The idea is to get a database filled with the biography of everyone. Name, place of birth, factual information.
You can edit your own file or someone elses or start a new one.
Opinions about persons are not allowed.
If someone gets arrested and convicted for a crime, this can be told. But none of the //Brian is real wanker, he broke my nose last night in the pub\\ stuff.
Employers and employees could use this. Also a handy dating tool.
People are encouraged to add people to the list. Not just public figures, politicians, moviestars, criminals but your neighbour too.-- zeno, Mar 25 2009 OpenHumanity OpenHumanity [xaviergisz, Mar 25 2009] Rubber Hose http://iq.org/~proff/rubberhose.org/Can't remember if it works on Windows. [nineteenthly, Mar 26 2009] Guardian (newspaper) story on UK RIPA legislation. http://www.guardian...eech.onlinesecurityOwn a computer? If they want you locked up without evidence, this is how they can get you. [Loris, Mar 26 2009] WikiBio http://wikibio.wikia.com/WikiBiography. Currently has only a single bio [pashute, Nov 04 2015] I think this is going to happen wheather we like it or not.
Some govements (the UK) already store lots of data about us that breaks their own laws on data protection.-- eight_nine_tortoise, Mar 25 2009 I think you're right, [eight_nine], but i also think that's a good reason to do that. We are currently part of a home education group meeting in a building which will shortly be taken over by a governmental body which ostensibly has substantially similar aims, but clearly has another agenda. We have the opportunity to make them look silly. If such a wiki existed, it would fill that role and take away some of the reasons for the government doing it.
However, my main worry is stalking and harrassment.-- nineteenthly, Mar 25 2009 Actually, private sector organisations (Google, Credit Ref Agencies, Mobile Phone networks) hold far more information on you than Government does.-- hippo, Mar 25 2009 Even still, doing it openly and in public would have propaganda value. You would then be able to ask them why they're spending taxpayers' money on duplicating something which has already been done. Then again, would that not just mean we were sort of saying "how high?"-- nineteenthly, Mar 25 2009 To what end? everyone is free to have his own biography online, google allows easy access to such data.-- loonquawl, Mar 25 2009 //Actually, private sector organisations (Google, Credit Ref Agencies, Mobile Phone networks) hold far more information on you than Government does.//
That may be currently true, but the UK government now wants a big database of everybody's: Name, former names, NI & passport numbers, date of birth, address & past addresses, job & former jobs, health records, DNA, criminal record, photo, fingerprints, retinal scan, acquaintances and probably anything else you can think of.
I'd say I trusted them as far as I could throw them, but that gives a misleadingly generous impression.-- Loris, Mar 25 2009 The US government already has all that info in a central database on anybody with a passport or driver's license. I guess we're all part of some sort of silly police state arms race or something.-- Spacecoyote, Mar 25 2009 I'm fine with it, even to the extent that i deliberately use the same username in places everywhere on the internet so everyone can see all the weird stuff i'm into if they want to Google it. I might have a problem with exhibitionism, come to think of it.-- nineteenthly, Mar 25 2009 /Opinions about persons are not allowed../
Allowing opinions would be a motivator to get people to add other people. Plus it would make for more interesting reading.-- bungston, Mar 25 2009 //This database could become the ultimate tool for paedophiles, too..// Yes, and a number of other dodgy uses come to mind immediately, some whereof i've mentioned. On the other hand, there's a lot of information out there on us in databases to which we have no access to which others do have access, illicitly or not, and unethically or not. I'm just wondering whether, in the end, if people are going to be doing stuff with our information which we don't like anyway, we might as well have access to it. The way things are now, it's available to the likes of the government, credit reference agencies, insurance companies, spammers, criminals, whatever, but not to us. If there was a public database of this kind, it would still be available to them, but would have the advantage of being available to us as well. That does of course assume that nothing can be done about the rest.-- nineteenthly, Mar 25 2009 I understand all the votes against. People are concerned about their privacy.
Name, date of birth, place of birth, place of death (if you are), diploma's, work experience, special acomplishments. I would be a bit shy to have all that on the web. But if everybody did it I figured there would also be a greater sense of community.
I'm not saying it should include home adress and phone number. Or a picture.
Abuse is possible, but when you think about it, we are allready beset with dangers, inside or outside our homes. I don't think this ideas poses that much of an added threat.
I am one of those people who doesn't care how much info the government has on me. I would gladly give up a DNA sample and details of my life.-- zeno, Mar 25 2009 Are you glad to give up a DNA sample or just happy to see me?-- bungston, Mar 25 2009 [Zeno], how do you feel about other organisations having info on you? Do you trust them as much?-- nineteenthly, Mar 25 2009 I agree that we should have a more transparent register of births, deaths and marriages. This information has been collected and made available for a long time, but this information is only available through archaic means. I think it is time to put it all on the internet.
Having said that, the opt-in approach is working reasonably well, a la facebook.-- xaviergisz, Mar 25 2009 On the other hand, the data are scattered over a number of different sites. I imagine Facebook's the biggest, but is there an easy way of dealing with the whole lot as if it's one database?-- nineteenthly, Mar 25 2009 *IF* there were to be a biowiki, it ought to be factual... however, there could be a metabiowiki for discussion.
One of the cool things about a biowiki might be the relationships aspect, as in:
Joe Doe is the son of Jane Doe and John Smith...
and
Joe Doe's third grade maths teacher was Sarah Stone.
Imagine the web of relationships!
And we could play "Six Degrees of Osama bin Laden"!-- cindik, Mar 25 2009 Do I trust them as much? I suppose. My bank knows all about my finances. Google knows all about my internet preferences, so they know what I like. The taxcompany knows exactly what kind of work I do and did.
There's nothing else to hide is there? Why should I care? There's nothing there to hurt me with.
If I were gay and lived in Iran. Yes, I would have a problem with google keeping records of my internetsearches because the iranian government might force them to reveal my sexual preference and put me in jail.
Fortunately I live in the Netherlands.-- zeno, Mar 26 2009 [cindik] I hadn't thought of that, nice.-- zeno, Mar 26 2009 //And we could play "Six Degrees of Osama bin Laden"!//
That's actually one of the stated reasons for the uk uberdatabase.
Personally I'm rather more scared of the government deciding I'm a terrorist and disappearing me[1] than I am of terrorism.
[1] They put the laws in place for this recently. For example refusing to decrypt any file they find on your computer is a crime punishable by 2 years imprisonment. And you're guilty until proven innocent - you have to prove you don't have the password, which of course is impossible. Can you account for every file on your PC? If it runs windows, I doubt it.-- Loris, Mar 26 2009 You need plausible deniability and there's a program called rubberhose which will do that for you.-- nineteenthly, Mar 26 2009 //You need plausible deniability and there's a program called rubberhose which will do that for you.//
The point is that doesn't help. It's not specifically files you might want to hide which are the problem. If they wanted you put away, they could go through every file on your PC, and demand you explain any of them. Anything out of the ordinary, like random shite from a crash will probably be enough to do you in. Did I mention that there's a clause making it illegal to tell anyone what you've been asked for? I guess that prevents you getting technical help, so you're on your own.-- Loris, Mar 26 2009 As a student on his way to becoming a computer engineer, I have every hope that "cloud computing" (the term, hype, and associated misconceptions of computing architecture) dies a horrible death. Distributed computing has its place, but that place shouldn't be *everywhere*. Often "cloud computing" is little more than an excuse to make more work for people who are already too damn busy, and for the management to get to say silly things like "we're going to put that in the cloud" and pretend they know what the hell they're on about.-- Spacecoyote, Mar 26 2009 Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muß man schweigen.-- nineteenthly, Mar 26 2009 Ich befestige meinen Mund unter Verwendung eines Reißverschlusses-- gnomethang, Mar 26 2009 //on his way to becoming a computer scientist// - at which point you'll realise there's no such thing. It's not a 'science' - it's more like a craft. Sorry, just a pet grumble of mine...-- hippo, Mar 27 2009 Ja, ich glaube, daß es besser wäre, wenn man nichts säge.Someone once said to me that an art is a science with more than three variables. I wouldn't agree with that, but i wonder how well it applies to computing.-- nineteenthly, Mar 27 2009 One of the questions asked at a friends' interview for medical school was "Is medicine a science or an art?". I've since found that thought very inspiring.-- nineteenthly, Mar 27 2009 //"Is medicine a science or an art?". //
I'd say that was a false dichotomy.-- Loris, Mar 27 2009 added wikibio link-- pashute, Nov 04 2015 random, halfbakery