A Numbers Encyclopaedia: Open Economics, Statistics, Data

Imagine an online platform that’s like Wikipedia, but rather than being an encyclopaedia for word based vocabularies; it provided all of the numbers based informatics resources available in the world.

In a format, that could be easily employed by any application;

Like a spreadsheet applications, or a Web (or browser) Plugin that could be used to highlight claims made in online publications, to make meaningful links to underlying statistical data.

• Decisions about the world are often made using numbers.
• The means to discern facts from fiction, often in-turn, relates to numbers.

A graphical representation by way of a chart might be one way of communicating an idea, but the underlying capacity to see the merits of a graph is built on numbers.

There are a large volume of files available on the internet, in a variety of formats, that makes it more difficult than needs be, to easily make use of the numbers; and in-turn, produce meaningful insights that can be shared as calculations relating to those numbers.

Some examples; include;

• Statistical Information generated by governments and groups
• Financial Information generated by Companies & published in corporate releases, made available online
• Research Information / data, providing numeric information relating to studies.
• Network information, publishing information relating to energy consumption
• IoT information publishing information about weather, traffic and all sorts of other things.

The idea of this numbers encyclopaedia is that there is one space where all of this data is able to be uploaded and unified into a commonly consumable format (using ontologies); so that calculations can be made about real-world facts and indices; in a format that,

• Is Transparent; so that people can see how the calculations have been made; and,
• Provides the capacity for people to form evaluations / modelling online, collaboratively (a bit like a group of people collaboratively producing a wiki article)
• Linked to the original file / resource, so that there’s confidence the numbers made available online; are the same as the source materials.

Whilst the ideal outcome is that this capability is formed as part of a permissive commons solution; the higher-level requirements (if a silo’d approach is preferred by others) consider,

1. The use of Linked Data; provides the ability to make use of ontological frameworks, to edit these ontological models and to form meaningful inferencing capacities.
2. The ability to provide tools that provide the capacity for a data-publisher to;

a. Easily define ontological support for their publications

b. Maintain linkages to their published data, as to ensure it is not modified by others.

c. The ability for community publishers, to upload (or link via APIs) datasets.

Problems it would help solve.

Today, there are many remarks made in ‘news articles’ that have counter-factual statements (meaning — untrue statements). The ability to support numerical modelling of problems, and then link those models to the statements made in articles, would help solve these problems. Additionally, data-generated articles could be produced to dynamically reflect a situational awareness based on how the numbers are articulating overtime.

There are many, complex problems; that are very difficult to solve without having the statistical / economic modelling that relates a problem, to its effects; particularly in circumstances where the costs are higher for not addressing an underlying problem, but it is left without recourse as the numbers don’t exist as to illustrate that there is actually a broad problem.

This often affects situations relating to human poverty, misery, etc. Whether it be understanding the number of jobs available vs. population, as in-turn illustrates circumstances in which people are unemployed; or, whether it be homelessness, or a great many other factors about life and its economic relationships to socioeconomic policies; numbers are required to get the facts.

Is there a business model for it?

My preference personally, is that it fits into a ‘human centric web’ framework and that the use of permissive commons frameworks; supports the availability of knowledge, in a manner that’s far more accessible, than via other business models. But this is not necessarily going to be the case.

Another business model could be that personal use is free, and enterprise use is a fee for service based method; with apps and plugins available for a fee.

Does something similar to this idea exist?

Google has a product for public data but it’s currently, reasonably limited in what it does today. A solution to this, could simply be to provide google all the information it needs in a format that supports its capacity to build something like this; which could happen quite quickly. Blended with other functions, it is reasonably easy to imagine how a person might ask their google assistant ‘how many homeless people are there in America’ or an array of other questions, that could be asked and answered if the numbers were available.