Raven CleanAir Map

and Social Media App
Orientation and Quick Start Guide

Welcome!  We look forward to working with you to improve the quality of online discourse and to make every indoor space as safe as possible from Covid-19 and all other airborne pathogens that threaten us.

Each of you, by volunteering to do this, is helping to save the health and lives of many people. Thank you for stepping forward at this crucial time.

Organization

Meetings/Orientation

We will have periodic Zoom meetings, announced in the Discord General channel. We will have periodic Twitter spaces as well, as time and pandemic conditions allow.

Communication

We will be using either Discord or Whatsapp, depending on what each member prefers.  

Discord Link

Whatsapp Link

Discord has a few advantages; you can join different groups or ‘servers’ as Discord likes to call them.  Each server can have multiple channels, which you can join and participate in.  There’s some other channels from on-going projects involving the Canadian group Masks4Canada on explaining Long Covid, and on the other parts of the Raven app which you are all welcome to join.

This is the way it looks on desktop and mobile apps, the left pane is all the different groups or ‘servers’ you’re in, the next pane is the various channels that you can join. Regional CO2 groups are where most of the action will be, but you’re welcome to join any of the groups.

Organization

We want this to be a fairly welcoming and open community. Our founding team was involved in the Canadian group Masks4Canada, which was run as a collaborative, mutual support group that pushed for common-sense protective measures during the pandemic. We were able to coordinate across a vast country, which helped to lead to one of the best records in preventing deaths in the developed world.  

We want to see many different teams sprout from this effort, working in your own way in your communities, creating positive change and improved safety everywhere

We outline these in our Code of Conduct for users of the app.

CleanAir Map

Plan

In your region, make a plan to tackle the biggest indoor public venues. Coordinate and divide it up with your colleagues that you’ll meet on Discord and Whatsapp. These areas can include

Shopping malls

Grocery Stores

Restaurants

Public buildings - City Centers, Passport offices

Gyms

Schools

Social Media

We want to encourage businesses and corporations to do better when it comes to indoor air quality.

Post your readings on your social media.  We recommend taking the Raven account @theRavenApp and using the hashtag #covidCO2 or #CO2Warriors.

This is a great example from @ladyscorcher of positive reinforcement on social media.

CO2 Monitors
These can be purchased directly from the manufacturer or from Amazon or other retailers. Aranet is likely the gold standard, but can be expensive ($400).  Cheaper options include TheatreCaps and Inkbird.

What do CO2 levels mean?

CO2 levels are a proxy for the freshness of the air in an indoor space. The more people in a room, the more CO2 they generate by breathing out. An indoor space has good ventilation if the heating/air conditioner (HVAC) system removes that air and replaces it with fresh air.  CO2 levels close to 415 ppm (parts per million), which is the concentration in outdoor air, means the air is close to outside, fresh air.

What Can I Do To Improve Ventilation?

These are a bunch of tweet threads from HVAC engineer Joey Fox on actionable things you can do at home, your school, or in the office.  You can open windows, add filters to your HVAC system, have the system running at a higher level, or you can add HEPA filters.  HEPA (High Efficiency Particulate Air) filters can remove infectious particles from the air in rooms where you can’t improve with outdoor ventilation, but you need to get the right amount with the right flow rate.  This guide can help you do that.

Using the CleanAir Map

The Clean Air map is a webapp, which means it runs in a web browser, and can be accessed at ravenapp.org/cleanair.  We are making continuous improvements, and so if a feature isn’t working, please let us know via email (admins@ravenapp.org) or contact us on Discord.

We will aim to have this in the Android and iOS app stores shortly.

1. Create an Account

To speed up development, we used common elements with Raven, an app that was planned to fight fake news and take on Twitter, Google News and Apple News.  Yes, ambitious, I know. We’ll eventually separate the two apps. You’ll first need to create an account on Raven.   You can add details on your profile page, or leave it anonymous.

2. Navigate to the app.  

You can access it directly at https://www.ravenapp.org/cleanair  or by pressing this ‘Map’ icon from the main Raven app.  You can add the site to your smartphone home screen to load it faster:

3. Creating a CO2 reading on a location
   

Press, or search for, a location on the map

This screen will pop up, where you can add details on the ventilation in that space:

You can also add the category, and details like which detector you used, and what percentage of patrons were wearing masks in the free-text ‘Description’ area.  

4. Viewing
   You can select a location to view readings taken by other users, and add a new one of your own with the plus icon on the bottom right:

5. Moderation

You can act as a moderator of a single location, or a specific region.  In many cases that will be a city or metro area, or a province, state, prefecture or department, depending on your country.  The delineation is arbitrary and based on the API provided by Mapbox.  

The role of moderator is to

• Remove obvious spam posts (one of the dangers of having something open to the public)
• Remove abusive, hateful or untruthful posts or comments

How to Become a Moderator

To apply to be a moderator, click on the chevron underneath the share icon on the top right of any location card in a region and press ‘Apply to Moderate’.  If there’s no location in that region, you have to create one, and if the region does not have a moderator already, you will be the first and can approve other mods to join your team.

Moderator Actions

A) Editing and Deleting locations - these options will be available to any location that you’re a moderator of, or any location in a specific region you’re a moderator of.

B) Moderating readings and posts - you’ll have the ability to promote active users to join your moderation team, edit posts, and also to ban users who post spam or abusive content.

C) More moderator actions will be added as we grow the app and its functions

6. Reporting Bugs

Use this document to report any bugs.  Try to include screenshots.  If you can’t access it, request editing access.

7. Logging  your work with SciStarter

We are pleased to be collaborating with the amazingly pioneering SciStarter Community and we will soon have built-in functionality for you to log CO2 readings.  This will be logged via the SciStarter API to your profile so you can receive the appropriate credit.

To opt-in to having your results logged, create your Raven account using the same email that you use for your SciStarter account.  Your SciStarter password will not work on Raven, since you are creating a new account with us, but your email address will allow us to connect with your profile at SciStarter.  

Next, navigate to your profile page, using the top right icon.  It’s not mandatory to create a username or add a picture, but it sometimes helps.  Scroll down to the bottom to find the ‘Join a Project’ field.  Enter ‘scistarter’ in lowercase letters, without the quotes..  You’ll be asked to join SciStarter.  Once you press ‘yes’ we assume that we have your consent, and made the appropriate agreements with SciStarter on sharing your readings with them.

Once it says (Active), that means you’ve enabled logging and sharing with SciStarter.  You can remove yourself from SciStarter by pressing on the SciStarter icon again, and you’ll be asked if you want to Quit.  This will cease data-sharing and adding readings to your profile.

8. ASU Library Kit Project

We welcome those who are joining through the pioneering Arizona State University Library Kit project.  You’ll be using kits from your public library to log results around your communities, and making them much safer for everyone.

To allow your anonymized readings to be collected by researchers, you’ll need to add the Library Kit project to your Raven Profile page.  You’ll need to create an account first, which you can do through Apple, Google, SMS or by email.

Navigate to your profile page, using the top right icon.  It’s not mandatory to create a username or add a picture, but it sometimes helps.  Scroll down to the bottom to find the ‘Join a Project’ field.  Enter ‘librarykit’ in lowercase letters, without the quotes. You’ll be asked to join the Library Kit project.  Once you press ‘yes’ we assume that we have your consent, and made the appropriate agreements on sharing your readings with the Library Kit project.

To stop sharing your data with the Library Kit project, you’ll need to press the Library Kit icon, and you’ll be asked if you want to disconnect your account with them.

9. Suggesting New Features

We have a public roadmap of features.   Let us know on the Discord forums about new features to add.  We have one overworked developer who will try to make it happen!

Using the Social Media App

Raven was originally designed as an app to help find quality news and social media sources online.  Those features can be accessed with the same account you use for logging and viewing CO2 map results.  

A tutorial on the basic mechanics of the social media app can be accessed by pressing on the (?) icon on the top right of the home screen.

1. Finding and adding feeds

Navigate to the Discover button, and you’ll see a number of categories.  Open any of them up to find and add feeds to your home page.  Everyone is subscribed to the first 5 feeds by default, and you can unsubscribe to them as well.

2. Creating Feeds

This feature is still in beta, but you can paste links from Twitter, Youtube, Podcasts, Reddit, RSS feeds and other sources to create a custom feed of your own.

Private feeds no one else can see except you and friends you invite into the feed.  Public feeds need approval from moderators to be seen by the public.