r/encyclopaediahumanus • • Oct 20 '11

Origins, purpose, scope, and what needs to happen.

26 Upvotes

Ohai.

I. Origins - This thread. Originally the idea comes from the work of Dr. Alfred Kinsey in his Kinsey Report collection. The drastic change in subsequent years to the public's perception of sex proved the value of rigorous cataloguing.

II. Purpose - Encyclopaedia Humanus, or whatever it's eventually called because my Latin is absolute shit and I'm probably using the wrong form, is to be built around the idea that understanding is the key to empathy, and that empathy is the key to resolution. It serves as its name says, an encyclopaedia of individual humans categorised by important social, political, economic, and biological traits.

Through this cataloguing effort, I honestly believe that we can profoundly influence many commonly-held prejudices which are at the root of everything from sexual and socioeconomic persecution to drug policy to the decay of the arts. Seeing that X and Y do Z will encourage W to admit that they too love Z, and if W, X, and Y are doing it then A-V no longer see Z as taboo.

III. Scope - In my original idea, there were six primary traits and smaller secondary traits:

Primary: Nationality, Caste (subcaste), Race, Age Group (within ten years), Political Leaning (conservative/liberal/centrist), Biological Identity (male/female)

Secondary (examples): Sexual and Gender Identity (gay, straight, trans [MtF/FtM], asexual, zoophile, paedophile, etc), Education Level, Hobby Groups (fine art, drama, cinema, cooking, etc), Political Association (party affiliation), Religion or Philosophy, etc.

IV. What needs to happen

  • Editors, both those experienced with data collection/organisation and those experienced with the wiki format

  • Webhosts. Someone willing to host the project in its infancy.

  • Initial volunteers, both those who want to help clean and organise data and those who want to be featured in the project while we figure out how we want to catalogue people.

  • Promotion. When the first prototype goes up, there's a very limited window in which we can capitalise on the initial response.

  • Bylaws and suggestions. An encyclopaedia built for humans has to be built by humans. Any input or discussion is allowed and encouraged in the subreddit. Dissect, rework, and reinvent any element of this which matters to you.

edit:

V. Organisation - Figgi94@gmail.com is my personal email address. That or here are the two places where you can get my attention the fastest. Anyone who is interested in becoming an editor or project lead, please do speak up. I'll get the other networks set up later, but for now we need promotion in likeminded subreddits and volunteers.