[Foundation-l] Project Wikineur

[Gavin Chait]

>This sounds like a project on Wikibooks - more or less writing textbooks.
>Is there more to it than that?

Yes, there is.  Firstly, it's on a rather specific theme - and a very wide
range of businesses.  Just like an encyclopedia is a set of books, any
information could be packaged as such.  But this is not meant as course
material for a school or university.  It is meant as a set of work manuals.

As such, each manual must cover information in a consistent way.  The same
set of headings, the same way of detailing information.

More importantly, every input that is required for a business is the product
of another business.  So too with every output.  These inputs and outputs
can be tracked to create a webwork showing the interaction of different
businesses (slightly different from just a set of textbooks).  This also
allows for the tracking of required infrastructure and support.

So, if I want to start a grain mill, then there have to be farms nearby.
There also needs to be transport, harvesting, maintenance for the mill.  If
there is no electricity, then that changes the type of mill I can operate.
And so on.  It provides insight into limiting factors preventing targetted
industries from getting off the ground (inputs unavailable) while providing
the necessary info on how to get input industries up and running.

Just as helpful is that the outputs must have a market.  No good producing
plastic bottles if no-one wants to use them.

This is very helpful for people looking for gaps in the market but who
aren't sure if it is worthwhile or what supply and demand is required.
Products have direct and indirect markets.  For example:  rubber washers are
used to make wheels in crafted wire cars; old wooden palattes (from the
logistics industry) are broken down to make prefabricated walls for houses.
Each topic can give novel ideas for inputs and outputs that may extend
products into new industries.

Each topic covers the necessary inputs, outputs - and how to get from the
one to the other.

In the long term it will become possible to develop a simple checklist to
ascertain what gaps exist for what opportunities (similar to the way
biologists have a species identification system:  does it have this type of
leaf, go to pg 73, does it have these nodules? .... until you get to a
specific set of possibilities).

This project is distinct.  Otherwise one could argue that wikibooks is just
another permutation of wikipedia.

Regards,

Gavin