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Disaster Animal Relief Network (DARN)

"the wiki encyclopedia for disaster animal relief"

Welcome

Thank you for visiting the DARN wiki. This wiki launched Sunday April 9, 2006. A lot of new structural pages need to be added during the next several days, so be patient. There will be a public announcement in the near future, but for now please keep a low profile while you work on this site. Create a new user account, login and introduce yourself. Anonymous posts should be limited to the Suggestions page. Plans for structuring the wiki can be posted in the Community portal for now. Use the discussion tabs at the top of each page for informal posts. If discussion gets heavy, I will set up a DARN forum on Yahoo Groups. If you need a crash course in wiki stuff, use the local Help:Contents or for more help go here (my other project). Enjoy.

--admin 21:57, 9 April 2006 (PDT)

Mission

This wiki is a neutral gathering place for people involved in rescue, relief, and reuniting animals caught up in disasters such as hurricanes, tornados, floods, fires, and earthquakes. The planning time frame is for the next disaster. This wiki fosters communication between animal welfare communities separated by geography and interests. Groups may use the resources on this wiki to add new channels of communication.

Goals and Objectives

DARN goals are to:

1. Provide a meeting place for different animal groups to share plans & resources
2. Introduce the benefits of wiki technology and other internet technologies
3. Create a knowlege base for sharing information to:
   1. Coordinate requests for assistance between groups
   2. Categorize links to resources on the internet
   3. Document national, regional, state, county and local resources
   4. Prepare for disasters
      1. Train relief workers
      2. Store supplies
      3. Transport routes and drivers
4. Assist animal groups create their own DARN wiki pages to:
   1. Provide contact information and description of the group
   2. Provide custom portals for group members to enter the wiki
5. Assist animal groups create their own wiki sites:
   1. Available at editthis.info, Wikia.com or other compatible wiki farm.
   2. The recommended WikiEngine is MediaWiki, the one used by Wikipedia
   3. Other WikiEngines are good choices, but Wikipedia offers a huge knowledge base of useful public domain text markup and media that can easily be copy/pasted or uploaded.

Editorial Viewpoint

• This wiki will follow the model created by Wikipedia and will become the "Wikipedia for disaster animal relief". This means the Neutral Point of View (NPOV) is the preferred editorial viewpoint. Controversy will be moved to the discussion/talk sections of the wiki pages. If debates become toxic, they will be pushed further into quarantine sections. Posts that are libelous will be tossed into the ash can.
• Spam happens. Sometimes spam is intentional and sometimes not. If spam looks intentional, the spammer account will be blocked. A whole lot of space and time will be devoted to handling spam, eventually.

Document licensing

This wiki will follow the same license guidelines as the one at Wikipedia. This will assure that content from Wikipedia can be used legally and that this wiki is not held liable for misuse of materials.

Examples

For examples of wikis used for disaster animal relief and rescue see the mature KatrinaHelp.info wiki or the pre-release NDARS wiki at Wikia.com

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