Wanted: Wiki Lists (dot org)

Something I'd like to see:

A site that maintains all the world's 'lookup tables.'

Every lookup table you'll ever need, exposed in open, compatible and readily-consumable ways.

All lists can be retrieved as html or xml, as json, as csv (the one format guaranteed to outlive the cockroach), or any other commonly used** data format.

Lists at 'wiki lists' are more complete, more accessible, and much lighter-weight than the Lists at wikipedia.

The lists are crowd-sourced, contributed by anyone and curated by the detail-oriented masses. The faceless trainspotters and plane spotters, the aspies and cybrarians.

Lists that are currently shown in haphazard ways inside wikipedia could instead source their content from such wiki-lists.

Where a list can be reliably sourced from a canonical source, it is done so programmatically and the attribution provided in a standard way.

Example lists include...

Every sovereign nation
Their dialing code, currencies, major languages
The three letter codes for every airport, landing strip and helipad in the world
The name and abbreviation of every state in the united states (and every other nation)
Zip codes and postal codes
Monarchs of England
Breeds of dog
Keywords in C
Mayors of southhampton
Notes in F major pentatonic
Winners of the Belgian grand prix
Stocks that trade on the NYSE

And a thousands other reference lists. Short lists. Information that changes slowly, slow enough for humans to curate it.

And they're the kind of lists that you (or someone like you) needs to reference in their applications and research all the time.

(See also this thread at Hacker News which prompted me to write down this idea I've thought for so long.)

** Note I said 'commonly used' rather than 'standard'. CSV is commonly used, but it doesn't have a standard. Oh you might point out that there are standards for CSV, and of course there are. Where there's standards, plural, there is no 'standard'.

Maybe the new Data Mart on Windows Azure marketplace will be THE place for these lists. Then for only a small subscription fee ....

As much as I like the hippy ideal of free data for all, I can't help but think this would be abused.

My first port of call would be to edit the "List of Monarchs of England" and add "James Gregory" as the current. Who would dispute it? All the applications in the *world* would have me listed as the monarch!

Actually, carry on, I like this idea.

Take numerical lists of related data from your wiki lists (e.g. GNP per country, tax revenue by individual/corporate/sales/income, national expenditure by health/military/education, health expenditure by surgery/drugs/nurses/doctors/management, etc.) and generate pie charts for them.

Then, as much as possible, allow each slice of a pie to be clicked to show a new pie indicating break-down of the original slice by sub-categories, and so-on recursively as deep as you can go.

Just a thought!
Philip the Duck

There's already a "site that maintains all the world's 'lookup tables.'"
it's Google.com

how about semantic web technology? This would give you all you need for the lists...

As long as they have IDs too. Obviously the lists will be in multiple languages, so breed of dogs would have e.g.

487,Poodle

in English, and

487,Asong delanas

in Filipino

Also, with IDs, data can be shared across apps more easily. Of course, Ashley is right - freebase is a good source of data. Perhaps wikilists (dot org) presents a view of the data instead.

Several years ago, I began writing an application to catalog my collection of recordings. It is common enough to link to, say, Amazon for details about particular recordings, but that was seldom my interest. I wanted more basic information. I wanted a list of all Beethoven's work, and I realized that it would be insanity to imagine that I could compile and maintain such a thing. Even if I did, what about Brahms, etc. How wonderful, I thought, if such lists existed and were maintained by advocates of that composer. I don't think they even need to be at the same spot, however convenient that might be. And, yes, the problem one commenter raises about the validity of the data is there and can be found throughout Internet offerings.
I looked at the freebase link, and was greatly disappointed. No mention of music at all, under Composers. Just a mini-Wikipedia.
If ever there was a need for an open source standard, this idea of lists is it.

One key problem you'd need to overcome is that not everyone agrees on the contents of these "simple" lists.

For example, do you include "Taiwan" in a list of soveriegn countries? Those who live in the island nation would certainly thing so - but mainland China reguards Taiwan as merely a renegade provence.

Wanted: Wiki Lists (dot org)

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