Crowdsourcing

Posted on November 21, 2014 by stephanieelmes

What is Crowdsourcing?

Crowdsourcing is the process of gaining services, ideas or content by getting contributors from a large group of people, rather than hiring employees. The word is a combination of “crowd” and “outsourcing”, with its work coming from the public. An example of crowdsourcing is crowdfunding, which is where many people contribute a small amount of money in order to reach a certain goal. This is especially used through the internet. Some advantages to crowdsourcing are access to resources, like unique skills of a variety of people, access to scale, meaning a business has access to a large amount of people, and real world data is collected. Some disadvantages of crowdsourcing are the cost of management, creating a fair marketplace, because they need to take into account the unlimited possible cases when dealing with one another, and quality control.

Papers of the War Department

I selected the Papers of the War Department to transcribe. One complaint that I had before I could even begin to transcribe was that I needed to make an account, but it took days for them to send me a temporary password so I had to wait until they did before I could begin. Once they sent me the email, it was fairly straightforward to transcribe a document. All I had to do was choose from their list of documents and then they showed me a picture of it and in a text box I typed in the words that I saw and then when I was done I clicked save.

Valuable Tool or Not?

I think crowdsourcing is a valuable tool to connect with a variety of people all over the world and can be a huge advantage when donations are needed, because if many people donate a small amount a lot of money can be raised. It is also good when a company needs fresh ideas because they can connect with people who think very differently than them. It also comes with its disadvantages because when dealing with that many people, customer service needs to be very well managed and they need to predict all the ways that things can go wrong.

Bloody Monday Riots of 1855

Posted on October 23, 2014October 23, 2014 by stephanieelmes

Who Rioted?

Louisville, Kentucky in 1855 was home to many catholic Irish and German immigrants, something that the white Protestants saw as a threat to their American lifestyle. Bloody Monday was an election riot between the Irish and German immigrants, who were attracted to the Democratic Party, and the Know-Nothing or American Nativists Party.

“August 6, 1855- Bloody Monday”

In her article “August 6, 1855- Bloody Monday”, Emily Upton’s main argument was how, despite how destructive both the immigrants and the Know-Nothing Party was, it was the Know-Nothing party that caused the most damage and who was to blame for the riot. She supports this argument by showing how the Catholics were targeted, even months before the riot actually happened. Some ways they did this was “almost all of the Catholic teachers were fired by the Louisville Public School Board” and at the time of the election “George Prentice called his fellow United States citizens to arms in an advertisement that might intimidate the staunchest of immigrants: ‘Let the foreigners keep their elbows to themselves to-day at the polls. Americans are you all ready? We think we hear you shout ‘ready,’ ‘well fire!’ and may heaven have mercy on the foe’”. Upton used mainly online references for her article, some being other online articles written on the subject.

“Recalling Bloody Monday

Peter Smith also talks about the events of Bloody Monday in his article “Recalling Bloody Monday”, but his main point is trying to make sure the events never happen again. He says that most people don’t know what Bloody Monday is “yet, ‘given what the situation is today, with another influx of immigrants increasing the diversity of Louisville,’ … it’s important that Bloody Monday be remembered ‘so that a similar event does not happen again’. The resources Smith used was people of Louisville whose ancestors were a part of the events, the editor of the Louisville Courier, and immigrants of present day Louisville.

Differing views?

Both authors believe that people should learn from the events of Bloody Monday, although Upton is more focused on the facts of what happened, while Smith focuses more on present day Louisville and urges them to not allow this to happen again. He focuses on talking to people who currently reside in Louisville and getting their take on what happened in 1855, while Upton just focuses on that happened the day of the riots.

I thought the first article was interesting because it talked about the events leading up to the riot and the actual riot itself, but the second provided a different perspective that made for a better article. I enjoyed reading about what the current residents thought of Bloody Monday and that they are taking action to make sure that it never happens again. I also liked that he included some background so that if someone is reading it that doesn’t know what Bloody Monday was, they wouldn’t be confused.

ZoteroPractice

Bloody Monday Louisville, Kentucky 1855

Posted on September 14, 2014 by stephanieelmes

Background

On August 6th, 1855 conflict occurred between the Democrats and the Know-Nothing Party, where on election day they attacked the Irish-Catholics that made up most of the city’s population. Street Fights occurred, multiple building were burned and twenty-two people died. The Know-Nothing party ended up winning the election and because of this riot, many of the immigrants living in Louisville left, cause the city to lose businesses.

Why Bloody Monday?

I picked this riot because it shows how big political parties are in the United States and the progression of them to how they are now. I also picked it because it gives another example of how so many riots in the United States is based on race.