Meeting on 15 April 2025

Transcript

[Paul] Okay, so, what's the first thing?

Commercial listings?

[Speaker 2] Yeah, I think, as I was sort of doing them, when I put the word out to various people saying they were English speaking medical people, practitioners, and got quite a lot of doctors and stuff, but then I got quite a lot of responses, you know, I'm a health person, or I have a gym, I have this, I have that, and it's like, great. And then I thought, well, do we, how far in that commercial space do we go? Because obviously most of it is private, unless you have to do public services.

[Speaker 1] I feel like it's so fraught, like it's, and part of what I, what came to mind for me and why I think I asked you about this was, I was chatting with Ruth, who's, I guess, really good friends with Marilyn at the Business Expo, and she was asking me about, like we were talking about, like if you have, because I guess what one of the things Marilyn does is help parents kind of navigate the process of school for their kids.

So how does that fit in? How does kind of, she, like, is this, she has this service where she does that, but I also imagine that one of the things that on, within the Guide to Jerona, that would be reasonably well covered, because it's something that if you're a parent, you have to navigate, is that, is enough information for somebody to understand how that works?

[Speaker 2] Without the Guide.

[Speaker 1] Without having to pay somebody, but then it made me think, like the fact that Ruth was sort of, because what she was asking me was, well, where does that, where does the Guide end, and like is there some opportunity for somebody that provides a service? I think there is, because I would imagine Marilyn must do more than just give you something you could find on the internet. I mean, I would imagine she's like helping, like providing like a, yeah.

So I think that there's room for both, but maybe it's going to be different for everything. I mean, that's one for navigating schools. There's some that just lend themselves a little bit more to kind of people that have commercial intent versus just information about doing your empadrimento.

Like that's, there's not really a commercial angle there. It's just some like life administration that you have to do, but yeah.

[Speaker 2] But even with that, there is going to be a lot of law firms that will do it for you and charge you for it.

[Speaker 1] But I guess part of what I was, I guess one of my concerns is if everything in this is totally, fully open, how do, and there's going to be effectively commercial opportunities, how do we keep it from turning into something that's less useful because it's one big advertisement for somebody's services, which could be quite helpful, but we don't know. Because I guess I sort of envisioned this, I mean, I've now been part of the Facebook. There's like an expat, Gerona Facebook group that I started, I joined, I guess around the time I started.

And I don't regularly kind of follow it, but occasionally I'll see posts. And it's funny because the same questions come up all the time. And I'm like, wow, if there was one place where people could find the answer to this and it was well presented, it would just save people, I guess, asking the question or other people answering the question.

But there's this basic set of information that as you're settling here, you need. And I guess that's what I thought, well, if the guide starts with that, and we can always add these other things and kind of expand it, but could it be something that we would all feel comfortable, all those questions that come up if you're a newcomer, or you're yet to move here and you're trying to figure out all the things you're going to need to do, that there's this one place that answers maybe not 100% of the questions, but 80% of the questions.

[Speaker 2] That's what the Age in Spain website does.

[Speaker 1] Yeah.

[Speaker 2] Does a really good job of that.

[Speaker 1] But I wonder if we, and I also wonder, is there a way to partner with, because I actually went and looked and found some things on their website related to questions about residency that was super helpful to understand the requirements of being in Spain once you have certain kinds of residency or a visa to be here, like a non-limited visa. Because that's the other, we don't have to solve 100% of this, because I think that's the other thing the guide can do, is direct somebody to another source that's a definitive source on the topic. So I just, there's a whole bunch of ideas in there, but the commercial part of this I feel like is...

[Paul] A big problem.

[Speaker 1] I feel like it's a big, it starts to get messy really quickly. I think the doctor thing is actually really, because people feel so nervous, myself included, about going to a doctor where English is just not a possibility. Like I can try to navigate most of it in Catalan, but wow, because it can get technical and...

[Speaker 2] And you're scared.

[Speaker 1] I think people have a certain amount of anxiety about that, so that one feels...

[Speaker 2] That one felt fairly clean.

[Speaker 1] Clean, but then when you get into things like people asking if they can be a part of it, I'm just not sure how to handle that. Because to me also there's something implicit, depending on how we source these, the fact that it's in there should mean that people have had a good... Effectively the community is sort of vouching for, or...

And we can't, we're not obviously going out and testing all these doctors to make sure, but there is some... I would interpret it, unless we put some disclaimer that in fact this is just whoever... Like there's no...

What? No... It's not an endorsement, it's not...

[Speaker 2] I put that on the medical one. I said something like these come from... Something like from recommendations from people in Girona bodies, but it's not an endorsement.

[Speaker 1] Yes, that's perfect. But I do think that that's reasonable, because I know myself, there have been times when I'm like, oh I need a dermatologist. I would actually go to the Facebook group and I thought, there's no way that this question hasn't been asked.

I would do a search in that group, find all the times in the past three to four years where somebody's asked the exact same question and see who was mentioned, because I just couldn't bring myself to be... I'm like, I'm not going to ask these people again the same question, because the information's all there. It's actually this really great repository, but I was like, but I had to do this extra step because it's not organised, and I do a search and I find the questions where it was asked, and I read and I'm like, oh look, the same doctors mentioned there a couple times.

But if Girona bodies could do that where it's recommendations, but we're not endorsing, so it's like this threading the needle of...

[Paul] The way the website is made, it makes it really tricky, because anyone can edit it, because you can't just make a list of recommendations.

[Speaker 1] But is there a way to lock any of the pages to have them not be changeable?

[Paul] Yeah, I think so. It's all new to me, but I think there is.

[Speaker 1] Because it feels like some of these... Do we want people to be constantly editing them, or is it something where... For some of these, if there's one, two, three people that sort of partner to populate them, and then they're sort of finished, but then they get updated, and different ones are going to need updated with different frequency.

Maybe something only needs updated, like the one about rubbish probably could have been unchanged, and then suddenly it needs totally changed. The doctors one, I don't know. How often do we want to update that?

And that's one where I wouldn't want just anybody to be able to go, because somebody goes and puts their own name. I'm just nervous about some of these categories.

[Speaker 2] I felt nervous about it with the mental health one. I went and looked for some psychologists, and I did it through connections that I had. But then several people came who were like, well, I'm a life coach, I'm a coach of this.

It's part of my own snobbery about coaching, because I'm a shrink, but there's a bit of that. But there was a bit of like, they were so eager to be in it, and it made me think, okay, why would I promote you rather than you, versus at least the ones that I put in, I had triangulated.

[Speaker 1] Yes, exactly.

[Speaker 2] In some kind of way. And I just wasn't quite sure what to do with it. It's sort of like you're so sat there.

Yeah.

[Paul] It sounds pretty serious, actually. Because if someone's looking for help for their mental health, and they come across the page, and they find someone who's put there that they're a life coach, and they end up calling the number and making an appointment, but it turns out to be someone who's doing it as kind of a scam.

[Speaker 2] Exactly. Or even if it's a scam, most of them aren't licenced, and don't have insurance, and there's a whole bunch of stuff that I don't understand. They're not doctors.

[Speaker 1] They're not health professionals.

[Speaker 2] So that sort of stuff gets me nervous. Yeah. But I'm quite a stickler in that.

I'm kind of on the strong side of that, and other people are more loosey-goosey about it. Yeah.

[Paul] It could become a page for adverts, people putting their own services on there, and they're not doing it to help people. No, they're doing it to make money.

[Speaker 2] That's the problem. And basically, if the guide is successful and takes off, it would be very attractive for you to promote your stuff on.

[Paul] Yeah. Maybe that's why this type of guide doesn't exist in forever cities, because I haven't found one.

[Speaker 2] No.

[Paul] I thought it would be a really nice idea. I think it's a great idea. I'm all into it.

Yeah. Well, that's one of the problems, people putting their own phone numbers and addresses for their own businesses.

[Speaker 2] Maybe we should look at the chapters and whittle them down a little bit. There may be some that pull more for people who are self-made. Like, for example, if you had a thing on buying and renting houses, then there's a certain set of information that you can put up there, and then there could be 55,000 realtors.

And do you really want those? Yeah. Or do you not?

Or do you want realtors who speak English? Maybe you do.

[Paul] Maybe it would be good to have a list of 5,000 realtors.

[Speaker 2] Yeah, or maybe it is good to have them all.

[Paul] Yeah. Same with life coaches. It might be useful to have a big long list of life coaches.

Somebody might find it useful. Yeah, there's nothing wrong with life coaches. As long as it's kept accurate and nobody tries to mislead it.

[Speaker 1] But I feel like part of what I was looking for in somebody seeking out a location was the recommendation aspect of it. I didn't necessarily, because I thought I could actually, if I spent the time, I could go, and I could get a list of every dermatologist in Girona. But I don't want every list, every dermatologist.

I want somebody to say, Oh, I saw Dr. So-and-so, and they were great, and they helped me. So I guess I feel like there is this role, and I'm not sure how to kind of facilitate it. Although it sounds like, Tessie, you were sort of doing it anyway because you wanted to be confident in who you listed, that you had kind of a, even if it was like a loose methodology of kind of triangulating, do I feel comfortable putting this person's name on the list?

[Speaker 2] On the medical one, what I did is I put out to those groups, have you always got somebody who they recommend?

[Speaker 1] Yeah.

[Speaker 2] And so that sort of at least gave it, and the response tends to be, I saw So-and-so, and it was really, really great. And so that made life easy kind of thing. Of course, not one person is good for one person, it's not for the other, but they did come endorsed in that way, at least by somebody.

[Paul] What happens when people start adding their own recommendations?

[Speaker 2] Well, that's where I think it's more tricky.

[Paul] How do Wikipedia deal with that, I wonder? Because with Wikipedia, anybody can add anything at any time.

[Speaker 2] You can't completely, can you? To be a person on Wikipedia, you have to meet certain criteria. If you have a wiki page about yourself.

[Paul] But if you want to edit the page about Gerona on Wikipedia, you could go on there and start listing false facts.

[Speaker 1] Some of the pages on Wikipedia, I think, are locked. That you can't, on certain sensitive topics.

[Paul] You need references as well, too? Like, for a doctor who speaks English, there could be a reference to his website, that I wouldn't prove that he speaks English, but he could prove that he does exist in Gerona. I was thinking as well, we could have quotes from actual people, from Gerona buddies, saying that they really liked something, and then put their name, and that would be a way to...

A doctor or something like that. To show that they're actual, real people. I'd have to get permission from every person who would do that for you.

[Speaker 1] Because I actually feel like that's... I think people want a curated list, where it's not everybody. It's somebody that they can relate to, is recommending this person.

I think there's huge value in that. Part of what you want is... For everything, right?

Recommend a plumber. Can you recommend a handyman? Can you recommend a doctor?

Can you recommend a lawyer to help with a real estate transaction? But it starts... I think it's going to be tricky, because how do we...

[Speaker 2] Maybe the answer is that on the services ones, at least, we only include people that somebody has recommended. So people can't put themselves in.

[Speaker 1] Yeah.

[Speaker 2] I don't know how to do that technically.

[Speaker 1] Yeah. I feel like we have to, or it's going to be less valuable, and we won't be able to say with certainty. Because I think if we leave it where somebody has to have recommended it, and we're not...

These aren't endorsements. We're not endorsing them, but we can say that somebody in the group has recommended them. I think that counts for something.

[Speaker 2] It does get away from... And maybe we kind of put it as a rule that you can't self-promote.

[Paul] It would be tricky to find out if somebody is actually promoting a business that they have nothing to do with, or if they're actually promoting a friend's business, or maybe it's the brother of the owner of the business who's promoting it. I like the way that anybody can edit anything at any time, because it's completely open, and it encourages people to add things. But if it was locked, and if only one of us could add things...

It would be a huge amount of work. It would be work, and also it would discourage people from adding things to it.

[Speaker 1] But I think it's like certain pages need to be locked, and certain ones it's okay for people. I really think we're asking for huge trouble if we have a page about doctors that anybody can add anything to. I think it's super risky, and I think it becomes less...

The trade-off of letting anybody add anything means it's actually less valuable, and kind of nobody can really trust it. It ceases to be any kind of vetted recommendation. I don't know.

It makes me... Because I guess now, today, the example I just described of me going and looking for dermatologists, but looking within all those comments, I could see places where, oh wait, multiple people are saying they go to Dr. Smith. This isn't somebody just...

Their nephew is plugging Dr. Smith. I can triangulate, and I see he shows up three times over this 18-month period.

[Paul] That makes it more trustworthy.

[Speaker 1] It makes it more trustworthy. Recommended.

[Paul] Yeah.

[Speaker 1] And it was easy. That is easy for me to do, and it gave me more confidence in choosing to go see Dr. Smith. But I think these are the sort of things when we get into...

When we start to butt up against places where there's a commercial interest versus just some of this other kind of how do you navigate getting set up in the city. But it's interesting that even for doctors, you found there are people that have... Of course, there's people that have a commercial interest that are kind of adjacent to what you were focused on that want to be part of it.

[Paul] I think it would be good to see if there are any other wikis for cities and see how they're doing things.

[Speaker 1] Yeah.

[Paul] Because I don't think this could be the only wiki.

[Speaker 1] Maybe Mary, when she gets back... Because she was talking in the brainstorming about when she moved to Hong Kong. That was my big...

Because that was at a time when it was actually a book, like a booklet. But I wonder how if she has any she could shed light on. Because there must have been the same thing that somebody moving to Hong Kong is going to want a doctor that is used to seeing expats.

But how did they... Does she know anything about how the doctors in there... Or did they just steer clear of anything that got started to get butt up against something where there could be commercial concerns or ethical concerns or risk, if you were recommending or being seen to put...

Include this one, but don't include this one.

[Speaker 2] In the States, in the ageing stuff, there's this whole movement. They call them villages, which is where basically neighbourhood groups of older people pool, share information and volunteer amongst each other so people can stay at home and not go into a residential care facility. And started in Boston, and then it's grown.

There's hundreds and hundreds in the United States. And they have kind of like approved providers, like Plumber, who will show up or if there's a lot of fear about elder abuse for that kind of stuff. It'd be worth having a look.

I could have a look at their... If there's some methods that they've been using to see if there's something like that.

[Paul] Maybe on the guide to Geronimo there could be a little thing if someone's been approved by Geronimo Buddies as a recommended service, then it gets a tiny...

[Speaker 2] It gets higher up on the list.

[Paul] Yeah, or something to say that this has been recommended. And that the other things that have been added might not be. I don't know if that is possible, though, if we were a wiki that could be edited by anyone, because anybody could add their own.

Add that to themselves. Yeah, I'm just thinking about all the ethical concerns now, about having a list of doctors in Geronimo that anyone could add to. There is some ethical issues with that.

Anybody could add their own house and phone number and say, I'm a doctor.

[Speaker 1] But to play devil's advocate on the... Do you feel strongly that it has to be the case that anybody can add to these pages? Versus...

Because I guess, in this full disclosure, it comes from working where... Working in content businesses where there's value in having information presented where somebody has spent time doing the research and putting it together, and it's well formatted, and it's complete. And even if there's then somebody editing that on top of the person that created it, and maybe it goes through two rounds of editing, but that there's a quality to that that at least could, maybe, that kind of quality and care of producing it might trump the ability for anybody to make changes to it.

Especially if we recruited the people to initially put this together and had that be a really broad group because you don't have one person doing everything. I mean, there's so many pages. And that we get volunteers to...

Tessa did doctors. Or maybe there's other people that somebody could partner with you to do that. And that we say, this would get...

That we would re-look at this twice a year or every... I mean, because the doctor thing isn't... It's not going to be dynamic enough.

And I would imagine most of this isn't going to change so frequently that you would want it to be a lot of changes being made to it.

[Speaker 2] Maybe you could have a thing where if people... I don't know how to do this, but... Let's use the doctor one, for example.

That when... Before posting it, that they... That maybe you have people who are responsible for certain pages or groups of people responsible for certain pages and then that person says, OK, I'm a new doctor.

I've just moved to Jordan. I speak English and I do all this other stuff. That they get put in contact with that group before it gets put in.

That there's some kind of...

[Speaker 1] It just feels like the risk of bad information in this is... It kind of defeats the purpose of it. If there's some chance that bad information...

Because then people are making decisions based on bad information. Or somebody acting not in the best interest of the community but in their own best interest.

[Paul] Is this just talking about the health pages?

[Speaker 1] Well, the health pages, the risk seems...

[Paul] Seems the highest.

[Speaker 1] The highest, but... And maybe other pages. And that's why I sort of...

I haven't gone through the list and thought about... I almost envision this matrix where it's like, OK, do we think that the volume of changes, is it going to be frequent or not frequent? And then the risk is either high or low.

Because for some things, the risk of something... Being wrong isn't very great. And there's going to be less...

Maybe there's less motivation or less reason that somebody would want to include something wrong. But, yeah. I mean, I guess that's sort of...

I guess when it's happening dynamically within... For instance, the Facebook group I'm talking about where somebody asked the question, and then there's comment, comment. And it kind of self-corrects a little bit.

Within that. But I guess I just worry if it's a page and anybody can make changes to it at any time without any... I don't know.

Anybody checking that it's OK. It just... It feels a little risky.

And I agree that the doctors are maybe like... Maybe an extreme example. And on other topics, it will be less risky.

[Speaker 2] I wonder if it would be worth thinking about the pages. Instead of starting with a huge amount of pages that we've got, that we think about what are the key things when people first move and start there.

[Speaker 1] Almost do a minimally... What's the minimally viable product? Yeah.

What could we have on here that would be...

[Speaker 2] People always want to know about driving licences. People always want to know about registering. People want doctors.

People want to figure out getting around. Those kinds of... Transportation.

[Speaker 1] Yeah.

[Speaker 2] And maybe from that, we've built the pages.

[Speaker 1] Yeah.

[Speaker 2] And you could have that, and you could have social stuff. And that wouldn't... These are the clubs or whatever.

Those, by definition, are commercial, and so that doesn't matter. Yeah. But you know what I mean?

Maybe we kind of pulled it back a little bit. Because it's going to take a lot of work to put much of value into those pages. And although I like the idea that everybody's going to participate, it's a bit like in...

You're going to have 650 people, of which a few amount of people do quite a lot of work, and a lot of people don't. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's just the nature of community groups.

Yeah. And maybe kind of thinking about what are those initial or those key things where people... What are the hiccups, the bumps in the road?

[Speaker 1] And maybe from that we've built the pages, and you could have that, and you could have some social stuff, and that wouldn't, you know, these are the clubs or whatever, those by definition are commercial, and so that doesn't matter, but you know what I mean, maybe we kind of pulled it back a little bit, because it's going to take a lot of work to put much of value into those pages, and although I like the idea that everybody's going to participate, it's a bit like in Two Under Buddies, you're going to have 650 people, of which a few amount of people do quite a lot of work, but a lot of people don't, and there's nothing wrong with that, it's just the nature of community groups, and maybe kind of thinking about what are those initial, or those key things, where people, what are they, what are the hiccups, the bumps in the road?

[Paul] I notice that we don't have a page about how to get the NIE, or the other important documents, how to open a bank account, you know, those pages would be most important, how to do basic things as a foreigner, we don't have those yet, and it's because I think finding that information is hard, it'd be so nice to have that information, how to get the, it's a document where you have to go to prove your address, how to get that, and it could be

[Speaker 1] photos, this is the place, this is where you get the ticket, imagine all the people that could be helped by, like, just even, you're right, like, this, the task that everybody has to do when they get here, and something that kind of walks them through that process in a really clear way.

[Paul] That's it, that's the idea, I would start from the airport as my idea, you know, how to get from the airport to Israel, like, not as a joke, but I genuinely, No, no, no, I think it's a good idea. Yeah, absolutely, you're arriving. Yeah, you've arrived, it is, because you can arrive from two airports, Barcelona or Girona, and arriving from Girona is hard enough, because you can get in a taxi, but then there's buses, and the buses are way cheaper, but, you know, how do you know what time the bus is coming, but you arrive at Barcelona, and it's so hard to get to Girona, and I had to make a guide for my brother, who was coming from Barcelona airport, and I had to include photos of what to look for, which train to get on, and all that stuff, I had to make just for him, and not only he has that, but it's a good share of everyone, and that would help people, and so that would be really helpful.

[Speaker 1] And I think there are, like, I keep going to Asia and Spain, just because I think they've done a good website on a lot of that kind of stuff, that we can pick and we can follow stuff. So here's the other thing, like, is there, yeah, well, the funny thing is, I did a little bit of searching, and there's not, I mean, I found one that seemed like it was attached to something that was a little bit more tourist-focused, but it was, it had some of getting settled, like, some of the kinds of things, but it didn't feel, it certainly wasn't complete, it was only scratching the surface. But Asia and Spain, like, I'm wondering if there's some way to collaborate on, like, at least if there's some parts of the content, because, like, I mentioned, like, I was doing some research around for different types of, like, depending on, like, are you, do you have a temporary residency permit, like, kind of, and what the requirements are in terms of how much time you spend in Spain.

And I thought, this doesn't change that much, and if they've already done it, like, would we, in some places, choose to link to that, include it in kind of the hierarchy of, but then if somebody else has already mapped it out, and we're really comfortable and think it's complete and accurate, pointing people to that doesn't seem like a bad way to go. And also, one of the things that we could do that would actually differentiate it is that theirs is, it's kind of a national thing, so the starting piece, it could be, so we could say, for example, take this up on how to do the impedimento, but then the Geronimo, there's the address, and a picture, so then you actually take that more global information and make it local, and that way we could, so we haven't got to do the whole big thing, but we could do the, so I think the local piece is also, I know when I went to get mine, I walked about five different offices, you know, and they'd say, go down here, no, go down here, and it was like, what the fuck?

[Paul] Getting the NIE was always really, really hard for people, and I don't know the process now, but it took me months, and I had to, I didn't know which place to go to exactly, and I was worried about getting there, because it was in a police station, and the police only spoke Spanish as well, and all that would have been nice to have known beforehand, and getting a driver's licence as well,

[Speaker 1] and then you could have on the driving licence, for example, how to get the driver's licence, and then if that, I mean, the question people often ask is, is there anybody who's a driving instructor who speaks English?

[Paul] Yeah, and actually I don't know anybody, but nobody knows anyone, but well, there might be a driving instructor, but you can't take the exam in English, which is a problem, and that is a big hurdle for people, so maybe there's a solution to that.

[Speaker 1] Well, my friend and I did that, Doris and Zell, because Zell didn't speak any Spanish or Catalan, and they let Doris sit in the back of the car and translate, because her wife is Spanish-speaking, and the examiner was perfectly fine with that.

[Paul] Oh, right, that's the solution. I think they might have done her exam in English.

[Speaker 1] I think she had an instructor that was an English speaker. They're quite happy to have Doris translating. It's quite funny, because Doris is very bossy over Zell, so it was like, to the left!

[Paul] That information is actually really useful to a lot of people, because I've noticed one girl who just cannot get a driving licence, because she can't speak Spanish or Catalan well enough to do the driving. So she's posted a couple of times over the past year, asking if anyone knows anything about her. So that piece of information is really useful for them, and you put that on the guide to Girona, with a bunch of other useful information, and it becomes a really rich source of useful stuff.

[Speaker 1] So maybe we start and we say, what's the minimally viable thing to make this a guide that would be helpful? And then the other things can either go as a stage two, or somehow come up with a prioritisation of the order in which we do these. I think you're right, if we can get started with something small that feels manageable and that's well done, and can add to it from there, so it doesn't feel so overwhelming.

[Paul] Does it look overwhelming when you go to the page, when you see all these pages?

[Speaker 1] No, because I think eventually it will have all that. I think it's slightly daunting, because I think to do these well, to do these really well to start with, does involve recruiting people. I think it would be a mistake to just sort of throw open the door and like, hey everybody, come and fill this out.

I mean, I know that that's like how many other things are done, which I think is totally appropriate, but I think for some of these things, I think it's actually better to have a few people tasked with at least taking a stab at putting the information in to start with, and if people then help flesh it out. But I think to start with a blank slate, and throw the door open, and let everybody come in, I just question like, will we really? There'll be a lot of cleanup to do, I think.

I mean, that's just my gut. We can try it though. I mean, I guess there's no harm in sort of, for some topics, trying it.

The risk is also that we get bad information, and what do you do with it?

[Paul] Someone has to check if the information is correct or not.

[Speaker 1] Yeah, that's a big job.

[Paul] It's a big job. Yeah, when I started it, I thought maybe I'll be the one doing 90% of the putting things on. It's not that hard, really, with Chachi Boutique, because I made a page about bins.

Right, on a Saturday, maybe Monday, it took me an hour, using information from the Catalan website, and then a photo I took of the information about bins that I saw that day, and then I just asked Chachi Boutique to translate it into English and make a summary. It wasn't that good, really, but then I just edited that until it became something pretty useful, because now there's a page about bins that tells you what to do if you don't have your card, if you don't have a card yet, what's the thing if you lose your card?

[Speaker 2] Like your Nia?

[Paul] No, because you have to use the bins, you need a card.

[Speaker 1] You don't have the Porta a Porta, and you have to use those.

[Paul] They've been changing the bin system over the past year, and now it's gradually taking over. There's a bin system where you can't just open the bins anymore, you need to type your card, but it has to be at the same time.

[Speaker 1] We've got our cards, so I'm like... I was like, which card are you losing? What's happened?

Maybe it would be an idea to go through, look at the chapters, or maybe think of the guide from a different country, what's the key information, what are roadblocks, and also what are things that we can populate relatively easily, so to speak, and then see how that plays out. And take it from national sites and then localise it.

[Paul] I'd like to keep it as open as possible as well, because I think that when things are closed, they have a lot of energy and excitement at first, by people who want to volunteer to do it, but then over time it will peter off that energy. But by having it open, if someone happens to see the webpage one day and thinks, hey, there's something missing here, they can have it quickly, then I'll keep the website fresh and updated. I don't know if any other cities have this kind of guide, it would be really useful to know.

[Speaker 1] I feel like lots of cities do.

[Paul] Have a wiki guide.

[Speaker 1] I don't think they do it as a wiki.

[Paul] I typed in Gerona Guide a few days ago to see what already existed. Somebody already made a guide to Gerona, but one guy wrote it himself, and it's badly written, full of his own opinions, and not that useful. And because I can't edit it, I can't fix that.

It's a static webpage. I don't like anything that's static. I think it needs to be changeable.

[Speaker 1] See, I love static. A really well-done, edited thing.

[Paul] Old media, new media.

[Speaker 1] Yeah.

[Paul] Wikipedia, they do that. They lock pages, but they have to be already edited. It's pages that have finished.

It's like, this page is not finished. I'm going to lock this one.

[Speaker 1] Yeah.

[Paul] I don't know if the doctor's one is finished. But there's that big problem that anybody can put their details on a doctor's page and say they're a doctor.

[Speaker 2] Yeah.

[Paul] And then they come to us and say, you know, I had a really bad experience with a faked doctor because of some information on your guide, and I'm going to sue them because of that.

[Speaker 2] Yeah.

[Paul] Yeah. It's hard.

[Speaker 1] Well, maybe one of the pieces is that there's sort of two parts of the guide, aren't there? One is the how do you do's. How do you get the whatever.

And then there's the who should you go to. There's sort of two pieces to it. And...

[Paul] I'm not quite sure.

[Speaker 1] Well, one's kind of like purely informational, isn't it? And then the other one is actually, here's some recommendations of people who are good dermatologists. And maybe if we focused at the beginning of trying to write the guide bit, then it might become more organically obvious what to put into the who bit.

Or the company bit. Does that make sense? Yeah, it could help.

[Paul] But the base of it, the start of it is the non-commercial aspect of it. And then having that as the start might help the rest of it to be what we want it to be as well.

[Speaker 1] Interesting.

[Paul] I don't know. Maybe. I think it would be really nice to have those pages.

The actual guide of how to help foreigners to do basic things. Do you know any volunteers who can do that?

[Speaker 1] Oh, I feel like we could find people. I mean, I had chatted with Mary about this and she's... She'd do some.

She would be happy to. I think that there's other people that would too. I just think if we can kind of get a good base.

I mean, probably for some of these it's fine to open them up because there's not going to be a lot of risk. And we can sort of assess. But I think it would be good to know if there's certain things that needed to be locked down.

Like the doctors. Mental health. True.

Is there a way of knowing on wiki who's put the information in?

[Paul] Yeah. Anybody can see that. This is all new to me so I'm not...

But I do that though. From time to time. There's a page you can click on.

There's a link on the left. And it will tell you who has put each information in. Or if they haven't got an account then what their IP address is.

[Speaker 1] Right. Last time I forgot to put my account in.

[Paul] There's numbers. And that could be useful. Yeah.

I feel like it would be really good to have an expert on wikis. Which we don't. And maybe I'll become one over time.

You need to have more work.

[Speaker 2] Yeah.

[Paul] I could show you if you've got Wi-Fi. I've got my laptop.

[Speaker 1] I actually have to...

[Paul] Yeah. Okay. Maybe next time.

There's a lot of undecided stuff. I'll... But I think that this...

[Speaker 1] I think we should try... Can we try to define a scope for... And maybe we can all...

I miss having... There's this great... I think they've used...

I guess I could see if just for us maybe we could do it as a workspace. There's this product called Notion. So you can have kind of a shared...

It's a little bit more elegant than a Google Doc. We're kind of having a shared workspace too. And you can comment on things and it's really easy to see comments.

Let me look and see if we use it in a really limited way. If there's a... I think there's a free version.

I'm just wondering if we could define... Not in a... What's the minimally viable product look like for the guy?

And which topics would we include? And then recruit some people to do them.

[Paul] What do you think about a book of the guide becoming a book? That was my... I love that.

Initially I think. Because I think having the guide for me is just a step to getting to a book.

[Speaker 1] Can things be exported easily out of the wiki?

[Paul] I'm not sure.

[Speaker 1] I think that's another question about that as a format. Because I think having... I remember when I moved to Manhattan.

I bought not even something that was sort of... It was an editorially produced product that was really great. It had a mix of how do you do certain things.

But then it was all these fun recommendations to businesses. If you want to get your handbag finished. You have to go to this place.

And they'll do this great job refurbishing your handbag. And it was...

[Paul] That was for Manhattan?

[Speaker 1] Yeah, it was for Manhattan. I can't remember what it was called. I love that book.

I used it so much. I'd find things in there that I didn't even know that I was interested in.

[Paul] That's what my idea was for this book. To have it really useful. To have it as a resource that people depend on.

You open it and you discover things about your Gironathat you never knew. I've lived here for seven years and I'm still learning loads of things that I never knew. To have it all condensed in a book, for me personally, would be really useful.

Because I'd like to hold it and just flip through it. But if we could have it available for everyone in Girona to buy. And then have it translated by AI.

And then checked by people. It could be done in French and Spanish and Catalan. For the Catalan one, you wouldn't need a list of English-speaking doctors.

But that's my idea. It would be useful to know about that. If you can find the name.

[Speaker 1] I'll see if I can find the name and if it's still being produced. I loved it because it wasn't dry at all. And it was this great mix of going to the Department of Motor Vehicles.

And then this whole other thing about my example of... Here's the place to take your handbag if you want it to be totally refurbished and look brand new. Yeah, that's kind of fun.

I don't know if it was called something like the Insider's Guide to Manhattan or something like that. I'll find it. I must have it somewhere.

But I think your point of continuing this discussion through a group doc or some kind of the other... I just wonder if it would be easier if we have a place... Because the thing I find challenging about using WhatsApp for something like this is...

Disappears. It disappears and you're like, wait. Because there were a couple of times where I was like, I know Tesla mentioned something about this.

And I tried to do a search in the chats. I'm like, oh, I just want a little... I don't know if it is possible to do hidden pages on the wiki or no.

I don't know if we could use that. I just knew Notion because I used it for my job. And the thing I love about Notion is just the fact that we could ask each other questions and comments.

So there's the shared work. I could say, Paul, what do you think about this and that? I'll look and figure out.

I can take that as a to-do.

[Paul] Also, I think we could use the Guides of Girona as a place to organise the Guides of Girona.

[Speaker 1] Because I guess part of what I'm looking for is to be able to propose things that aren't ready. Like that we want a smaller group of people to see until we're ready to sort of... Because there's probably a time where we could say, hey, guys, we're working on this.

And we're thinking that the minimally viable guide would contain this set of information. And then the second phase would be this. And then the third phase would be this.

And eventually... So I feel like there's a time that we could expose it. But while we're noodling around with...

I think so. Because do we want, like, 20 opinions about... And it could get really chaotic.

And I think people could get frustrated with it as well. Yeah. Sometimes you can kind of over-democratise things where it's like you keep asking a similar question.

And people then stop responding to you.

[Speaker 2] Yeah.

[Paul] I don't know if there's...

[Speaker 1] Because if there's hidden... Or some way where we could... Maybe together with Miriam and if there's a few other people.

Or it could be... I mean, I think it can be... I feel like it needs to be a contained group.

Because otherwise, yeah, I think it could get a little chaotic. And just, like, even trying to come up with, like, something to then share out more broadly to say... Hey, we're thinking that this is, like, the minimally viable first phase of the guide to Girona.

Like... What do you think? What do you think?

Is there anything really obvious that you needed when you first got here that is not among these topics that you would argue we should pull in and have be part of phase one? I think that's a good idea. Rather than the open question of what would you put into phase one?

Because otherwise you're going to wind up with this. Yeah. And I think sometimes it can be, like, the person who's, like, the most vocal or, like, at the moment happens to be on, like, WhatsApp that answers.

And you miss getting, like, all these other, like, possible viewpoints.

[Paul] I think... I think if that's a wiki page, it could be a good idea. Because then anybody can add to it.

But if it's a page that only we know about, then only we add to it.

[Speaker 2] Yeah.

[Paul] We can say the votes on there. The minutes from today's meeting on there. And have that as a place to organise things.

That would work. So that's the best... Actually, that's actually the best idea.

Even though it's a Google Doc, but I don't really like Google Docs. Because people tend not to use them, tend not to update them. Because they mix formatting with content.

So you end up having to go through and fix all the formatting in the Google Doc. Whereas in wiki, in wiki you can...

[Speaker 2] Yeah.

[Paul] Separate the formatting. So you can... So for me it's easy to change the formatting of it.

Because I just copy it into something else and then I replace the things. And it takes me a minute. But on the Google Doc, it's like Microsoft Word.

Because there you want to change things into bold and italics that you need. Maybe you could just use a page...

[Speaker 1] If you think the wiki... If there's a way to do that where we can have a little place where we can play around with what the first phase is and do that privately, I think that's all I'm really... I think we need to accomplish with it.

[Paul] Call it the meta page. Right. The guide to the guide.

Right.