Dear Wikidata Team,
My name is Evan Sherwin and I represent a California-based company called
Lumina Decision Systems. We are developing a community-sourced
information-sharing website, called
MegaJoule.org, that specializes in
structured numerical information about energy and energy technology. We are
very interested in the Wikidata, and would like to discuss the possibility
of collaboration. I am not totally sure who I was the right person to
contact, so I hope it is OK that I am mailing this list.
Much like Wikidata,
MegaJoule.org is a community-sourced hub for structured
information. The primary focus of
MegaJoule.org is the collection and
storage of numerical estimates of quantities like "the projected cost of
installing residential solar panels in 2020," or "the current efficiency of
utility-scale wind turbines." In addition to a numerical value and units,
each estimate contains a wealth of metadata, including the source,
technology and metric applicable, along with assumptions, uncertainty
information, the year the estimate applies and more. Users create estimate,
source, metric and technology records through a form-based interface,
resulting in structured and highly searchable data. In addition, users can
rate and discuss estimates, their sources, metrics, etc. We have also
integrated a graphing tool that allows users to interact more meaningfully
with the data in
MegaJoule.org. From looking at the description of
Wikidata, it seems like there are enough similarities between
MegaJoule.org
and Wikidata to allow for very fruitful collaboration in the field of
energy, and perhaps even some direct data sharing.
Would Wikidata be interested in collaborating with MegaJoule.org? Here is a
link to our beta version:
www.megajoule.org. I have also attached a
document that describes the MegaJoule project in more detail. If you have
any questions, please let us know.
Sincerely,
Evan Sherwin
Associate Analyst, Lumina Decision Systems
evan(a)lumina.com