by Perplexity Peccable & Skaidrite Norse
February 9, 2008

SLHealthy is at:
http://slhealthy.wetpaint.com/

Slides are at:
http://www.slideshare.net/umhealthscienceslibraries/sl-healthy-slang

Slide 1:
SLHealthy: A Community-Generated Wiki Index to Health in Second Life


Slide 2:
SLHealthy Homepage: http://slhealthy.wetpaint.com/



Most of you have probably used Wikipedia or other wikis. In short, a wiki allows many people to collaborate on writing the same document(s). Basically, "many hands make light work." :)

The SLHealthy wiki is open to the general public both for searching and and to join as a member. Because other wikis have been hacked and used as platforms for unpleasantness, we do have a security requirement asking people who want to edit. We ask them to IM one of the administrators in Second Life and let us know that you want to write in the wiki. We try to only allow people to write who can prove they are really in SL.

The wiki interface has navigation in the leftmost sidebar, content in the middle, and updates on the right.

Slide 3:



The mission of the SLHealthy wiki is to gather information about consumer health locations and groups in Second Life, as well as general health education resources.

Sometimes people will add something that seems not very health related, but we tend to trust our community . If they think it isabout health, we will generally leave it alone. So far, we have never deleted anything, and have only once added a comment to explain why a SIM was listed.

Slide 4:



SLHealthy was "born": Sunday, August 5, 2007; 1:58PM.

As we've already heard today, opportunities to engage with support groups or find health information are exploding in Second Life. A year ago this was less true. It reminds me of the early days of the web, ten years ago, when librarians thought they could index all the good health information in a few years, not realizing how much new content would be added during that time.

It was immediately obvious that the search functions in Second Life are not as robust as, for example, Google. I am a medical librarian. Our organization was buying land in SL, and I was supposed to go find out information about what else was happening to help us inform our plans.

I knew right away that it was too big a job for me alone. My friend PT started to help me. Quickly we realized it was too big a job for even the 2 of us. That was when we thought of the wiki.

Slide 5:



Six months later, there is an amazing team of people who have joined the wiki editing team and are contributing content. The person who has really taken the lead on this is Skaidrite Norse, another medical librarian.

Any numbers we provide about what information is available will be changing daily. There are also a lot more groups and SIMs out there than those that we have been able to include. We definitely welcome more helping hands!

Slide 6:



When we first started, Prijian and I did a lot of brainstorming about what information we thought would be most helpful for people trying to find health information or support groups -- who, what, why, where, why, when, etc. PT drafted an initial structure, which forms the basis of what we are still using. The main pieces we've added later are tags and keywords to making searching more useful, and images. Everyone always wants to see a picture, right? :) Last week, at a meeting of support group leaders, some additional fields were suggested, so we might be modifying the structure a little bit again.

Slide 7:



With this slide, we just wanted to give you a little sampling of the kinds of topics you might find in the wiki. With over 60 SIMs and 100 groups included, there are far too many for us to list even the major ones! Topics that have a lot of groups tend to be ones that are prominant in RL -- AIDS/HIV, autism-spectrum disorders, cancer, depression, diabetes, mental health, mobility disorders, etcetera. Many of the SIMs were built by organizations or educational institutions, but there are many that were made simply by people who care a lot.

Slide 8:



This slide shows an example of a group entry. This one is Aspies for Freedom. They are an open group, included in the Path of Support on HealthInfo Island, and they have their own website.

Some of the groups and SIMs are private for the confidentiality of the members. Most do not have websites or blogs, but we try to list it when they do and we can find out. The best way for a group to make sure the information in the wiki is what they want said is for them to join the wiki and edit their own entry.

The information returned in SL search does not always have everything we would like to include in the wiki entries. We do the best we can, but sometimes misunderstandings, typos, or mistakes might creep in. If you notice something that isn't right, please feel free to let us know, or fix it yourself! FYI, some entries that look like typos are actually quoting the information written by the group. We try to leave that as the group has it.

Slide 9:



Here is an example of an entry for a SIM -- Heron Sanctuary, run by Gentle Heron who has been so instrumental in today's event. This example is for a SIM primarily associated with a group, and offering activities and a location for that group. This also shows a picture being included in the entry.

Notice that at the time the entry was written, their SIM was closed to the public. Griefing happens, and sometime people who grief make a point of targeting people they believe to be vulnerable. When working with health communities, this can be an aspect of keeping a safe space for that community. Sometimes we might include a SLURL for an entry not knowing that the owners do not want the location made public. Again, please check the wiki entry for any groups you are with to try to correct these types of problems when they occur. We do NOT want to contribute to problems for anyone! We do have a lot of editors, and it is possible that this could be added by someone being helpful unless it is overtly stated that the owners of the SIM do not wish their location to be known.

Slide 10:



Here we see an example of an especially rich entry for a SIM. The Consumer Health Library entry includes a cross reference to their group entry, outworld (web-based) content, pictures, and much more.

While we did not include a slide of a Calendar event, I we do have a calendar listing events in Second Life that are health-related. We encourage any groups or persons planning activities to please join the wiki as a writer and add information about your events!

Slide 11:



Here are just a few statistics on how the wiki is being used. Now, you have to realize that we have done NO formal promotion of the site! Casually mentioned it on a few lists, used it ourselves, taked to our friends -- but have not promoted it. This is our first presentation about SLHealthy. Given that context, we are very pleased to see an average use of over 100 page views a day.

Slide 12:



This image shows the growth of the site. While the site began in August 07, we did not begin keeping data until late October. It is wonderful to see that use in January was double that of December, and that the use is steadily increasing.

Slide 13:



SLHealthy is being used by people all around the world. Right now, most of the use is in the United states, but it is really fascinating to see all the interesting places people live who are looking for health information in Second Life. Skaidrite has a detailed list, and reading it is like reading poetry or an exotic travelogue.

Slide 14:



We hope that this information has been helpful for you. Please, do come visit the SLHealthy wiki, and use it to help find information about health-related people, places and events in Second Life. Especially, please think about joining as a writer, and helping to add content.

SLHealthy