wheresitmade.org

Posted: July 16th, 2007 | Author: raddevon | Filed under: Projects |

There’s one disclaimer before I post this information. This is a facet of my personality of which I’m not very fond. I don’t like starting things that I don’t finish, but I do it. I’ve always done it. This isn’t something I’m wearing like a badge.

One of my personal missions is to purchase responsibly in as many ways as I’m able. I hate consumer culture, but I can’t deny that I am a part of it. I try to minimize my damage by not purchasing from companies that have poor labor practices. I have found that information about the manufacturing of products is very difficult to come by. I often have to contact companies directly to find out where there products are made. I oftentimes get no response even then. I decided it would be nice to have a wiki which would catalog different products and where they are made as well as other information that may be of ethical concern to prospective consumers. I registered a domain name—wheresitmade.org (Feel free to check it out. You will be disappointed.)—and found a badass wiki-farm which would host the wiki for free. I started to work on the infrastructure. Things were going very smoothly. I wanted to make the site quick and easy for readers. I wanted users to go to a  product page wondering whether the product is produced ethically and get a “yes” or a “no.” I then realized that I would have to develop a standard for which practices were good and which were bad. That was problematic because I knew it would be controversial no matter the criteria. I then decided to take the democratic approach. I would let the community vote for a “good,” “bad,” or a “neutral” rating. That brought about new complications because the wiki has no way to facilitate this. I would have to code it myself and then embed it in the page with iframes. I need to find a free host who has PHP—free because I don’t want to charge for the site or have advertisements which would destroy its claims of neutrality. I found freehostia which appeared to have everything I needed. I now want to setup a newsletter so that people may sign up for an e-mail when the site launches. I find a script for the newsletter (Why reinvent the wheel?) and upload to my free host. I’m working with the configuration for a few minutes. Then, all the files I have uploaded are gone. I can no longer login to freehostia at all! Maybe it’s just a fluke. I try again but get the same result. That was about a week ago. I haven’t touched the thing since then.Now I have a new dilemma: was it better to scrap the whole idea than to just dispense with the newsletter and the voting features? I can’t do anything halfway. I would most often rather not do it. It’s a failing, I know.Maybe this idea will be resurrected. I find that the best ideas have a way of manifesting themselves again. I usually give them a little more attention the second time around. I don’t believe in fate as it is commonly understood, but I have enough belief in myself to make a better effort the second time around.

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