return to ONLamp.com.
Copyright © 2009 O'Reilly Media, Inc.


text: Snapshots: Studio Responsibility Index, Andreja Pejic, FOX's LGBT panel, and more Wonder what we're up to at GLAAD? Be sure to check out GLAAD's Blog each week for updates about our latest work to build support for LGBT equality through news, entertainment and online media. Issues: Television, Must-See LGBT TV, News, Local and Regional News, Family, People of Color, Spanish-Language and Latino, Transgender, Young Adult

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Assisted Reproduction
A reproduction specialist reviews how to freeze semen so veterinarians can carry out the process in their practices.
Photo by Courtesy Sandro Barbacini, DVM
Could Air-Dried Semen Produce Equine Embryos?
Researchers determined that air-dried sperm can be kept for up to four weeks before being used to produce an embryo.
Photo by E.L. Squires, MS, PhD
When Nature Meets Science: Breeding With Frozen Semen
What you need to know and expect when using this breeding method.
Photo by Courtesy Sandro Barbacini, DVM
More Articles
- The Vet Tech's Role in Collecting and Handling Semen
- Why Freeze Stallion Semen?
- Stallion Semen Freezing 101
- Could Air-Dried Semen Produce Equine Embryos?
- When Nature Meets Science: Breeding With Frozen Semen
- Study: Stallion Semen Integrity Varies by Season
- The Double-Duty Stallion
- Scientists Fine-Tune Embryo Freezing Methods for Fertility
- Practical In-House Epididymal Semen Collection
- Practical Reproduction Studies of 2015
- Top Equine Reproduction Studies of 2014
- Assisted Reproduction in Horses: Practical Usage (AAEP 2010)
- Stored Semen Processing Method Evaluated
- Artificial Insemination For Horses
- 10 Steps for Successful Artificial Insemination for Horses
- Equine Semen Extenders: Effect on Bacterial Growth and Sperm Viability
- EVA Confirmed in Great Britain
- Questions to Ask Before Breeding a Mare
- The Double-Duty Stallion
- Teaching Novice Stallions to Use a Dummy Mount (AAEP 2011)
Farm Call: Your Questions Answered
Q. A friend of mine suggested that receiving mares would influence the foals--especially regarding future performance records--in a negative way. Is there any proof or research available about the receiving mare's effect on the foal?
Smart Horse Keeping
Making Friends With Horseless Neighbors
A friend recently asked for advice on how to make a good impression on nonhorsey neighbors. Here are some tips.


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He is survived by his parents, Donald and Betty Ann Berger of West Hartford, CT, his two brothers Donald "Gary" Berger and his wife Jill of Farmington, CT, Greg Berger and his wife Amy of Gilbert, AZ, his two sisters, Laurie Berger of Lebanon, CT and Janna Berger Rigol and her husband Dan Rigol of Wellesley, MA, seven nieces and nephews; Ryan, Christopher and Kaylin Berger of Farmington, CT, Andrew and Samantha Berger of Gilbert, AZ and Dylan and Grace Rigol of Wellesley, MA.
A memorial service was held Monday, July 1, at 2 p.m. at Galloway & Sons Funeral Home. Interment followed at Glenwood Cemetery. Another memorial service will be held in West Hartford, Conn. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to Wounded Warrior Project at woundedwarrior.org.


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"Thank you for the work that you do. This March will mark my third year back in the Catholic Church. By God's grace, he brought me back using Catholic Answers Live and EWTN. I will be forever grateful."
~ JoAnn
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"No work of charity should be regarded as foreign to the Society, although its special object is to visit poor families."
~ In outlining the activities of The Society of Saint Vincent de Paul, an international association of Catholic laymen engaging systematically in personal service to the poor, the founders had an eye to the future needs of human kind.


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Defending national champion Florida State beat Oklahoma State in the Cowboys Classic at AT&T Stadium despite some uneasy moments in the second half. Alabama also won in a neutral site game, downing West Virginia 33-23 at Atlanta.
The Seminoles received 46 first-place votes, with Alabama (1), No. 3 Oregon (5) and fourth-ranked Oklahoma (2) also getting votes for the top spot.
Surprisingly, LSU, which is 12th, received a first-place vote. The Tigers survived in Houston to beat Wisconsin but trailed most of the game.
Texas A&M was the biggest climber in the latest poll. The Aggies were 21st in the preseason poll but land at ninth this week. Texas A&M's 52-28 win over South Carolina last Thursday pushed South Carolina to the Aggies' old spot in the poll (21).
Louisville broke into the poll at No. 25 following the Cardinals' ACC victory over Miami (Fla.) on Monday night.
Auburn (fifth), Georgia, Michigan State and Ohio State are ahead of Texas A&M. Ohio State dropped from No. 5. The Buckeyes beat Navy 34-17 and host Virginia Tech in a primetime game at Ohio Stadium this week.
Michigan State and Oregon headline the Week 2 schedule with an early Pac-12 clash between ranked teams -- No. 13 Stanford hosts 14th-ranked Southern Call -- also on the docket.


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August 18, 2011 —
Members of Highland, Lumberland and Tusten Concerned Citizens would like to clarify their towns' current efforts to update their comprehensive plans and zoning codes.
In recent months, citizens' committees in the Towns of Highland, Lumberland, and Tusten have been working on scheduled updates of their comprehensive plans, which are local planning documents spelling out the quality of life envisioned by town residents and recommending specific measures to achieve and preserve quality of life. Traditionally, such plans are updated every 10 years, in response to changing patterns of development and the expressed desires of town residents. The overarching principles that inform this process are the town's legal responsibility to protect the health, welfare and safety of town residents, appropriate use of land and the need to conserve property values.
Once a town's comprehensive plan is completed, the next step is to review the town's zoning code to see if revisions are needed. In Lumberland and Tusten, zoning rewrite committees have for months been weighing a host of definitions and provisions which spell out the uses that are permitted or prohibited, so that the zoning does, by law, conform to the comprehensive plans. Highland will soon begin this second phase.
As in the past, the current comprehensive plans for Highland, Lumberland and Tusten encourage the development of light industry, housing, retail, professional and recreational businesses in harmony with the rural, scenic and natural character of the countryside. High-impact industries, like oil refineries, animal factory farms or natural gas drilling, are generally viewed as activities not in keeping with the vision of each municipality.
While our town officials understand that they do not have the power to regulate the processes and practices of a given industry, New York State statute and case law indicate that they do have the authority to prohibit certain industrial practices in some or all zones of the town, if those uses clearly run counter to the comprehensive plans. Therefore, officials in the various towns have embraced the option of protective zoning as sensible, legally correct, and each town's prerogative under the state home rule authority, and, in the case of heavy industry, supported by court decisions stemming from past challenges to New York State Environmental Conservation Law 23-0303(2).
You should be assured that our towns are not going to bring fiscal disaster upon themselves. Period. However, they reject doing nothing just because there are threats of lawsuits hanging in the air. Even if the restrictive zoning is challenged, each of the proposed zoning codes requires an aggrieved party (perhaps a gas company or a lessor) to exhaust a strenuous administrative remedy—a zoning use variance process—before the case can be considered ripe for litigation.
In the coming weeks, starting first with Lumberland on September 1, public information sessions will be held to explain the proposed zoning codes section by section, answer questions, and to solicit input for revisions. We urge you to become informed and then decide for yourself whether each town is acting in the best interest of its residents.
[Carol Roig represents Highland Concerned Citizens, Peter Comstock represents Lumberland Concerned Citizens and Kevin Vertrees represents Tusten Concerned Citizens.]


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Thanks, Ma! Thanks, Grandma! (7/22/10)
Our new son Kellan's due date was July 18th. The closest major league ball park to our home is about 70 miles away. Obviously, I didn't want to miss Kellan's birth. Therefore, we scheduled zero MLB games for July 2010.
But you know what? My mom ended up coming on July 2nd to help us and to be with Tim when Kellan was born. My dad joined us the day after Kellan was born and was also great to have around. But my mom ended up spending the entire month of July with us and she was amazing.
Although it was impossible to thank her enough, we figured we needed to try. And, like us, she's a big baseball fan. We decided we should take her to Camden Yards for her first time.
We arrived early and hung out with the Camden Yards regulars outside the CF gate…
We're usually cheap seats guys at Camden Yards. But my mom deserved the best. Our new friend, Avi Miller…
…used his season ticket holder status to secure us some amazing seats.
With the tickets in hand and time to spare before the gates opened, we decided to walk around the stadium so my mom could check the place out.
My mom liked the party area in CF…
…and we all liked that we could see BP going on inside.
Outside the 3B side of the stadium, we stopped on a patch of grass so Tim and I could play a little catch:
He's getting better and better at catching the ball. He's finally using two hands.
We got a few pictures of my mom and Tim in Schaefer Circle. Here are the best parts of those pictures combined together:
Next, we headed out to the far end of the warehoue (RF side) to get a picture with another Camden Yards sign:
For the first time this season, we entered the stadium through the RF gate:
The Warehouse ends right at the CF gate. But on the RF side, the warehouse runs another 100-200 feet passed the RF gate. So fans don't have to walk all the way around the warehouse to get to the RF gate, there is a passage…
The tickets Avi helped us buy included the magic phrase — "Season Ticket Plan" — that allowed us to get into the main stadium right when the gates opened. Without those words on our tickets, we'd have to stay out in RF for the first half hour of BP.
The early access paid off quick. As we approached home plate, we saw probable 2011 Hall of Fame inductee Bert Blyleven signing an autograph. We ran over and chatted him up and then got this picture:
Thanks, Bert! You've been circled!
Bert was pretty cool. He asked Tim if he was a Mariners fan. I noticed Bert's BEAUTIFUL Twins world series ring. I complimented him on it. He held it up for Tim, "do you think you'll get one of these some day?" I mentioned that if he does, hopefully it will say "Mariners" on it. Bert held it up for Tim again, "This is a Mariners ring, it has a big 'M' on it!"
Hopefully some day I will get to see an actual Mariners world series ring.
After Bert took off, we turned around and watched the field.
Despite what it looks like in the following picture, the O's were still hitting and this was our view:
Next to the two guys in the Morneau jerseys, Hall of Famer Jim Palmer was chatting with another O's TV guy. When there was a break in their conversation, I asked Jim for a picture. He gladly obliged:
After we left Jim, a bunch of autograph guys pounced on him. He signed for none of them. He was there just for our picture.
Thanks, Jim!
Speaking of Jims, we also got a big "hello" and wave from slugger Jim Thome who was waiting to get into the batting cage.
As the Twins prepared to start hitting, we headed down the LF line. We had plans, we were hoping to quickly get our hands on a nice Target Field commemorative baseball and then head to the Camden Club for a nice dinner.
We weren't the only people in the northeastern portion of the United States hoping to snag a Target Field baseball. Our Citi Field friends, Joe Faraguna and Alex K, were in the house, as well as some other guys from MyGameBalls.com (including new 1000 baseball man, Greg Barasch — congrats, Greg, it was nice meeting you).
My mom snapped this picture of me and Alex…
…because Alex joined an exclusive club — he joined Nick "The Happy Youngster" Yohonek as the second member of MLBlogs/MyGameBalls.com whom Tim and I have run into at three different stadiums in three different states. By the way, we first met Alex at U.S. Cellular Field and we have run into each other twice at Citi Field.
After this big Twins reliever…
…Jose Mijares finished playing catch, he pointed at us (Tim was on my shoulders) from about 150 feet out in LCF. I pointed at myself, "Us?", I still couldn't tell if he really meant us. He then threw the ball directly to the guy next to us. I could have easily caught it, but it would have looked like I was totally reaching in front of and robbing the guy (an adult without a kid). So I let it go.
But Mijares was having none of it. He pointed a big forceful finger at the guy — POINT, POINT! — and then he pointed his big finger up at Tim — POINT, POINT!
The meaning was clear: "that ball is for that little kid, dude, give it to him now!!!"
The guy couldn't disobey Mijares' finger:
It was a beautiful commemorative baseball.
Thanks, Jose!
After I visited LF to grab a look at Alex's roster (confirming the ball giver was Mijares) and watching some out of control guy absolutely mug Joe on a BP homer (LF is definitely no place for Tim quite yet), we headed toward the Camden Club.
As we passed by first base, I saw Orlando Hudson taking grounders at 2B:
I absolutely love watching Harold Reynolds interview Hudson. He's got a great personality. I shouted out a big, "Yo, O-Dogg!" And Hudson turned around and gave us a big shout and a full armed wave.
Unless you are a "member," you cannot make reservations at the Camden Club. You can still eat there, you just can't reserve a spot. Nevertheless, I was happy that we were able to grab what appeared to be the last table with a window:
Tim enjoyed blowing bubbles in his ice water. And we all enjoyed out food, a lot:
Top Left – Tim had chicken tenders and fries (in the bottom right he is lining up some french fries for an unprecedented simultaneous honey mustard and ketchup double dip)
Top Right – my mom had the "Bases Loaded," which includes crab soup, a mini-Boog's BBQ sandwich, a mini-crab cake, and a slider. I talked her into it because Maryland is famous for its crabs and she likes the little suckers. She loved the meal.
Bottom Left – I had a tasty bison burger with fries.
By the time we finished eating, Denard Span had led off the game for the Twins:
We reported to our ridiculously awesome seats in section 36, row 20, seats 8-10 (10 being the aisle seat). This was our view:
The match-up was Carl Pavano vs. Kevin Millwood.
After Joe Mauer doubled and Jason Kubel and Michael Cuddyer walked, the Twins won the game in the top of the first inning on a 3-run double by Delmon Young.
Pavano would shut the O's down in the first. And, for the rest of the game too for that matter. He was just as impressive as he was on Phathers' Day in Philadelphia.
The Twins featured some unimpressive play as well. Specifically Nick Punto's base running blunder in the top of the second inning. After singling to start the inning, Punto was still on first with one out when Denard Span flew out routinely to centerfielder (and former Mariner) Adam Jones.
The usual rule is to go half way on such a fly out. But, perhaps, Punto was feeling unusual. He decided to go all the way to 2B and then wait on the bag for Jones to catch the ball. It was almost as if he was tagging up to run back to first. It did not work out so well.
He was doubled off with massive ease. Here is Nick with egg on his face after his huge blunder:
I suspect that first base coach, Jerry White, was thinking "are you kidding me, Nick" in that picture.
In the third, I tried to get a picture of Orlando Hudson connecting for a base hit…
…instead he grounded out to 2B.
In the middle of the third, Tim wanted to go to the kids play area, which had been revamped since our last game in Baltmore.
This batting tee cage was new:
The old and trusty bouncy house, however, was still there and going strong:
On our way back to the seats, Tim and I grabbed some ice cream helmets (for him and my mom) and a funnel cake (for me). I prefer ice cream.
Carl Pavano was still dealing…
…here to Nick Markakis in the bottom of the sixth.
Despite a tray full of sweets in his lap, Tim was tuned into the game:
Between the bottom of the sixth and top of the seventh, I took Tim to the restroom. While we were in there, we could hear the stadium erupt. Something big was going on, but we weren't sure what.
When we headed back to our seats, we tracked down the Bird so Tim could give him five:
When we got back to our seats, my mom explained that J.J. Hardy had led off the seventh with a single and then should have been thrown out going back to first base. The replays quite clearly showed that Hardy was out going back to first, but that wasn't how first base umpire Gary Darling saw it.
The eruption we'd heard from the restroom was Ty Wigginton and the crowd going crazy when Hardy was called safe. Wigginton was tossed from the game.
After Hardy scored the 5th Twins run of the night on a single by Drew Butera, the crowd went crazy. As the teams changed sides, someone was jawing in the O's dugout Home plate umpire Bill Hohn was having none of it. He yelled at the folks in the dugout.
O's manager Juan Samuel then stormed out of the dugout…
…and was booted from the game after throwing a nasty tantrum, capped off by a toss of his cap into the infield.
Jason Kubel couldn't help the Twins tack on any more runs…
It was time for the seventh inning stretch. We all stood to sing "Take Me Out To The Ballgame." I looked up at the big screen, and Tim and I were front and center on the screen. I took this shot…
It must have been in the 8th inning when this 15-seconds-of-fame seeking fan ran onto the field and spent a while there…
…he ran back-and-forth and back-and-forth. He jumped into the crowd and then came back. It was the longest fan on the field run I have ever witnessed. Eventually he stopped running after the still incredibly angry home plate umpire Bill Hohn came out to yell at the kid. The kid was eventually apprehended.
It kept getting hotter and hotter throughout the game.
Tim had to relax on Grandma's lap:
Tim and his grandma found some papers and fanned each other to beat the heat:
In the ninth inning, Tim and I relocated to the third row behind home plate to go for an umpire ball after the game. I took a shot of the Twins dugout…
…featuring A.L. MVP Joe Mauer in the foreground.
We had an unbeatable view of the ninth inning match-up beteen Pavano and Miguel Tejada…
…Pavano won the battle on a ground out to 3B.
Several batters later, Jake Fox grounded out to 3B for the final out of the inning.
Tim hopped up and hung his open-gloved arm over the wall into the umpire tunnel. We were hoping that Bill Hohn would find the bottom of Tim's glove. But it was a crazy and tense scene behind home plate.
First, the grounds crew couldn't get the gate opened up to the umpires' tunnel. So all four umps had to stand there waiting. A couple fans had some choice words for Mr. Hohn. He was not a happy camper and had some choice words of his own for the unruly fans.
A couple seconds later, Hohn became the angriest person to ever give Tim a baseball at a MLB game…
Before heading toward the car, we got a picture of the three of us behind home plate:
On the way to the car, we stopped in Eutaw Street…
…to check out a few of the homerun markers, including the Griffey markers.
It was a great night at the ballpark and a fun way to say "thanks" to my mom and Tim's grandma for helping out so much as we prepared for Kellan's birth and then as we started adjusting to being a family of four.
Thanks, Ma! Thanks, Grandma!
2010 Fan Stats:
18 Games
16 Teams (Mariners, Orioles, Blue Jays, Red Sox, Angels, Twins, and Athletics; Phillies, Dodgers, Pirates, Braves, Mets, Brewers, Padres, Giants, and Nationals)
15 Ice Cream Helmets (Orioles (3), Phillies (2), Padres (2), Pirates (2), Mets, Dodgers, Athletics & Nationals)
38 Baseballs (6 Mariners, 2 Angels, 3 Athletics, 3 Brewers, 3 Nationals, 2 Blue Jays, 6 Umpires, 2 Phillies, 1 Mets, 4 Braves, 1 Orioles, 1 Dodgers, 1 Padres, 1 Giants, 2 Twins)
10 Stadiums (Camden Yards, Citizens Bank Park, Nationals Park, Citi Field, PNC Park, Oakland-Alameda County Stadium, Dodgers Stadium, PETCO Park, Angel Stadium of Anaheim, AT&T Park)
12 Player Photos (Jamie Moyer, Ryan Rowland-Smith (2), Chad Cordero, Mike Cameron, Joel Piniero, Frank Catalanotto, Billy Wagner, Jeff Suppan, Tommy Hanson, Jered Weaver and Scott Olsen)
2 Retired Player Photos (Jim Palmer, Bert Blyleven)
1 Umpire Photo ("Cowboy" Joe West)
8 Autographs (Ryan Rowland-Smith (2), Chad Cordero, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Joel Piniero, Frank Catalanotto (2), Billy Wagner (2), Jeff Suppan, Tommy Hanson, Jeff Weaver and Scott Olsen)
5 Kids Run The Bases (Citizens Bank Park, Nationals Park, Citi Field, PNC Park, PETCO Park)
6 Comments
What a great entry! And what a great way for you to spoil your mom! I wish my mother was into baseball, but oh well. At least Sarah is! Love the pics, and what great seats you had! Coolness. Going to my first Rangers game since… I don't when, too freaking long, tomorrow (8/10) vs. the hated Stankees. Nice commemorative by the way. My one and only chance isn't until Monday 8/23. Fingers crossed!
Todd, I've only been to Camden Yards once but it was one of the best parks I'd ever been to in my life. Glad you guys had fun!
Hey, I love your blog, good stuff. And I wanted to know if you two were going to make another trip to PNC Park before the end of the year.
Todd – I remember that game, because I watched the video of that fan who ran around for several minutes before being caught. I have been to Camden Yards once, one of my favorite stadiums.
Went to Seattle on Monday and as I got in my rental car and headed toward the city from SeaTac I turned on 710 ESPN Radio and Jack Zduriencik, the Mariners GM, was announcing the release of Don Wakamatsu. Wow what is going on with the management of your team? I think that they radio crew said that Daren Brown was the 6th manager in the last five years! They were supposed to be a contender this season. I think that they are back to square one with a slightly better quiver of young players.
Thanks for the advice going to Safeco. Went to Pyramid Ale House for a pregame meal and beverage. Got $15 ticket from a scalper (M's charge way too much for seats) and got in early for BP, but narrowly missed two BP HR. Most of the players only had warning track power during BP. I think these two teams have hit the fewest HR in the AL. The game was kind of boring as there weren't many runs scored and the pitching was mediocre except for one play. The A's were batting with runners on 1st and 2nd and no outs when Mark Ellis hit a ball to Jose Lopez at 3B who then gunned to Figgins and 2B and he threw to Kotchman at 1B, where Mark Ellis was safe, but was called out by the 1B ump Cory Blaser for a triple play. I was sitting down the 1B and could see that Ellis was barely safe. Of course they didn't show a replay, but I saw on ESPN later that night that Ellis was safe. Cool, I just saw my first live triple play, and the M's got Daren Brown his first major league win.
Sorry that the M's are having a rough year.
– Ken
Great way to show thanks to your mother and for Tim to his gma!
Thanks. My mom wasn't a fan when I was a little kid. My dad would take us to games and my mom would read a book during the games. But then as I starting playing baseball in elementary school she started learning about the game and started enjoying it. Fast forward several decades and she is a huge baseball fan and her and my dad have been M's season ticket holders for years. It is pretty cool to be able to enjoy a game with her.
Thanks. It is excellent. I always look forward to going there. Not sure if we'll make it back again this season.
Thanks for leaving a comment. Glad to hear you've enjoyed reading about our adventures. As for PNC, its highly, highly doubtful. But hopefully the M's will be back there next season. They haven't played a game in Pittsburgh since about 2003 or 2004.
Glad you enjoyed your trip to Safeco Field. Who knows what's up with the management. Its been a difficult season. Hopefully Ichiro can finish strong to bring some excitement to the final stretch of the season. As for the triple play, yeah, he was clearly safe. But, oh well! I'll take it.
Yep. It was a fun way to thank her for being such a big help to us when Tim's little bro' was born.


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Rheumatoid arthritis and the medications used to treat it can increase your risk of developing infections. Vaccinations can help prevent some of these infections.
An autoimmune disease, rheumatoid arthritis occurs when your immune system mistakenly attacks its own tissue. While rheumatoid arthritis primarily affects tissue lining your joints, it also can affect your lungs, heart, kidneys and eyes.
Rheumatoid arthritis medications work by suppressing your immune system. An unwanted side effect of this suppression, though, is an increased risk of infection — particularly in the lungs.
Doctors recommend that people who have rheumatoid arthritis receive the annual vaccination for respiratory influenza, also known as the flu shot. The nasal spray version contains live virus, so it's not recommended for people with weakened immune systems.
Your doctor might also recommend the pneumonia vaccine and the shingles vaccine. Unlike the pneumonia vaccine, the shingles vaccine contains live virus, so it's not recommended for people taking certain types of rheumatoid arthritis medications.
Talk to your doctor about what vaccinations might be appropriate for you, and when during the course of your treatment is the best time to receive them.
Source: http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/rheumatoid-arthritis/in-depth/rheumatoid-arthritis-vaccines/art-20096217?footprints=mine


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Grand opening for Stone Creek's Factory cafe downtown is Dec. 1
Stone Creek photo »Read Full Blog Post(1)
Trans-Siberian Orchestra reaches for new heights
At this point, Trans-Siberian Orchestra is more than just a holiday tradition: It's a well-oiled institution and a major moneymaking machine.
Introduced in 1996 with the progressive rock opera "Christmas Eve and Other Stories," the first chapter of what would become its blockbuster Christmas Trilogy, TSO began the first of its annual holiday tours in 1999. »Read Full Article
Comedian Gaffigan really likes Hilton Milwaukee
Everyone knows the key to Jim Gaffigan's heart is food - especially the staff at the Hilton Milwaukee City Center.
The Hot Pockets- and Domino's-ribbing comedian is in town to celebrate Christmas with his in-laws ( wife Jeannie is from Milwaukee), and evidently the Gaffigan clan - all seven of them - are staying at the downtown hotel. The tipoff: not one but four enthusiastic tweets Gaffigan posted Saturday morning to his nearly 1.5 million followers, praising the hotel's service and a full table of eats waiting for them in their room. »Read Full Article


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What is in this article?:
- Will 2013 Weather Provide Enough Moisture to Grow Corn, Soybeans and fill the Mississippi River?
- Mississippi and Missouri Rivers
More About:
USDA's forecast for $4.80 corn and $10.50 soybeans as an average price for the 2013-2014 marketing year may have shocked many people, as did the forecast for a 14.5 billion bushel corn crop and a 3.4 billion bushel soybean crop. Both of those were a function of acreage, which is yet to be seen, and weather, which the USDA expects to be normal. And that is no surprise, since the estimate of normal weather is a policy when USDA makes projections. But will the weather be normal? And what do we know about that right now? But another big question is what about the Mississippi River?
The weather for the 2013 growing season will be one of the more anticipated aspects of the season.The lack of influence (pdf) by either El Niño or La Niña leaves a great degree of uncertainty. Generally, El Niño will bring cooler and wetter weather for the Corn Belt and La Niña will bring warmer and drier weather. 2012 began as a function of La Niña in the spring and when the Equatorial sea surface temperatures warmed, La Niña faded away leaving the Corn Belt with neutral weather.
Neutral Weather for 2013
Neutral is what exists now in the Corn Belt and the Climate Prediction Center indicates that will last through fall 2013 at the least. There is no distinct trend toward an El Niño or a La Niña, as it would pertain to moisture. Spring will be warm, wet and early in the eastern Corn Belt says Indiana Climatologist Dev Niyogi, based on the Climate Prediction Center's March to May outlook. But he is expecting more drought, and says, "This is expected to turn to some drying in the growing season, leading to mild to moderate drought conditions across Indiana." The CPC forecast covered Wisconsin to Tennessee and east to Ohio. Drought recently has been eliminated in most of the eastern Corn Belt.
While the precipitation is undetermined, that leaves two concerns for Corn Belt farmers. One is having sufficient moisture to produce a crop that will cover operational costs, and crop insurance can help to some extent with that. The other concern is having enough water in the Mississippi River to maintain sufficient depths to transport grain to Gulf export terminals. That issue has been a significant challenge since November when flows from the Missouri River were restricted. But the question for the spring and summer will be whether there will be enough moisture in the Missouri River watershed to produce enough runoff for creeks, streams and tributaries to fill up the Missouri River, and provide water to the Mississippi.


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By Tonya Garner: CNJ Staff Writer
Thousands of residents, young and old, assembled at Saturday's event at the Clovis Civic Center to celebrate the new Special Operations mission for Cannon Air Force Base.
As numerous American flags waved in the light breeze, residents sought shade under awnings to enjoy free refreshments and live music.
The patriotic atmosphere was evident, as attendees arrived dressed in red, white and blue.
Skip Runquist, an Air Force retiree, casually lounged against the back wall of the civic center ballroom awaiting the arrival of the dignitaries scheduled to speak. Proudly wearing the American flag in the form of a button-down, short-sleeved shirt, Runquist said he attended the celebration because it was a "big event."
Beside him stood his wife, Robbyn Runquist, and their 18-year-old daughter, Alyssa Runquist.
Robbyn Runquist said her family is originally from Amarillo, so being based at Cannon Air Force Base was ideal because of its proximity to their hometown.
"We've been here four years," she said, "and we love it."
"When we got here we were immediately accepted by the community," Skip Runquist said. "Clovis deserves the new mission."
Shana Weathers joined in the festivities to celebrate a new-found sense of job security. The Clovis resident is employed by the Caprock Inn located at Cannon.
"I was worried," Weathers said. "It was an iffy situation."
First Christian Church Pastor Jon Forrest, who attended the celebration with his wife, Cheryl Forrest, said he sees the new mission as an opportunity to share Christ.
"I think it (new mission) is wonderful because maybe there will be more people in church," Jon Forrest said.
Cheryl Forrest said she was thrilled when she heard of the new mission. She is a secretary at Ranchvale Elementary where many military children attend school.
"I am so happy I will be seeing those kids in school again this year," she said.
Dressed in a red shirt, Vivian Cabrera said she came to listen to the music, but was also celebrating the reason for the event as well.
"I think it (new mission) is great," Cabrera said, "I was excited. I think it will be a real opportunity for Clovis to grow."
Richard Powers of Clovis agreed. "I'm glad it's (Special Ops) here," Powers said, "because this town needs it to stay alive."
Other residents said they attended the event to socialize with their neighbors, enjoy the food and entertainment, and try to win a raffle prize.
Four-year-old Caitlyn Townsend sat under an awning with her grandmother, Roberta Townsend. The younger Townsend's mustard-rimmed mouth wrapped around a hot dog as her doting grandmother straightened the flag-themed bow in her blond hair.
"She (Caitlyn) loves music so I thought she would have fun," Roberta Townsend said. "Plus I want to win that truck," she said, referring to one of the raffle prizes.


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What is in this article?:
- Calving Tips For Diagnosing And Treating Coccidiosis In Calves
- Life cycle
- Minimizing exposure
- Nervous signs
One of the five most economically important cattle diseases in the industry, coccidiosis is a costly parasitic disease, primarily in young calves.
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Coccidiosis is a protozoan disease that most cattle develop some immunity to, while continuing to shed a few oocysts in their feces. Calves are the most vulnerable because they have the least immunity, particularly if they ingest a high number of immature protozoa in a dirty environment that overwhelm their immune system.
James Hawkins, DVM, Jackson, MS, says young calves kept in a drylot or small pen are most at risk because the environment's contamination tends to be high.
"People who run into problems with coccidiosis are usually backgrounders who buy small calves from different sources, keep them 90 days or less, and then resell them. They then buy another group of calves and move them into the same facility," he says.
Vet's Opinion: Environment Is Critical In Preventing Neonatal Cattle Disease
Gary Zimmerman, veterinary researcher in Livingston, MT, says there are several different genera and many species of pathogenic coccidia, but only a few affect cattle. "There are also different susceptibilities in individual animals to various coccidia. If new animals come into the herd, they may bring coccidia the rest of the herd hasn't been exposed to," he says.
All cattle have subclinical infections, which are held in check by host immunity. "There is no cross-species immunity. A calf that's been exposed to one species and developed immunity to it won't have immunity to the other species. In addition, coccidia are host-specific. Some producers think cattle get coccidiosis from birds, but it isn't true," Zimmerman says.
Floron (Buddy) Faries, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service, says the three species of coccidia of most concern in cattle are Eimeria bovis, E.zuernii, and E. auburnensis. "Their ability to produce cattle disease is dependent upon the degree of exposure," he says.
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A calf can handle a few oocysts, but a heavy load is another story. Meanwhile, adult cattle rarely develop the disease, though it can occur in thin, malnourished or severely stressed cows, or those compromised by another cattle disease. All cows, however, carry coccidia in the small and large intestines, Faries explains.
"We distinguish between infection and disease," Faries says. "When there are no clinical signs, I prefer to call it coccidiasis – simple infection in which coccidia are a normal inhabitant of the intestine. If there is deep damage to the intestinal mucosa, there will be symptoms and it becomes disease – which we call coccidiosis. The definition of disease implies infection and damage, plus clinical symptoms," Faries says.
"For a parasite to survive in an otherwise immunocompetent host, it must have some mechanism to avoid, evade or suppress immunity," Zimmerman adds. "Otherwise, the host's immune system would kill the parasite. But parasites can suppress the immune response directed against them, or create a generalized immune suppression. This is why animals with a heavy parasite load are more susceptible to other pathogens."
Stress, such as weaning, confinement and cold, wet or hot weather, can hinder the immune system. Nutritional stress also can be a factor, as many cattle experienced during drought in many parts of the country.
"We see more problems in young cattle coming from drought areas," Hawkins says. "Over the past dozen years, we've also started to see more problems in pastured cattle with coccidiosis – which we wouldn't normally expect – and I'm not sure why."
Conditions vary for different producers. "Someone buying calves in Florida may have the worst time during a hot, dry summer when calves are stressed by heat and dust," Hawkins says. In some climates, however, it might be wet, sloppy spring weather that nips baby calves.
The presence of other pathogens, a change in diet, inadequate colostrum for a newborn calf, etc., are host factors that can play a role. Environmental factors include the use of permanent buildings and small pastures year after year, crowding, poor hygiene, adverse weather, transport, frequent regrouping of calves and bringing in new animals.
Calving Tips: Managing & Feeding Colostrum
In a group exposed to a high level of contamination, all will be infected by the cattle disease, but only some show clinical signs with diarrhea. In some instances, morbidity (proportion of the group showing disease) may be as high as 75%.
"The morbidity and mortality rates of coccidiosis are variable, depending on overall herd health, nutritional and immune status, and external factors such as crowding, weather, exposure to other diseases, and other stressors," Zimmerman says. "Mortality rate in a group is usually much lower than morbidity, but can be as high as 24%. Even if none of the animals die, the economic impact can be devastating."


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Military Seeks Alternative To Housing Website
It's going to get a little harder for soldiers to find the best available housing around Fort Drum, at least for awhile.
Soldiers have typically turned to a website called Automated Housing Referral Network (www.ahrn.com), which has detailed and searchable listings of army-inspected and approved housing.
The Department of Defense is ending its decade-long contract with the website effective January 1and it could take the military about six months to put up a similar website of its own.
"The good news is, there's a lot more housing out there in the market and there's a lot more new housing out there," said Fort Drum housing chief William Bamann, "so it's not a real crunch for people who have a hard time finding places for rent that we had here five, six years ago.
As an interim solution, local landlords can call 315-772-7319 to list their properties as approved army housing.
To see the listings, soldiers will either go to the housing office on post or visit www.drum.army.mil and click on the "housing" tab.
Friday, December 9, 2016, Watertown, NY
On Wall Street


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Celebrity New Yorkers
Published On: Sep 08 2011 01:46:57 PM PDT Updated On: Oct 30 2014 01:27:53 PM PDT
Taylor Swift was recently named New York's first Global Welcome Ambassador for its "Welcome To New York" campaign, a decision that has been met with much controversy, especially from New Yorkers. Take a look at these famous New Yorkers.
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Creating inspiring spaces in our homes
So what might we feel drawn to include in our personal refuge? Consider a cozy chair and small shelf or table for starters. Add a pretty light, symbolic of the illuminated self. Be generous with creature comforts, like soft throws and pillows. A sketchpad, books of poetry or religion, knitting basket, soothing music source and natural objects that celebrate beauty, spirituality and nature can help direct us inward.
We may also wish to include a statue or art image of a religious figure, or a photo of someone we see as a teacher or guide in our space, wanting to be informed by them on some level. Following Eastern practices, we could incorporate offerings—water bowls, incense, candies, flowers and crystals are traditional. Lighting a candle or ringing a soft bell when we enter and leave our sanctuary could signal us to be fully present to receive the gifts it has to offer us.
By designating a supportive environment where we can engage in whatever quiet activities our heart knows we need, we take steps to connect with our highest selves and our inner treasury of wisdom, love and joy.
Remembering who we are
"Daily quiet time is so important for our personal journey and our relationships," said Rev. Pat Filiault, a retired Unity minister. "The Gospel of Mark includes one of my favorite verses, 'Come ye apart awhile and rest.' It's special advice, even if all you can find are a few meditative minutes in your favorite chair."
As opposed to one designated space, Tammy Sola, master Reiki practitioner and spiritual counselor, places objects and assemblages for contemplation throughout her home, "to catch the eye and call to the soul."
"I have lots around to speak to me, and they tend to be simple," she says. "At times, I make more permanent altars for special prayer work, but big always gets complicated. I generally create arrangements without much fuss, and follow the seasons. A bowl of lemons and a sprig of mint. A seedling I can watch grow. A collection of found objects—beach sand, shells and a child's ball; a photo of the hospital I was born in and my husband's baby shoes; anything that grabs me, brings a smile and calls me to remember, 'Ah, what a gift to be alive!' or, 'Yes, this is who I really am.'"
Sharing our peace


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INGREDIENTS:Island Peach Salsa: 1 fresh ripe California peach, diced 1 fresh ripe California nectarine, diced 1 habañero pepper, minced 1 ripe avocado, diced ½ red bell pepper, diced ½ green bell pepper, diced 2 Tbsp. minced red onion 1 Tbsp. chopped cilantro 1 Tbsp. olive oil 1 oz. Bacardi® Limon to taste, salt and pepperShrimp and Crab Cake: 1 lb. raw shrimp, peeled and deveined 1 lb. jumbo lump crab meat 1 red bell pepper, minced 1 green bell pepper, minced 1 habañero pepper, seeded and ...
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Its good that you are asking these questions. I on the other hand, did not, and we suffered a little from not being prepared.
I am very social and enjoyed each and every visitor that came to see us in the hospital. Maybe it was the elation of having a new little person, the excitement of showing her off to my friends and family, that led me to actually PULL HER OFF THE BREAST when visitors came. It was so foolish and I realized my HUGE MISTAKE when upon discharge, the Dr. said she had lost too much weight. Went from 8.9 to 7.14. I felt so guilty, but you make mistakes and learn from them (thinking positive here!!).
Our visitors didn't stop at the hospital. We had even more coming by the house, but you better believe that half of them didn't lay eyes on our LO because if she was hungry, we went in the nursery BY OURSELVES to nurse. Nothing else mattered but her needs and I learned the hard way.
Also, I am somewhat modest and have tried to overcome it by nursing in front of my female friends/family. But I realized that even though I was trying, I was still uncomfortable and that made LO feel my anxiety. So we have to nurse in "private", be it a bedroom at a friend's house or a corner of a room without people close by, or planning outings/visitors around her feedings. Good luck to you and your LO!!!


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After nearly three years of sitting empty, La Crosse's Grand River Station has its first commercial tenant.
Last week Care Wisconsin signed a 6 1/2-year lease for 6,000 square-feet at the south end of the building.
In the past three years, the company working to lease the commercial space at Grand River Station has gone through upward of 50 potential tenants.
The more than 12,000 square feet of space has presented some challenges for potential tenants.
"We've had a lot of small tenants who couldn't afford to lease in the space or they couldn't afford to do the build-out, and we've had people who have had a problem with the parking," said Casey Weiss of Access Commercial Real Estate.
Weiss has been working with the space's owner, Gorman and company, to fill the space.
"It kind of comes down to their track record, their financial strength and that sort of thing, and Care Wisconsin was really what we were looking for there," said Weiss.
Care Wisconsin is a nonprofit based in Madison that provides long-term care for the elderly and people with disabilities.
The organization's regional director of long-term care programs, Jay Hein, said the location is a prime spot to help clients.
"No. 1, we wanted a place that would be accessible to our members," said Jay Hein. "(In) downtown La Crosse, we're close to resources. We're right there where the buses are coming into the MTU station and we're also close to the local aging and disability resource center."
The nonprofit currently serves 3,600 people throughout South Central Wisconsin.
Hein said there's a growing need in the La Crosse area.
"There are currently between 3,000 and 4,000 people in the eight-county region, with the majority of them being in the La Crosse area, who are accessing some kind of long-term care benefits," said Hein.
About 6,500 square feet of space still remains vacant, but Weiss hopes with one tenant moving in, more will follow.
"It would be a good space for a lot of small type of retailers just because they have the doors to the lobby and the doors to the outside, so as far as dividing it, it worked out pretty well actually," said Weiss.
Robin Moses of Downtown Mainstreet Inc. said working to fill empty store fronts in downtown is important, but it's also key to fill the store fronts with a little bit of something for everyone.
"I think what makes a really strong downtown is when there's a strong mix of businesses," said Moses. "We have to have our retail shops, and we need to have great places to dine and to eat, which we really do, but all of those things are fueled by employees who work in the downtown district, and we have some large corporate businesses that have relocated downtown in the recent years."
Construction should start in the next week or so.
Care Wisconsin is hoping to move in at the beginning of September.
Weiss said there is some interest from a national retail franchise in the 4,800 square feet of space available on the north side of the building that seems promising.


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June 12, 2012 —
Anyone who thinks that today's young people are apathetic hasn't met the pack that recently produced the inaugural issue of Manor Ink. In fact, covering issues that youth care about is precisely the point of the new publication, according to Tyler Young, 17, one of several young editors involved in the effort.
"It's all from the point of view of kids, what we think is important," said Tylor.
The premier issue tackles topics ranging from invasive insects to the MazFest music festival to the loss of a beloved high school music teacher. In "Imagine Manor," youth weigh in with a wish list on what they want to see in town, such as a movie theater, skate park and teen hangout. A community calendar and library news round out the colorful pages.
The new publication is based at the Livingston Manor Free Library and is part of a multi-media news project hosted by the library. Timed for release in advance of the popular Trout Parade, the eight-page, full-color newspaper was planned and written by kids and young adults in and around Livingston Manor who have been meeting at the library since March.
A group of adult mentors, including library director Peggy Johansen, designer Carolyn Bivins and journalist Barbara Gref, has been advising the news operation. Gref runs the nonprofit Community Reporting Alliance, which has partnered with the library to help produce the print and digital news.
In order to fill a news void that developed due to the loss of Livingston Manor's community newspaper and the school's newspaper, and to provide a vehicle for the voice of young people, mother and substitute teacher Jamie Helper approached the library board in late 2011. The concept was well received and has only gained momentum since.
"Manor Ink is off and running," said Johansen. "With continued hard work, it will be the newspaper of Livingston Manor, a community that has a clear identity, a strong history and citizens who care about community affairs."
So far, about 16 young people have been involved in writing stories, taking photos, recording videos, building the website, setting up the Facebook page, selling ads and planning fundraisers. All young people are welcome to join. The general age group is 12 to 21 years old.
Helper said she is "extremely proud and amazed" at how far the fledgling paper has come in just a short time. "A town newspaper seemed like a perfect vehicle to potentially engage a wide range of personalities and talents and provide an outlet for young adults with immediate, measurable results and impact. I wanted the kids to have a tool to empower themselves and reveal their worth to the community."
The youth plan to put out a monthly paper and will delve into the topic of bullying next. "It's fun working with everybody in the community," said Tyler. "We'll keep going as long as we can."
Copies of the premier issue are available at no cost at the library and at numerous other locations on Main Street. Contact firstname.lastname@example.com [2] for more information. Manor Ink can also be seen on the web at www.manorink.com [3] and at www.facebook.com/LivingstonManorInk [4].