Want to help us spread the word about Herdict?  We’re looking for a few good volunteers to become country leaders, especially for the following locales: Syria, China, Iran, Australia, Morocco, Turkey, Vietnam, Burma, Tunisia, UAE.

Being a Herdict Country Leader requires an interest in Internet filtering (censorship), experience using social media, and a desire to create a strong network of Herdict users in your country or community.

Responsibilities:

• Curating the Herdict testing queue for your country on a weekly to bi-monthly basis with sites that may be filtered or controversial in your country.
• Using Twitter, Facebook, and other social media sites to reach potential Herdict users, preferably in your country’s native language(s) and in English.
• Blogging for the Herdict.org blog, including, potentially, translation of existing Herdict blog posts.
• Promoting Herdict at conferences (we’ll provide you with a packet) and other events that you’re attending.

What you’ll get:

Although we can’t offer compensation, we will provide you with your very own Herdict t-shirt and a bundle of Herdict stickers to share.  You will also get your name on the Herdict.org site (if you want), and any other Herdict swag that we produce in the future.

Interested?  Send a brief e-mail to contact@herdict.org telling us why you’d make a great Country Leader.  Please include links to where you reside on the Web (Twitter, blog, etc).

Herdict Web has been named a finalist in the We Media Game Changers Awards.  The Game Changers Award recognizes:

People, projects, ideas and organizations leading change and inspiring a better world through media.

You can help Herdict go from being a Finalist to the Winner by voting at:  http://wemedia.com/awards/2010-community… The ballot is in the right hand column.

Go to Tools>Add ons.

In the extensions tab, right click on the Herdict add-on.

Select Find Update.

Install.

If you don’t currently have the Herdict add-on installed, you can get it here.  The add-on allows you to report sites directly from your browser (without going to herdict.org).  The sheep icon also changes color depending on the site you’re on, so you can get a sense of if the site you’re viewing is inaccessible to other people in the herd.

Our hope is by adding additional languages, we’ll continue to expand the herd.  And, since Herdict relies on you, the herd, to get the upto the moment information on internet filtering, the bigger the herd, the better the data.

Have ideas on what other languages we should add?  What about other new features?  Get involved with Herdict’s growth.

Finally, Shep would like to thank every one who’s helped make this milestone happen: the developers, the translators, the testers, the outreach coordinator and all the Berk friends who have provided guidance and feedback.  There’s a lot of work that goes into a new language, let alone two, so cheers!

Since we’ve launched we’ve added a great number of features – from our alerts system to the browser add-ons to the discussion board and many languages of Herdict (Chinese, Arabic, and soon Russian and Persian), we’re growing so fast we’re going to need bigger pastures soon!

That’s where you, our users, come in…We want to know what you think of Herdict: What works? What doesn’t work? What features would you like to see? We’re full of ideas, but we know that Herdict is powered by the herd, and we want to hear from you.

There are two ways to get involved: One is to simply comment, e-mail, or join the discussion. The other will take up a bit more time: We’re forming a Herdict Council, of dedicated Herdict users who would like to be more involved…and there’s definitely Herdict goodies for the Council! If you’d like to join the Council, let us know at  contact at herdict.org.

The latest spate of inaccessible reports have been confirmed by the owners of some of the Twitter accounts, who say that their Twitter pages are no longer accessible in their own countries:

Although twitter.com has since been reported accessible (by the user) in Bahrain, one thing is clear: the governments of Tunisia and Bahrain have now demonstrated capability to block individual Twitter pages, thus silencing certain voices while still keeping a major communication platform open. Only time will tell if this is to become a trend globally.

Clockwise from top left: Global Voices Advocacy Director Sami Ben Gharbia, Egyptian blogger and activist Alaa Abd el Fattah, Moroccan blogger and Talk Morocco co-founder Hisham Khribchi , and Bahraini blogger Ali Abdulemam.

To our new fans, our mascot, Shep, says “shukran” (thank you)!

According to a recent article in The Moscow Times, Russian ISP Yota, which is co-owned by Russian Technologies, admitted to blocking some web sites, <strike>including Garry Kasparov’s Kasparov.ru, Solidarity’s Rusolidarnost.ru and the banned National Bolshevik Party’s Nazbol.ru</strike> over the past few weeks.

Kasparov.ru was reported as inaccessible to Herdict twice on December 3, while Rusolidarnost.ru and Nazbol.ru were each reported once.

Are you in Russia?  Help us find out if the sites are really inaccessible.  Go to Herdict.org/web/participate and click “Test these sites” – you will be sent directly to a queue which includes them, as well as other potentially filtered sites.

Questions?  Comments?  Chat us up on Twitter or e-mail  contact at herdict.org

Herdict Commons aims to serve as a haven for discussions that go beyond the comments section of the Herdict Reporter; as a place to answer the “what” and “why” of an inaccessible report.

Take www.maktoobblogs.com, a blogging platform, for instance.  The site has been reported inaccessible in Saudi Arabia a number of times, but almost none of the reports have comments attached, and nobody knows why the site is blocked.  Or maybe non-Arabic speakers don’t know what the site is.

Enter Herdict’s Discussion Board…From the Herdict report, you can click a link to be directed straight to existing reports on the subject (or if there are none, a new report opens up for you):

Once you’ve arrived at the Board, you can make a report, like the one shown below.  Reports and tags can be added in any language.

Other users can add comments and replies to the original post.  For example, users can translate comments if they have the skills!

We think the Herdict Discussion board can be useful for all kinds of folks – activists might use it to find out more about Herdict Reports they see, and Herdict users around the globe might use it to discuss their experiences with filtering.  Anything goes!

Heifer International allows you to supply a sheep for wool to a family in need

The Herdict Team chose to contribute a sheep, via Heifer International, to a family in need. As the Heifer International web site states, “Entire communities depend on wool and meat from sheep. Struggling families use sheep’s wool to make clothes, or sell it for extra income. Sheep often give birth to twins or triplets and can graze even the hilliest, rockiest pastures unsuitable for other livestock.”

We’re pretty sure our own mascot, Shep, would approve!