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City wiki in Cali

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Spacing Associate editor Shawn Micallef has a short article in the Globe and Mail today about city wiki projects.

Everyone has an opinion or a bit of information about Toronto that is kept bottled up in his head. Imagine if there was a way to share that inside knowledge with others: where the secret passages are; the best café to study in; or how long the wait is at a particular medical clinic. In Davis, Calif. (population 60,000), a city 100 kilometres northeast of San Francisco, people can do just that by accessing the Davis Wiki website.

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8 comments

  1. hi
    i love this site and the ideas presented here. i just wanted to say – please don’t write in sexist language – not everyone in Toronto is a “he,” you know!
    thanks!

  2. I believe the writing guideline standards currently in use reccomend you use “he” if the writer is a he, and “she” if the writer is a she.

  3. Dear Claire,

    I just checked the original article I filed with the Globe and I used the phrase “bottled up in their heads.” However, somewhere in the long line of Globe editors and factcheckers the article went though, it was changed to “his head” it would seem. I’m with you though, as I’ve seen, first hand, some non-he’s running around the city, and I’m certain they have heads.

    Probably an unintentional slip, or like Erika says, a stylistic thing. But perhaps the Globe is right, maybe everyone in Toronto is a boy. And now that I think about it, Toronto’s always celebrated as a multicultural mecca, but never a mention of our male/female diversity. Hmmm.

    We will have our interns go out an do some informal snooping regarding this soon.

  4. ah, after i posted that comment it occurred to me that maybe it was the charming neo-cons at the globe who had edited that in. it’s unfortunate that “writing guideline standards” seem to find sexism acceptable or just a matter of style (it’s really easy to just add that little alternate word!). thanks though for your clarification and response, as well as for the interesting article.

  5. You’re welcome. I use “their” when it works, but sometimes I do alternate between “he” and “she” or “his” and “hers” because “their” feels weird or awkward. Not sure what calling the Globe “neo-con” has to do with anything. Haven’t met anything that resembles one of those there.

  6. you’re right, i should have said neo-liberal. though you probably won’t agree with that one either. : ) no offense intended, i’m sure there are lots of nice people working at the globe. i just don’t usually read it because i find the political perspectives of many of the columnists and articles rather conservative for my tastes, and the editor changing “their” to “his” kind of confirmed that for me.

  7. the article was nicely nestled next to one about our upcoming easter egg hunt.

    btw – any suggestions on where we should have it?

    so i think we all have the ability to get a city wiki going. i think it could be awesome. i would be happy to write lots of content for it, and i think i know a few web designers… and a $23 dreamhost account could power it for a year… who’s game?

  8. Somebody emailed me today saying he noticed technology lawyer Rob Hyndman has registered the site torontowiki.ca. So perhaps it’s on the go.