Forum: Have the Mods Agreed on an Alert Signal

Those who set up this site have done tremendous service. The resources available to those smart or lucky enough to read what is available here will doubtless save many lives, and may save national economies.

There is one large task left undone, however, (IMVHO,) and that is for the Moderators to decide on what the signal to the Wiki community will be, if or when the next pandemic appears to have started.

If this has not yet been decided, I would suggest something simple.

Perhaps a color code- “condition Red”.

“The Swan is Dying.”

“Paul Revere is riding to Concord.” (like that one…but it may be too obscure….)

I have the unsettling feeling that we may need this alert in the near future. We could even let each Mod make their own call, so that there would be no need to waste time trying for consensus.

In any case, I hope the mods will take this request under advisement.

Much fun has been made of upended swans - but I agree wholeheartedly LMWatBullRun – at 21:06. Time to get serious. I saw a mass email campaign idea on another thread and have to agree (with some) - it would get lost in the spam filters and extraneous junk mails. We need a signal.

I still like Monotreme’s idea of the swan with her little webbed feet pointed at the sky . . .

Trust me, when the SHTF, we won’t need the moderators to tell us . . . it’ll be on all the news channels.

What exactly will be considered the start of the pandemic?

When the total fatalities ticks past a certain number? When the spread moves beyond a certain localized parameter? When it spreads to more than one country? When WHO raises the alert level to 4 or 5?

Jefiner – at 21:14 I, too, like the upended swan - really I do. But I disagree completely with “Trust me, when the SHTF, we won’t need the moderators to tell us . . . it’ll be on all the news channels.” By then, it will be too late.

Jefiner – at 21:14 “we won’t need the moderators to tell us “

You are right. My guess is that when the word starts to spread the internet will slow down to a crawl. FluWiki will not be available to the millions that will be trying to log on, the Ham band will be crackling, the phone lines will be jammed with calls…

I do think that “we” will start to see increase case levels for a week or so before it starts to spread out from some large local cluster. But once it reaches R0 >0 it will travel far and fast.

DennisC – at 21:27: I do think that “we” will start to see increase case levels for a week or so before it starts to spread out from some large local cluster. But once it reaches R0 >0 it will travel far and fast. Before it hits the airwaves. I hope to be snug (and unfortunately scared outta my mind) BEFORE it hits the news.

LMWatBullRun – at 21:06

I must say you have a lot more confidence in our ability to predict anything than any of us feel! I can’t of course speak for the other mods but I would be very surprised if any of them feel any other way!

As the head dude (with apologies to Dude, of course) at your DOD so famously said, the problem is “We don’t know what we don’t know.” And if you don’t know what you don’t know, you don’t know what to look out for as a warning sign, and how reliable that might be.

As another analogy, consider the fact that most clinicians get good at diagnosing certain conditions only after a fair amount of real experience. It’s not as if we’ve seen plenty of pandemics, to get that experience. The best you can do is to make only very approximate guesses, but even those ‘educated’ guesses are of necessity based on very underdeveloped science, as we discussed on this thread.

While your trust and confidence is heartening, I believe Flu Wiki is stronger for being decentralized, that the opinions of the mods do not count for more than anyone else’s, and that each person anywhere in the world has potentially as much to offer as another person.

I believe we have gotten to where we are by painstakingly supporting debate based on fact and the quality of the argument, not credentials nor position nor personality. I believe the Wiki is all the stronger for it.

If and when a pandemic starts, there will be lots of uncertainty and anxiety, which is when it will be even more important to stay with these principles. For the benefit of everyone.

Enlighten the ignorant — what is R0>0?

I think Wolf meant R0>1.

OOPs I meant R0>1. that means that on the average each case can start more than 1 case. If it is <1 then more people are cured or die than are getting sick. If it is >1 then more are getting sick (it spreads and multiplies) than are getting well or die. Once it is R0>1 then it can be a pandemic.

I have been wondering of late how you were going to handle that one annon_22! ;) I think there will be a general consensus among those of us who have been following all of this on a daily basis. I also think it would be impossible to accurately pinpoint “when”. I’m okay with saying “when” for my immediate and extended family, but I sure wouldn’t want to have that responsibility for all of Wikidom!

We Wikians are engaged in a joint/cooperative venture with each other here. We will continue to gather our facts, debate their significance, put forth our speculations and theories and through all of this, refine our understanding over time, which is exactly what we’ve been doing for quite some time now.

We all have our ears and eyes pricked up over the course of the last month, and each day our antenae become more sensitive. We suspect now the percolation is heating up, but we will know when the pot boils before anyone else does. So don’t worry about it. :)

anon_22 – at 21:40 Was directly quoting DennisC (NEVER misquote unless by accident:) but you are precisely correct in my meaning. I am heartened by your understatement of the ‘power of the wiki’. Despite having had (severe) disagreements at the flow of information here (I have a natural bias toward the ‘banning’ of any discussion - it’s a blessing/curse) I am quite sure that, given the space and bandwidth, any fluwkie readers will have a ‘heads up’ to the ‘swans down’. You, nor any moderators/owners, are responsible for my course of action. The ability to share this information is a triumph and just the sort of thing that I believed in when I plugged in my first Hayes Smartmodem when my 22 year old was an infant (I was DETERMINED to work in my pajamas - ain’t happened yet!) I wish, for many reasons, I was not now working too much - I’d love being a part of this research and discovery and discussion. As it is, I work in 2 disparate fields and in my spare time do my best to add what little I can to the discussion. I am in awe of the work done here. I may owe my life, and the lives of my loved ones, to this work someday. I am sure, absoutely, we’ll know it here first. Thank you. Thank you all.

Just by way of clarification, I personally have absolutely no problem with giving anyone any warning that I believe will save people’s lives.

I just have close to zero confidence that we (the mods) will get the answer sooner or more accurately than the collective wisdom here.

If pandemicflu.gov updated more than once over an 11.5 month period of time, maybe we could contemplate a change brewing. If you watch they go in and subtle change sites prep requirements but don’t really state an update; i.e. they dropped 3 months of prescription coverage I guess because insurance would not pay. How about “Red October”, loved that movie.

I am NOT trying to be a downer here but a visual cue may need to be more obvious than flipping the swan picture. I was on here a month before I even looked at the picture. I assume we all see the same color scheme… funny brown/yellow sides with light yellow text box borders. After hours, weeks, MONTHS of looking at these screens, if I ever went to the wiki and there was even a slight shade difference, I would notice. Imagine if the entire scheme changed. It would be very apparent to those who have spent anytime on here. I read somewhere earlier that some felt it wise to fly under the radar, so to speak, to avoid having the site pulled by TPTB to control information. To someone that hasn’t been on constantly, the change of colors might not mean anything. Sounds far fetched. I am repeating another thread.

AAARrgh! AREN’T responsible ! “…are NOT responsible for my course of action… going to bed now. jeez.

So you think this is going to be a big secret that only a few select will know about and then they should secretly transmit this information to the other elite in this forum? WOW! Spy vs Spy stuff. I would suggest to you that there is no need for codes or special observers. Just watch the news for a few thousand folks hacking up their freaking lungs being reported on CNN in Indonesia. Then start stringing the barbed wire around your house.

Wolf – at 22:06 AAARrgh! AREN’T responsible ! “…are NOT responsible for my course of action… going to bed now. jeez.

Wolf – at 22:27

LOL

another thing I’d like to set out for an idea; is if and when this is all over, and we come out on the other side, let’s agree to regroup here, perhaps on this same site, or agree to change the name, ect. While we are enduring this pandemic survival, we all here will be wondering how each of us are doing, and when power is gone, we loose contact with each other. it’ll be like loosing contact with family members. Is this something that we can arrange ahead of time? I’m all for the singal from mods. Reason being, sometimes I don’t see what others see, and it takes me awhile to catch up. So if you can say to yourself, “it’s time.” than the rest of us need to hear from you, whomever you will be.

Wolf – at 22:27 ,

I completely missed it. Even after you corrected it I had to read it twice to find it.

I__NEED__SLEEP

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

I think that we will see almost everyone’s PPF go to near 10 (remember 10 on the PPF scale means they expect the MSM will announce within 24 hours) and Tom will announce he is prepping and Bill will announce he bought a case of that special med.

DennisC – at 22:35

and Tom will announce he is prepping

now THAT would be a sign…

… of what I have no idea.

<g>

I like the alert signal:

• $!@& %#^#@!! IT’S STARTED! *(%$#!!! I HONESTLY THOUGHT IT WOULDN’T REALLY HAPPEN BUT IT &$%^@*&$% IS!!!

That just sort of sums it up in my mind.

From what I’ve seen and read in past threads, the Mods have stated that once they know for sure (either through MSM or WHO or Pandemic.gov or some other up-to-date fool-proof source) they would have nice big RED LETTERS announcing big news both on the front page of the Wiki and the Forum.

The government, other boards, and our very knowledgeable Mods here have all stated that they don’t have a crystal ball to see into the future. All they can do is wait and listen to the official announcements, just like the rest of us…

cottontop – at 22:29 --- I’ve already been told by many here on FluWiki that I’m holding a huge party at the other end and I will be supplying the RWFK!! ;-)

NW – at 22:27

I am still ROTFLMAO at your post, it was so funny!

But about what you said; quite so. I’m only hoping to have a couple days advance warning before they close the freeways at the state boundaries so I can get out of the city. Which I think we may have. Personally, I don’t have to be 100% sure before I head for the hills, so I won’t be waiting until it’s practically on CNN. A few more of the “1000′s with pneumonia, blood gushing out their noses, dropping dead where they stand” type news stories, and that will do it for me!

bronco Bill- I like the red letter idea. I think it would be the perfect signal. foolproof? no idenity theft?

We are going to need that huge party when it’s all said and done. I’ll bring the crispy cream donughts. (by then I will have figured out how to perserve them!)

cottontop – at 22:29 (and thanks for the understanding That’s Just Ducky! – at 22:29= I’ m such a putz!) Cottontop - I ‘ve brought this up before - if everything holds up, we’ll meet up here in the ether. But if it doesn’t hold, we’ve had discussions on how we’d know we’d all made it. It became a ‘meetup” (which is great!) But I’d kinda like a place , if it all broke down, that I could go to and see maybe postards or notes or letters dated __/__/__ “Monotreme - I made it!” “Medical Maven -Ain’t got me yet” etc. A place of hope - SHOULD it breakdown, not saying it will. I’d just love to have a place to go to see y’all have made it through. I proferred the idea of a bar sometime ago, but those might not hold up in the worst case. Maybe a museum somewhere? They’ve got bulletin boards someplace too? I dunno. Still think we should maybe think the unthinkable - hopefully.

cottontop – at 22:46 --- Old Krispy Kream doughnuts? Dehydrated? Don’t bother…if they ain’t fresh and warm, they ain’t worth dunking! LOL!!!! We’ll learn how to make our own doughnuts from the leftover rice, beans and powdered milk!! ROTFLMAO ;-)

Nw- umm, I beleive there are thousands of seriously ill folks in India and havn’t seen anything about it on CNN. I don’t know that I’d say they were “hacking up their freaking lungs” but folks dropping dead in Nepal is something I thought might be reported be reported in the MSM. Not so.

TIN HAT ALERT!!!! I admit to being a little paranoid about TPTB shutting this site down… I also share Cottontops concern about being scattered. I have tried to post my profile several times with my e-mail but I must just be a complete idiot because I cannot get it to work, anyway I thought if the site were to go down, maybe we could e-mail each other.

bronco bill- at 22:51

dude, I have a serious sweet tooth that don’t care if it’s dehydrated, fresh or warm!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

anon_22 – at 22:36 DennisC – at 22:35 and Tom will announce he is prepping now THAT would be a sign… … of what I have no idea. <g>

It’ll be a sign on someone spending big bucks on inflated prices on everything!

Green Mom – at 22:52

TIN HAT ALERT!!!! I admit to being a little paranoid about TPTB shutting this site down

Why would they want to do that? Those who read us will also want the same thing y’all want…info.

Those who don’t read us…most of them don’t know we exist.

Those who know we exist, don’t read us, but want to shut us down will become very unpopular among the first category, whom they will still need to work together through a pandemic.

What was it they said about ‘cutting the nose to spite the face’?

I have a feeling that they might want us to stay up.

Now let me see…where’s my wishlist gone?

Did you lean too far?

Anon-22-hey how should I know why they would want to shut this sight down? I’m paranoid….. ;-)

why would they want to shut down? don’t like the sound of that. also, was thinking, without power, and it’s cash only, expect price hikes. Probably will need a little more extra cash. I think I have a few pennies.

I am going in and shutting the doors when the first case is in the USA. I am ready, when “it” comes doesn’t make any difference. I will always be ready.

anon_22 – at 23:15

Yeah, they want us to stay up. How the hell else are they going find out what’s going on?

Well, if I come here and the site is down or there have been NO posts for, say, 24 hours, I’ll know y’all have gone to ground and it’s time I do the same.

You could just post a big image of lips for “Kiss your puckered butt goodbye” but that might seem a tad fatalistic.

I guess I’ll know when I hear TPTB tell us there is nothing to worry about! I’d like to see this site stay up. If it goes down I will know that a pandemic has started.

Remember to not get to excited if it goes down since some time we may go to the “new system” with registering, and so on. I would think it might have to go down then. I think that as it hits the entire web will start to go down or at least slow way down as everyone is looking for info, contacting “grandma” and friends, trying to work from home and so on.

You mean if the site goes down, we shouldn’t consider that the red alert, firm our jaws, and lock the doors and windows?

Well, then strike that as a signal. You could still go with the lips thing. Or the sunny-side up swan. I’m flexible.:D

The World Economic Forum Pandemic Simulation exercise reports that “some experts opined that the internet would shut down within two to four days of the outbreak”

The report is well worth reading, cos its base on Day 28 of a pandemic, so there’s no need to go into ‘is it happening or not’ but directly into critical policies.

The report is here and is another one of those you should keep and review from time to time, IMO.

some time we may go to the “new system” with registering, and so on

If there’s to be a planned outage, you’ll be notified in advance. And when we do move to a new platform, my hope would be to run the old and the new in parallel so people can adjust and possibly have a place to bring their questions if they’re having trouble with the new software.

That said, don’t panic if we just disappear. Servers and assorted other hardware can break just like anything else.

let’s start our own pandemometer, measuring the pandemic threat in USA for a -say- one year foresight. Each poster has an account, where she/he can always update her/his panflu-clock and the software permanently displays the average. If fluwiki can’t do it, we can just link to another site, there are free sites which can do it.

An extra feature were to weight your clock by the number of your fluwiki posts, or better the number of letters posted to fluwiki(+forum).

pogge wrote:
“don’t panic if we just disappear”


you can always go to fluwiki2
or, if you don’t like that, pogge, please create another forum where we can meet when you just disappear.

If I waited until the MSM (news) was reporting the start, then I missed the boat. I am not prepping yet, because this thing may be years, months, days? later. I just don’t have the funds to prep like I should. So I am using a just in time strategy to get what I need just in time before the general population goes into panic mode. I am depending on this community to my trip wire. I am sure, you (all of you) will figure out when a real threat is starting before the news gets around to reporting it. That will my window to get what I need. But I am busy and don’t have an hour a day to read the treads, the news ones, the dicussion ones. So any clear single that I would see when I loaded the forum main page, would be most welcome. Then I can read more to get the details. You know those atomic scientist with their doomsday clock. We need something similar. The doomday clock only moves when something big happens that increases the risk. IF we had something similar, then we all could see if we are getting closer? or farther away. The critera could be a mix of facts, actual numbers and reports and gut feeling. I know no one has the exactd answer and we all have an opion or idea. I would suggest a small group of the regulars just score a 1–5 rating on how close are we. Post the average on the main page. We could nominate and the mods could pick the group. But I am sure we all know who here has knowlege and expertise. So as events changes, the average would change and it represent the group consensus. Just like the stock market, where the DOW is just an average of 30 stocks, it gives some idea of the direction of the market.

(Doug Baker, -and Tom DVM- Hi Tom! :-)) (Hm; Tom Baker! Now there was a Doctor Who…)

( Pandemic is a real threat; enough you should at least try and skip a few non-essentials that add up, for a couple of weeks, and think what you really might regret not having, whether for you it is some addition to your meds or first aid kit, or a way to have safe water to drink, or masks and some sort of bug-out bag you keep with you to and from work; some other thing that may keep you safe®, or, that you’d wish you’d gotten taken care of first.)

“10 on the PPF scale means they expect the MSM will announce within 24 hours”

Guess I’ve been thinking 10 means “time to SIP”; I wasn’t going to wait for a probably-too-late official announcement; still seems like the game plan is Not get people ready, not have them get their debts and finances and preps in order, and then, hope they still go to work, and still show up to volunteer at influenza specialty care units, (which they’ll need, because people didn’t know to try not to get exposed, nor get the schools closed early enough) and, spontaneously come up with unprepared smooth responses to mass fatality surges over the next few quarters.

I’m not going somewhere else, if Flu Wiki wasn’t here, (for goodness’ sake!) but, if the internet was having problems, I’d start checking the HAM radio frequencies. (Though ideally, we’d all get a phone call from Dr.Nabarro - just kidding- Good luck, sir! ) saying, “Time to hunker down!”

safe®, ? How’d I type that? Hm, the magic of Flu Wiki… Time for that second cup of coffee…

Speaking from a “news hounds” point of view - If I happen to state that I can’t keep up with the cases - as there are too many - THAT DOES NOT MEAN ANYTHING. It just means “we need more news hounds”. If I don’t post anything for a week - THAT DOES NOT MEAN I’VE GONE UNDERGROUND. It may mean I just need a break. I will be moving soon, December 2nd, and my life will be in turmoil. Because I’m moving 2 States away. So, I won’t be posting news for a while. Just so you know…….

A pandemic is not going to have a disernable start point. Its going to creep up on us over days and maybe weeks. I dont know how you would have an alert system for that type of situation. Were going to have a sinking feeling in the bottom of our gut as we watch it unfold. No warning is going to be nessasary Im afraid.

A pandemic is not going to have a disernable start point. Its going to creep up on us over days and maybe weeks. I dont know how you would have an alert system for that type of situation. Were going to have a sinking feeling in the bottom of our gut as we watch it unfold. No warning is going to be nessasary Im afraid.

I think it may be that many people here may have a collective gut feeling, and they could discuss it. Then we could keep a closer eye on wiki for the next 24 hours, doing some of our last minute preps. Once the media announces the pandemic, for a while I think people may not believe it. It’s like when the sirens go off for a tornado, and many people ignore them. It won’t happen here. I really do believe that we will have the heads up we need. I don’t think it will be one situation that will signal the beginning, but maybe a few clusters that we will be watching and then over a day or so saying to ourselves, this doesn’t look good. Most here will agree on it, I will be on my way to Walmart.

I can’t explain this well but I will try.

If I understand correctly, what we are seeing in Indonesia is H2H transimssion but at an R0 of less than 1. So — small clusters of cases which will eventually “die out” — so sorry for the terminology and me heart goes out to those affected. But these cases are not starting a panmdeic. (Don’t know about what’s going on elsewhere.)

As the virus adapts to humans, the R0 will go up, and eventually it is expected the virus will become more transmissable — TSHRTF.

But meanwhile, what happens if someone with a relatively low R0-type virus gets on a place and comes to say Chicago? Small clusters, maybe even 25 people come down with “bird flu” and because it is in Chicago and elsewhere it is very noticeable. We fluwikians announce “time to SIP!” and ut everything into action. Everyone very tense… but 3 to 4 weeks later, the situatino here is under control. The cluster burned itself out.

Now everyone in America thinks the threat is over, and will not begin to listen; and those who SIPped at the very first sign of a trigger have run through their preps, burned their bridges at work, etc. thinking this was it.

Does this make any sense? I’m thining without airtravel, a pandemic spreads widely when the R0 reaches a certain level. But with the addition of air travel, you *could* have the disease spread faster by plane than it would be able to on it’s own — i.e before it has become a pandemic strain, but just enough to get noticed….

Please help me makes sense of this if you get what I am trying to say.

Average Concerned Mom - I do get what you are saying. Can’t weigh in though, have no expertise on the subject. I think you make a very valid point. In your case scenerio, it would be much like the normal flu. And if it happened during flu season…..what makes it so different? Scarey.

No, that’s not what I was saying — I’m saying H5N1 could arrive, and be severe — high death rate and all — but not yet be the big pandemic strain that we all fear. COuldn’t it? It could be of the variety that they have in Indonesia right now (I suspect) H2H2H trasnmission but at a low enough infection rate that it would burn itself out even without much intervention.

If it happened NOT during regular flu season — or if hospital saw the symptoms (like SARS, I guess ? Very severe ) and being on high alert tested for H5N1 and got positives (though not sure how likely that is, given all the false negatives…) anyhow, that would be big news — but it would be too early, actually the strain that will develop into a pandemic could be weeks or months away.

That scenario might be good news in the long run. We can’t know. Food for thought for journalists?

Concerned Mom Our society is highly mobil and we tend to gather in large groups on a regular basis. Indonesia and other third world countries dont have Wal Marts large schools office complexes and so forth. This IMO is one reason we are not seeing the virus spread faster. Tamiflu blankets therefore have some chance of success. Here in western culture its a different story. By the time a case is identified it will be impossible to contact trace everyone. One trip to the grocery store, mall, school ect. will insure that the cat is out of the bag.

We can always hope though.

This is not a race and there will be not starter’s pistol going bang. I have a non-prepper friend who wants to come to my house when it happens. He has lots of guns. He wants to rob the local food stores to get all we need. If you do that and you are astute enough to see it coming first you will be facing the police. Hypothetically, how are you going to tell your spouse and boss you are not going to work because 500 people have say simultanesously sick and dying thousands of miles away? It will depend on velocity of geographic spread.

I believe if the WHO changes the pandemic stage or any sustained clustering happens it should be posted on the front page prominently.

You should not have to try and convince your family of anything when 500 people die. At this point they should be on board with you and understand whats going on.

As a signal, how about a water mark across every page your reading. Its in the background so as to not be too annoying if you have to read something but hard to miss.

Since the internet or this site could easily crash, even in advance of MSM warnings, shuld we have bakups like email and/or phone chains? I know that some people are unfortable with giving out ANY kind information, but realistically you might not be able to get on line at all. Having phone chains set up for different areas of the country (matching up wikians with each other geographically)then the mods call 5 people, those 5 people call 5 people, etc. Obviously email would be preferred and we should set that up as wlel, but I have more faith in my local phone company than my cable company. I’d be happy to help organize something.

LOL. If the internet was down due to BF panic I wouldn’t be waiting by the phone. I’d be trampling over some little old lady for the last tin of spam ;→

Pardon my completely sick sense of humor, but a simple cartoon-type character of a dead duck works just great for me (why not start ‘IT’ off with a smile?)

any fluwikians have great artistic talent? I failed stick figure 101.

nameless this time – at 09:54 This is not a race and there will be not starter’s pistol going bang. I have a non-prepper friend who wants to come to my house when it happens. He has lots of guns. He wants to rob the local food stores to get all we need.

Yikes. I’d get some new friends fast.

Annoyed Max- Not mad yet – at 10:20 You should not have to try and convince your family of anything when 500 people die. At this point they should be on board with you and understand whats going on.

Wouldn’t that be nice. My immediate family understands the threat. Unfortunately, my children are taking this more seriously than their adult cousins, aunts, and uncles. I finally gave up sending out info to them after my sister announced she’s traveling to India for two weeks in December. Her logic: The people she is visiting are in the upper caste and “aren’t affected by these types of things.” And this woman is in microbiology. Unfathomable.

De-nial ain’t just a river in Egypt……

DennisC – at 00:00

Just currious, why are you considering going to a registering system when the one of the better points of Fluwiki is its anonymity?

My guess is that a wiki poster will start a thread aptly named, The Pandemic Has Started!, and it will be at the top of the list and we will all be there and within an hour it will be on part 76. So, I don’t think anyone will have to search very far. We may not know virology in detail, but we can see the data of epidemiology and therefore can call a duck a duck and a human a human and if they are sick or dead we do know that. And stop taking my name in vein…grin. I think lateral communication during an outbreak is a very big problem, for us, for first responders, for medical and food delivery. So, I don’t know if I will be able to get news from across town, never mind across a nation. I don’t think we will be able to stay in touch…the internet will go down. But, I am going to yell to my next door neighbor and have them yell to theirs and so on, asking if Grace RN and everyone else is ok and to get right back to me, because I have a question. Grin.

Sailor – at 11:57

It is not I that makes such choices. It is my understanding that the change has been planned for some time. It will reduce the problem with spammers. I don’t think it would keep us from anonymity from anyone but the mods and they (at least pogge) already have our location and ISP.

Sheeple wait to be told what to do and when to do it. I would expect Fluwikians to do their own thinking.

DennisC – at 12:11

By ISP, do you mean internet service provider, or do you really mean IP address, which is the unique string of characters that identifies an individual Pc. Actually, I guess Pogge would have the answer to this as well.

SIPCT – at 12:47

You make an excellent point.

Dude - at 12:00 - LOL!!!!!

“The Pandemic Has Started!, and it will be at the top of the list and we will all be there and within an hour it will be on part 76……

Dude – at 12:00

I don’t know about part 76; I think even the most prepped will be doing a last minute store run if they can reasonably beat the mob.

That is if it comes out of the blue of course.

Actually that might be an indicator, fluwiki traffic goes to zero as people go to their bunkers, the store, etc.

Texas Rose – at 00:09 Or the sunny-side up swan.

I submit that the swan is currently sunny side up. We watch for that day when she goes over easy.

I must admit that I get a wee tad on the nervous side when both the NewsNow website and FluWiki go unavailable - why the sudden rush on these two sites?, what am I missing? It has happened twice this week - not good for blood pressure!

The signal? We can see it for ourselves I am sure. When an area known to have BF in people starts going nuts as the Dengue is doing in India, we will know - in fact with our wonderful news hounds we will be the first to know.

What I do think we need to do is ‘circle the wagons’ and post guards looking out in every direction. If we just look at Indonesia we are likely to get shot in the back! (Perhaps we need volunteers to take a small region of the world each and watch all news items? I think this would be more pertinent as winter approaches up north.)

That’s Just Ducky! – at 13:23

By ISP, do you mean internet service provider, or do you really mean IP address, which is the unique string of characters that identifies an individual Pc. Actually, I guess Pogge would have the answer to this as well.

ISP is Internet Service Provider; IP address the unique string of hex numbers that are assigned to your individual computer by the ISP, identifying your computer on the Internet or any other network.

Registration would help to eliminate most of the SPAM and other issues. Nearly all users would be able to register using their current handles, if memory serves me correctly.

AnnieB @ 15:15

I think that’s a good idea. volunteer, or aske to be assigned an area. I do believe “circle the wagons” is the next phase we need to be heading in right now, and stay there for as long as it takes. I think we should start lining up to pick or be assigned an area. If you want you can start with me.

The fact that we have this thread and discussion signals-to me at least- that some think that it is getting closer.

(But it seems like people wish we could know for sure, and I’m pretty sure there will be no clear way to know for sure, at least, as soon as we, or the mods, would like to. We get a bit nervous sometimes and tend to start all get more nervous just because others are nervous.

I’d say, don’t get distracted by wishing for a way to get notified. We’re “on own own”, more than anyone can feel comfortable all the time contemplating. Just keep muddling through.)

crfullmoon- I do agree with your point. It’s just I don’t want to be the first to panic, when it’s not time to panic. Or someone else jumps the gun. We all so far have kept each other from the brink of panic. Being jumpy is running high. I don’t think we are really getting distracted, it’s just if we had some way of agreeing that it’s time in advance, we’d all have some comfort zone, relief, whatever you would like to call it. A sense of order. I still agree with AnnieB @ 15:15. It’s something we should push on with.

I’m in disbelief that for months I’ve been staring at the swans as soon as the page loads…and it hasn’t actually MEANT anything????

Cottontop and my previous post at 15:15

Okay, I am prepared to do some thinking about how best we ‘manage’ all this news gathering then I will start an appropriate thread with some information etc and ask for volunteers. It means tracking down local news sources and perhaps getting some translations done etc. Leave it with me - give me 24 hours (tomorrow’s weather looks really ugly so I won’t be golfing and can give it some thought!).

Anon_22 et al:

I agree that the mods are no more omniscient than the rest of us, but you are monitoring this site regularly; that is part of the moderator function. This site is rather like a Quaker meeting; everyone has a voice and the right to speak (within agreed-upon limits), but just like a Quaker meeting, there are elders who help guide the community discussion.

I agree that the point of absolute certainty will be past the point of the actual start of a pandemic; there will likely be lots of “noise” to mask the actual start, but there may be a point where there is consensus among the moderators that there is in fact a pandemic before the MSM pick it up. That would be useful for folks like me who do not have the time we’d like to spend monitoring every news item.

My suggestion is that the moderators agree upon an alert signal, or perhaps a couple of them, to let the rest of us know that things appear to be rapidly deteriorating to a pandemic. Perhaps the color code suggested above, or maybe even a post entitled “VERY LARGE CLUSTERS”.

I would love to subscribe to an email alert for this, too…..

How about Elvis has left the building

the “code” for our family is: the chicken has flown the coop.

Ok Here is my suggestion:

On the title page of the Wikie.

If this is your first visit you need to go here:

Help I Only have 24 Hours to Prepare

I vote for every warning signal that is possible, ducks feet up, red letters, and every other idea that has been mentioned here. It would also be nice if the pages waiver in and out with a siren going off loudly too.

Remember to look for the larger picture warning signs. Bush goes on an unscheduled vacation to Texas, rich and famous not out and about, world leaders cancelling summits and such. There will be lots of warning signs before the news tells the public. The news media is controlled by big corporations and so watch what the CEO’s are doing. There will be a rouge or 2 reporters who will have the balls to tell us, but the media will come down fast and hard telling us that there is no basis for their “opinion”, but believe them anyway.

I think the swan going belly up is appropriate, with the “Fluwiki” title under it in big red letters.

Reader at 20:48

I agree and I would add that we should watch the stock market. Any unusually large stock sell offs should be a red flag to us. They may indicate that people who “know” are trying to sell off just in time.

Green .om – at 22:52 (a few days ago)

… I have tried to post my profile several times with my e-mail but I must just be a complete idiot because I cannot get it to work,….

I couldn’t pass this up. Green Mom, what you are experiencing is something that occurs with me constantly. It’s known as the ‘ID ten T ‘ error. Hope that helps! 8-D

The Sky is falling - Chicken Little

change the background color from this gold to RED.

why do you want a 1-bit signal ? This is much less informative than a measure on some scale.


Don’t expect a clear pandemic yes/no signal. Some will say, the pandemic has started, some will say it can be contained. So allow for a 180° rotation of the swan and when there is a cluster of 100 people with confirmed H5N1-infection in some Indonesian town, then the fluwiki-swan rotates by maybe 90° - someone would vote on the exact angle.

An appropriate signal: The forum renamed “Texas Rose, it’s time.”

Well, it would be appropriate to ME.;)

How about an audio signal? A “Star Trek”-like red alert klaxon would do.

I can envision the poor fluwiki swan doing 360′s as people decide yes-its-on then no-its-dengue etc.

Okay, I have done the homework as promised above and started a new thread called Volunteers Needed as Lookouts Worldwide

Olymom ¨C at 00:50 I can envision the poor fluwiki swan doing 360¡äs …….. That’s like a rottessorie isn’t it? Cooked swan…..

I think the bird you mean is, “our goose is cooked”.

Has there been a discion on the alert signal? Need to get that done.

I hope the mods will realize we are counting on their input here.

From what I remember, when this question came up several months ago, is that the Mods said there would most likely be, in LARGE BOLD RED LETTERS, a notice at the top of the Main Wiki page and the top of the Main Forum page. Probably at the top of most of the Wiki/Forum pages.

I’m sure the mods realize we are counting on their input, but I think it is an unfair burden on the mods to expect them to be responsible for sending a signal to the rest of this community. It is up to we, the hive, to determine what is going on and whether we think a certain set of circumstances is “it.” And it is up to each of us to determine for ourselves whether the time has come to SIP. No two circumstances are the same. The depth and breadth of discussions on every topic from recipes to respirators demonstrates that.

While the mods may be better tapped into more authoritative sources than some of us here, and I sure hope they share their perspective in a clearly titled thread if they feel the situation is materially worsening, they don’t have a crystal ball.

Regulars to this site and others, such as Effect Measure, should know what the telltale signs are by now. Many here are watching for them. And I expect we would know as soon as anyone—mod or otherwise—when it’s time to draw the shades.

Just my $0.02.

crfullmoon – at 08:55 I think the bird you mean is, “our goose is cooked”.

I think at that point, I would’t eat either!

Edna Mode- While I do agree with you, I also think that this is a way to keep pandemonium, anxiety, and nail biting in check. We here have a tendency to get panicky, and it’s just a natural group response to appoint someone who seems more level headed, and I believe that’s what we’ve done here, appointing the modes to give us an alert when they, in their infinate wisdom, can safely say, “Hey folks this is really getting scarey.” However, each individual will determine what action will be appropriate when they feel the time is has come. I for one echo the requests that in order to keep order in this group, we need an alert guideline, and I do believe those big ole bold red letters that just about blinded me, will do the trick for a heading on the forum page. This is just how I feel on a personal level.

I remember Melanie saying what bronco bill relayed.”The mods would be screaming it in red letters if they thought a panflu had started”

I agree with edna mode that we will all have to decide when It has started by our own standards.

I agree with cottontop that it is good to have this all worked out beforehand so we can all ( in this big ole fluwikie club) have our heads up,no matter how small or short of a heads up that may be.

I agree with Mods please address at 8;51 that I would love to hear a mod weight in on this.Let us know if they have a plan or do not wish to be put on the line like that.If I remember right the Reveres are silent partners of the fluwikie or something like that.If our mods are conferencing with the reveres then surely we could have some type of credible heads up.Maybe if we start talking politics on this thread we could get some attention and response about it all ;)

Malachi- I guess I’m trying to say, is that we can”t have 20 different people running in different directions on here in a panic, and the others don’t see a panic. Do you see what pandemonium that would cause? We are going to have to have some way to keep forum order when everyone feels the alert is getting near. The sooner we get this settled the better.

“A poor plan is better than no plan”

We ought to have a plan.

cottontop – at 10:45 --- I believe the Mods will conference in with Revere and others before deciding to make any announcement regarding TS Hitting TF.

I do not believe that any single Moderator will take it upon him/herself to just throw a big announcement out there without consulting with other experts first.

It’s better to take a “wait and see” attitude and get all the facts straight, instead of panicing at the drop of a hat.

Bronco Bill- I agree.

Commonground – at 07:23

My hope is that the mods and fellow Fluwikians alike, post their desideratum to SIP, when they think danger is abreast. That in itself would be a colossal sign for the group to gear into high alert mode.

I don’t think that the mods will need to post a pandemic alert - there is no chance that the beginning of a pandemic would be missed by a single one of you.

I understand that everybody wants our input. However, i’ve said my piece. I read through the thread, thought about it, and am still of the same opinion.

Melanie is still off sick. If you want Dem’s opinion, maybe you can post a question on the ‘Ask the mod’ thread.

Perhaps this revelation might help. I gave a presentation the other day at the National Academy on FluWiki. As a result of preparing for that, I went through the reasons why this community works. The best model is still the one from the book ‘The Wisdom of Crowds’ , and I will quote from my slides, which btw, are available for download from the ftp, or will be shortly whenever Dem has put them up.

The Wisdom Of Crowds. James Surowiecki (2004)

What makes a crowd smart? There are 4 essential components:

1. Diversity of opinion - Each person should have private information even if it’s just an eccentric interpretation of the known facts.
2. Independence - People’s opinions aren’t determined by the opinions of those around them.
3. Decentralization - People are able to specialize and draw on local knowledge.
4. Aggregation - Some mechanism exists for turning private judgments into a collective decision.

Under these conditions, the collective judgement of the crowd is likely to be far superior than the judgement of any one member.

And we have not been conferencing on risk assessment, and don’t see the need to. If and when conditions change, we will definitely do that, but right now, none of us feel that is necessary.

Going back to early on in this thread, the reference as to whether TPTB will want to shut us down, or that they want us to stay up cos they need the info.

Today an extremely senior scientist/professor said to me, on hearing that I’m from FluWiki, “you’re the people who gives everybody the latest news, right?” in a very matter of fact way, like he’s just trying to verify who I was.

In his mind, “FluWiki = people who gives the latest news” is already well-established and unquestioned.

Doesn’t that tell you somethimg?

If we don’t know on this forum, no one else will know, probably.

anon_22 – at 00:59, “And we have not been conferencing on risk assessment, and don’t see the need to. If and when conditions change, we will definitely do that, but right now, none of us feel that is necessary.”

Gosh, I really hope these aren’t famous last words! :>)

btw, something happened when I opened a new thread - What Was Life Like in 1918 - and it is longer than my screen. Can you fix it? Sorry…probably due to my cut and paste.

anon-22: FluWiki = people who gives the latest news” is already well-established and unquestioned.

Doesn’t that tell you somethimg?

If we don’t know on this forum, no one else will know, probably.

Inversly, if you didn’t want certain information out to the public, you could manipulate Flu Wiki?

enza,

We have lots of people posting information on this forum. In fact, anyone who has access to the internet. We do not have a mechanism to screen off posts. How specifically do you imagine Fluwiki can be manipulated? And for what purpose?

OK, let me ask everyone a question. Why this sudden anxiety? What is it that has changed that is causing you guys to feel the need for extra validation?

Suppose for a minute that a change in phases was planned, but it was leaking out before the ‘due date’. All you would need are two or three very convincing ‘skeptics’ who are prolific posters (on FW) to ridicule, dismiss, and discredit the rumor. It’s that easy, and I am not even a tin foil hat owner.

To be honest, I have checked everywhere I can think of and called in a few personal favors to people who whould get a heads up, nobody has heard anything.

So maybe there is just a collective anxiety because of all the ‘viral hemmoragic fevers’, pneumonias, mystery diseases, etc. that are testing -ve for dengue, chickungunya, etc. but are killing scores of people…

anon_22 at 01:28 - why the sudden anxiety? I honestly don’t think there is greater anxiety - i think perhaps it is more that people are ‘thinking ahead’ - I may be wrong (again). There was mention yesterday (?) when WHO released their revised global plan that words like “may” and “might” had been removed.

As you have already mentioned, this site is THE site for news, so people are exposed more regularly to BF information than they could possibly see elsewhere. Coming to this site most definitely allows me to assess for myself if the situation has deteriorated and I certainly do not see any sign of that. I do know this is the only place where I could gather sufficient information to make such an assessment though.

The idea behind having the lookout posts was to ensure we remain fully informed and can continue to make assessments of the situation - certainly not to over-react to a snippet somewhere - IMHO anyway.

As always, thanks for your magnificent work.

anon_22 – at 01:28 --- Why this sudden anxiety? I think the answer lies in the fact that there are some folks on the board who are certain that PanFlu will occur this winter; those folks are looked up to and listened to, and their word taken for fact in all cases.

And perhaps it is just human nature to wish for a clear signal as to what is really going on, (so no one gets caught in the wrong place at the wrong time) which, perfectly-timed true warning, I don’t think it is exactly possible to have.

Edna Mode – at 09:02 and Pixie at 00:07, I agree.

Oh, and “asking the Flu Wiki mods for a signal”: y’all have trust and credibilty at this point;

since the whole purpose is, you think it would be “bad outcome” for the public and communities to be unprepared for disruptions and only know and react to a pandemic year once it is for-sure in-progress in our regions. (Unlike my local officials, who I might be able to toss farther than I trust them at this point in time.) (not that I will do either)

It has been a very slow week during Ramaden. If next week, we on the Indo Outbreak thread, should report 10 new cases, say 20 new cases, we have to remember to keep everything in perspective. Maybe someone should start a thread for the newbies, on how a pandemic would unfold, as far as cumulative cases go. I think that would relieve a lot of anxiety. We who have been around (and I’ve only been studying this since last February)….understand how fast it would start. But we have to remember there are new people coming aboard everyday who don’t quite understand yet.

I agree with AnnieB at 01:46 with the wording in not just the WHO releases, but in newspaper articles around the world. “May” and “might” are no longer used. We all wonder when this happened? What do they know, that we don’t? What happened to “We don’t know when or if a Pandemic will occur”. You don’t seem to see that anywhere in print anymore…….

I don’t think I was specific enough in 06:46. 10 or 20 new cases reported in one week would not alarm me. You have to keep in mind the population of Indonesia. Now….if the 20 turned into 80 in a couple days…..then 130 the next day - now that would alarm me.

To respond to Anon_22′s question, I raised the issue simply because it seemed to be something yet to be done, and because I realized that there seemed to be a non-zero possibility that this question might actually need to be addressed.

I feel no pressing need for exterior validation of my judgement on what the triggers will be for my own “red alert”, but I do think that the Moderators would do us a further service by announcing whether or not they will be making any announcement regarding, and if they do plan to do so, explain to all us how that will be done.

I do realize that I’ve put each of you somewhat on the spot, as you do carry a great deal of credibility. Perhaps even more than you realize, and I understand your reluctance to employ that power and to run the risk of making a mistake.

I am not asking the moderators to do our thinking for us.

I AM asking the mods to let us know when things seem to warrant a heightened alert. IF that is something that the Moderators are unwilling to do for reasons I would understand, OK, I know what I will do to deal with that. It would be nice to know where we stand on this issue, however…….

If the mods have relatives or close friends and are at a point where they feel it is time to suggest to them that they shelter in place or anticipate the imminent need for that, that would be a sign to many that the fan was turned on and soon it would become messy. I take the point of anon_22 that nobody can forecast this but at some point the evidence might point to a conclusion that is harder and harder to avoid. Maybe we will collectively “see” this before the mods. We should certainly keep the “crowd wisdom” thing going. But I also think there is wisdom in smaller groups that have been involved with this longer and knowing their thoughts would be helpful. In terms of what has changed: maybe a slowdown in some kinds of news suggests to the impatient that this is the calm before the storm. In the end, we are all guessing and trying to be both alert and sane. Not an easy combination these days!

LMWatBullRun – at 14:12

To respond to Anon_22′s question, I raised the issue simply because it seemed to be something yet to be done, and because I realized that there seemed to be a non-zero possibility that this question might actually need to be addressed.

I feel no pressing need for exterior validation of my judgement on what the triggers will be for my own “red alert”, but I do think that the Moderators would do us a further service by announcing whether or not they will be making any announcement regarding, and if they do plan to do so, explain to all us how that will be done.

I do realize that I’ve put each of you somewhat on the spot, as you do carry a great deal of credibility. Perhaps even more than you realize, and I understand your reluctance to employ that power and to run the risk of making a mistake.

I am not asking the moderators to do our thinking for us.

I AM asking the mods to let us know when things seem to warrant a heightened alert. IF that is something that the Moderators are unwilling to do for reasons I would understand, OK, I know what I will do to deal with that. It would be nice to know where we stand on this issue, however…….

I think you make a valid point. Again I can’t and won’t speak for the other mods, only for myself.

I’m in favor of openness with the public. That’s why I do what I do. If at any point I know something that I think people should know about, I will post it, subject to time and physical constraints.

Which is pretty much what I’ve been doing.

However, I will not commit ahead of time to ‘alerting’ people to anything for the very simple reason that it would place an intolerable burden on myself.

I do not make promises that I can’t keep. I cannot and will not make such a promise because there are too many unknowns if and when TSHTF. Things may move too quickly, the signals are likely to be highly ambiguous, my ability to interpret events could be compromised by stress, etc etc. I’ve been in situations where I’ve had to make life-and-death decisions before. Doing that for yourself and your family is hard enough. I have no desire to do that for anyone else.

I do my public service as best I can, right now, right here. I gotta draw the line somewhere. This is a line, just so you know.

However, if from time to time you want to ask my opinion on risk assessment, I’ll do my best to answer.

Like right now? I personally do not see anything that’s changed from after the Karo cluster. It’s one thing to think something is likely to happen, its quite another to know when. All you can do is check to see if there is significant qualitative or quantitative change in the situation. My take is that it is a slow progression which is not quantitatively big enough to raise my personal alert level, and there doesn’t seem to be any significant qualitative change either.

But I could be wrong….

Anon-22

I appreciate your response. Thanks!

KAro was a wake-up call, no doubt. There H5N1 showed us what it might do…..

However, I find the present ‘bubbling’ of various infections more disturbing still, as it emphasizes how endemic this virus in the Indonesian ecosystem, and what is going to happen if H5N1 can use this prolonged exposure to a numerous new host species to become SEH2H. My analogy is like the difference between seeing a rock fall onto the road in front of you, and looking upslope to see the entire slope start moving toward you.

My assessment is that the bubbling going on now will continue until H5N1 makes the needed adaptation, and then all of a sudden it won’t be bubbling any more. I expect we may have a day or two at the most if we’re lucky, but that more likely we will be sure that a pandemic has started when we see cases at the ER.

I dont think the mods will have to say anything about when it hits the fan.We will all see it.Things are slow now but we have the best in the world watching with both eyes.You would read it here with everyone else, before they would have to “change to red” or “spin the swan”.The season has just begun so to speak,and no one knows if pf51 will ever come to be.We are all watching and prepping and worrying and sweating it out.You will know when it happens and if by chance we get a little bit of advance warning,consider it luck.Being here now tells me luck is on our side.Besides,if it was anounced with big red letters,cnn would find out in about..hmm…ten minutes?

We will share what we know. We always do. But as is often the case on Flu Wiki, you will be telling us more than we will be telling you. it’s not a truism, it’s the Way Things Work.

The signal has not changed. We will post something on the main page:

All kidding aside, it is likely we would all learn something together. But we really would use the main page to post something everyone needs to know.

Toooooo cute! I love the picture.

http://flickr.com/photos/rioazul/sets/176451/

Here’s some great swan pics for your entertainment!

I skip the main page and start at the forum page. Can I request if we ever get to that DAY where something is posted on the main page it will also be on the Forum main page.

I hope not just a new topic that I will miss unless I read everthing.

what happened to the duck pic from Dem?

I did not know that it would be posted on the main page. I usually just go right to the forum main page.

Guess I better check the main page from now on.

anon_22 – at 04:29 --- Disney has that magic dust. LOL!! Meaybe they saw the pic and sprinkled some on their screens…making it disappear…

mountainlady - at 05:14 --- It’s a good idea to check the Main Wiki page now and again anyway. New stuff being added all the time…