Open-source problem solving. One slate per world problem: what worked, what didn't, what's still open.
The world has solved some of its problems, half-solved others, and given up on a few. That record sits scattered across treaty archives, research papers and the memories of the people who were there. It usually gets written up either as a victory or as a scandal. This repo tries to write it as a post-mortem instead. For each problem there is one slate: the things that were tried and worked, with the evidence; the things that were tried and failed, with the reasons; the points where a different choice was really possible; and the parts still unfinished. Every claim has a source. The point is that you can correct a number, add a missing citation, or open a new question against it.
A slate lives in <category>/<problem>/ and is a set of pages. Every slate has
the same eight, so slates are comparable and you know where a fact belongs
before you open the folder.
| Page | What it holds |
|---|---|
home |
The status label and the one number backing it. What the problem is, how big it got, who it hurt, in five sentences. The figures the whole slate rests on, each with value, unit, year and source. |
1-timeline |
Key events with dates, one line each. |
2-what-worked |
Each thing that was tried and worked: what it was, the evidence it worked, the source. |
3-what-failed |
Each thing that was tried and failed: what it was, why it failed, the source. Failures with no source don't ship. |
4-forks |
The decision points. The choice made, the other option that was really on the table, and what we know now. This is the heart of the slate. |
5-how-we-know |
How the problem is measured, by whom, and where the data is thin. |
6-still-open |
What is left to fix, each item written so you can act on it. |
7-sources |
Numbered sources. Every claim on every other page points to one. |
Numbers in brackets like [8] point to that entry on the slate's sources page.
Slates are written in chext, the
plain-text format used by Slatesource, so each page is a file and each part of a
page is a typed chip. The folder layout is defined by that spec. Follow it
there, not here. Files are numbered because page order is otherwise
alphabetical, and home has no number because the format requires that exact
name.
Every slate has all eight pages. A page with little to say says so and explains what is missing, which makes it somewhere to contribute rather than a hole.
5-how-we-know is the one that looks skippable and isn't. A status label is
only as good as the measurement behind it, and the gaps in that measurement are
usually the most useful thing on a slate. On the ozone slate it is where you
find out that a satellite recorded the hole in 1983 and its own quality-control
software discarded the readings for falling too far outside what was expected. A
hut in Antarctica running a 1950s instrument is what caught it instead.
| Label | Meaning |
|---|---|
solved |
The problem no longer happens at any real scale, and the thing stopping it will hold. |
mostly solved |
The trend has clearly turned and is measured, but real gaps remain. |
active |
Work is under way and the outcome is genuinely undecided. |
stalled |
We know what would work, but it is not being done, or things are getting worse. |
| Problem | Category | Status | Owner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ozone layer depletion | environment | mostly solved |
@StephaneB1 |
| Smallpox eradication | health | solved |
@StephaneB1 |
Problems worth documenting. Each one has a real paper trail of attempts, failures and decisions, which is the bar for being listed here.
Each row is an open issue. To claim one, comment on it saying what the fork in the road is and what is still open. Those two answers are the whole bar.
| Problem | Category | Rough status | Owner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Leaded gasoline phase-out | environment | mostly solved |
unclaimed |
| Acid rain | environment | mostly solved |
unclaimed |
| Guinea worm disease | health | mostly solved |
unclaimed |
| Iodine deficiency | health | mostly solved |
unclaimed |
| The Green Revolution | food | mostly solved |
unclaimed |
| Ocean dumping of industrial waste | environment | mostly solved |
unclaimed |
| Road deaths and seatbelts | governance | active |
unclaimed |
| Y2K | information | solved |
unclaimed |
| Famine early-warning systems | food | active |
unclaimed |
A problem that is not on this list is still welcome. Open a propose-problem issue for it.
The categories are environment, health, food, energy, governance and information. Only environment/ and health/ exist as folders. A category folder gets created the day its first problem lands.
Fixing a number or adding a missing source is the smallest contribution and the most welcome one. It needs no issue. Open a pull request.
If you would rather be pointed at something specific, the ozone slate names its own gaps and they are open as good first issues. Two of them are a single citation each.
To take on a whole problem, claim one from the backlog above by commenting on its issue, or open a propose-problem issue for a problem that is not listed. Either way you will be asked to name at least one real fork in the road and one open item before you start, because a problem without those two things does not make a useful slate. Once the claim is acknowledged the row above gets your name on it. Then read CONTRIBUTING.md and write all eight pages.
Write a slate and you are offered ownership of it. Your handle goes in
.github/CODEOWNERS against that folder, and GitHub asks
you to review anything that touches it afterwards.
This is the only way the repo can work. The backlog covers epidemiology, atmospheric chemistry, road safety engineering and famine response, and nobody is qualified to review all of it. Ownership puts the judgment on whoever knows the subject.
Ownership is not a veto and not a byline. You cannot block a correctly sourced correction, slates carry no author credit, and the governance files stay with the maintainers.
Ownership also moves. If someone turns up who clearly knows the subject better than you do, and their pull requests show it, hand the slate over. That call is yours to make, not the maintainers'. Nobody has to prove anything to a committee and nobody gets voted out. The aim is that the person reviewing a problem is the best-informed person available for it, and holding a slate you have outgrown works against that. The full terms are in CONTRIBUTING.md.
The ozone layer slate on Slatesource: [PLACEHOLDER URL]
Content is CC BY-SA 4.0. Use it, change it, share it under the same terms.
This is day 1. One slate is written and the backlog is ten problems long, which is itself an undercount.