
East Palo Alto girls create app to clean up graffiti, trash  - cb33
http://paloaltoonline.com/news/show_story.php?id=29588
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jodrellblank
_They created an Android app called "Tag It!" that allows users to take a
picture of graffiti, vandalism or trash in their neighborhood, tag its
location and create an event to get it cleaned up._

Estonia did this in 2008, but what I most remember about it is Mahmud's reply
to my comment:

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2079915>

Memory is odd.

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jamessb
In the UK, MySociety launched FixMyStreet [1,2] in 2007 [3]. However, it was
aimed at flagging problems to councils, rather than arranging events for
community members to fix them.

[1] <http://www.mysociety.org/for-councils/fixmystreet/>

[2] <http://www.fixmystreet.com/>

[3] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FixMyStreet>

~~~
handelaar
And it's reusable in other countries [1] (I made one that works in Ireland
[2]).

[1] <http://code.fixmystreet.com>

[2] <http://fixmystreet.ie>

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sneak
Why does it matter that they're girls?

How would you respond if the headline were "East Palo Alto (minority group
here) create app to clean up graffiti, trash"?

This is sexism, pure and simple.

~~~
fieldforceapp
May be a culture issue but this title worked for me (native American English
speaker, urbanite) because of the opposite sexism you didn't mention: most
'taggers' are male. The title implied that the girls are trying to clean up
their own neighborhood and provide a counter example to the choices young,
male taggers are making.

Would love to see if these girls can reach out to their peers in South San
Jose or Oakland.

~~~
biscarch
> most 'taggers' are male

Citation?

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ChrisNorstrom
Oh common man, would you require a citation on "most murderers are male" as
well?

~~~
biscarch
I know of very few if any female murderers. By contrast, I am aware of more
females that do graffiti. A citation also would have led to me to the
definition of "taggers" fieldforceapp is using.

It's curiosity based. I'd be interested to know if there are statistics for
this.

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mailarchis
I remember a startup that had presented a similar app couple of years back at
TC 50 (can't recall the name) it had also signed up a US west coast city as
one of their customers. I found it as one of promising ideas of tat year.

[EDIT] this was it [http://techcrunch.com/2009/09/15/tc50-citysourced-lets-
you-r...](http://techcrunch.com/2009/09/15/tc50-citysourced-lets-you-report-
pot-holes-and-graffiti-on-the-go/)

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jlgreco
A great idea. I absolutely despise graffiti, if this were expanded to other
cities I would be sure to use this.

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wpietri
Fantastic. Really nice to see students building things with an eye toward
actual use.

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auctiontheory
I tutor at Eastside! (Wish I could take credit for the idea, but I can't.)

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nwatson
The quasi-Baptist Church <http://www.highway.org> has been heavily involved
with the sponsoring institution Bayshore Christian Ministries in the past and
I believe they still are. Along with other efforts such as the wells-for-
African-villages they run out of the Red Rock Coffee Shop they own in Mountain
View, this makes Highway a pretty interesting place.

~~~
seivan
Where do they stand on same sex marriage?

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cinquemb
I wonder what next years clean up trash app will bring us.

