Let's write catalogs!

[Derek Harkness]

On the other hand would verification of accuracy be a real challenge.?

I'm all in favour of catalogues but I am worried about accuracy. I think preferably, additional columns should point to addition articles. e.g. on the Countries of the world the extra data includes Capital City and Currency. These are easy to maintain because they don't often change. Where as a statistic like GDP would need to be updated regularly and would be prone to arguments over who's source is more accurate since GDP can be calculated differently sometimes. Additionally, by linking to other pages we interlink topics in a way that could be very useful to readers.

[Larry Sanger]

All right, I've seen enough confirmation of the proposal that I'm going to go ahead and write a general set of instructions and guidelines.  URL to be posted soon.

[Fredrik Johansson]

I think "list" is a fine word, even when many details are listed. But I'll probably get used to "catalog" quickly.

[Martin Baldwin-Edwards]

Hello,

just a quick comment that I am in agreement with the concept of catalogs [or catalogues, as we British insist!]. My only reservation is that some rationale for their intended use needs to be created. For example, in the proposed Countries of the World, we need to identify what people expect and/or want to find there. I am absolutely certain in my own mind, since I write regular reports for the United Nations and other international agencies, that the "industry standard" data should be there. For the entire world, such data can only be provided by the UN or the World Bank, and I think should include the usual suspects of GDP per capita, population size, and maybe some of the indicators from the UNDP Human Development Report.

These data will have to be updated periodically. I have made one specific recommendation on the Talk page of Countries of the World -- which has not so far been followed. However, I see my role in Citizendium [and correct me, if you disagree, Larry] as suggesting the best datasources and providing expert advice on the interpretation of competing or differing sources of knowledge. I am not so well-endowed with free time to type in large numbers of entries etc, which I hope others will be able to do.

[Derek Harkness]

The Countries of the World article started as a Geography project. I can see a potential requirement for another article, maybe, "Economies of the World." that would be sited under the relevant workgroup for that topic and that would be able to provide commentary on the metrics that Baldwin-Edwards described. The commentary on the data is in my opinion more valuable to the lay, non expert, reader than the data it's self. So the size of the catalog is constrained not only by the width of the page available, but also by our ability to explain the contents effectively.

I am not so well-endowed with free time to type in large numbers of entries etc, which I hope others will be able to do.

Ditto myself and many other people. Typing in large amounts of data is also prone to typos. If a bot can be made to automatically spider source pages and pull in the data automatically then that would be good; but otherwise it would be more maintainable to simply link to the most reliable source than to duplicate the content form that source.

[Robert Winmill]

Derek Harkness wrote:

If a bot can be made to automatically spider source pages and pull in the data automatically then that would be good;

A bot could only work if the data needed by the catalog was available in a structured way within a group of articles.  This would require the creation of objects like "infoboxs" that contain the data that would be summarized in the catalog.

[Derek Harkness]

Derek Harkness wrote:

If a bot can be made to automatically spider source pages and pull in the data automatically then that would be good;

A bot could only work if the data needed by the catalog was available in a structured way within a group of articles.  This would require the creation of objects like "infoboxs" that contain the data that would be summarized in the catalog.

The source must be external to CZ not internal. If it's internal then it's not the real source is it?

[Martin Baldwin-Edwards]

I think some clear issues need to be set out here. First, there is no such thing as an economy without a country, so I do not understand this point about "Economies of the World". Secondly, countries as such are not the sole province of the Geography discipline. Thirdly, there apppear to be no Geography Editors appointed, so who will approve any articles?

As far as data entry is concerned, if people are not prepared to do boring but important things like that, then they don't have any claim to be serious authors. I have to do this all the time, as part of my work, because my research assistants also think they are too important to do such things. Moreover, when they do make such entries, I find that they make frequent errors and are too arrogant to check their own work. If it comes to it, in the end I will find the time to enter such data on Citizendium. However, I happen to think that my time is better spent on things which very few people have the skills and knowledge to carry out.

[Robert Winmill]

All right, I've seen enough confirmation of the proposal that I'm going to go ahead and write a general set of instructions and guidelines.  URL to be posted soon.

Is there a URL with the policy drafts?  Or am I asking to soon?

[Yuval Langer]

...

Wellll...so I had an idea.  I will restrain myself from naming the idea "The Big" anything.

...

Am I to blame...?
http://blog.citizendium.org/2007/04/21/big-update/#comment-8986

[Derek Harkness]

I think some clear issues need to be set out here. First, there is no such thing as an economy without a country, so I do not understand this point about "Economies of the World".

Not true, but the reverse is true. There is no such thing as a Country without an economy but it is possible to talk about economies that are not countries. For example I could talk about the economy of California but California is not a country. My point of changing the name for Country to Economy was to leave it open for you to derive your own rules as to what Economic blocks you will use. It's not for me to dictate that the Economics workgroup should use as it's division. If you decide to use countries or states then that's up to you.

Secondly, countries as such are not the sole province of the Geography discipline.

I am not implying that countries are the sole province of Geography. What I am saying is that the catalog will get too big if we include every possible metric and demographic. We should have several catalogs that deal with a group of related metrics. So one catalog would discuss the geography of each country; another catalog would discuss the economy of each country; another discusses the politics of each country; etc. We would use effectively the same list for column 1 of each catalog but the data in columns 2, 3 and 4 would be changed for each.

Thirdly, there appear to be no Geography Editors appointed, so who will approve any articles?

Lack of an editor should not stop us writing. Editors will join eventually. When they do, they will hopefully have something to approve (or, and I hope not, disapprove) rather than a set of blank pages and big to do list.