SF.OokOok - A Distributed Collaborative Coding of Science Fiction

We are drawing from three primary sources in designing the data management: the GEP for the initial set of broad questions in the survey, Calibrated Peer Review (CPR) for managing the influence individual data entries have on the overall results, and the Internet Speculative Fiction Database (ISFDB) for the bibliography.

Those familiar with the GEP will recognize the basis of this project. However, this project is not a competitor with the GEP but a complement. The GEP is studying within the context of a university course the evolution of speculative fiction. While the GEP does characterize the stories it reads, it does so with particular questions designed with genre evolution in mind. More important than data collection, the GEP provides a good environment for students studying objective research methods in literary criticism. The GEP does not provide a lot of data that can be used outside the project. SF.OokOok does not try to answer any particular question but instead tries to collect as much data as possible that might be helpful in other research projects.

One of the problems with open data collection is the accuracy and trustworthiness of the data. SF.OokOok will try to correct some of this by borrowing some of the calibration ideas from CPR. In general, the more an individual agrees with others, the more weight their answers are given.

Finally, the question of what consititutes science fiction and fantasy is passed off to another project that is already trying to answer that question: the ISFDB. Only stories in the ISFDB will be surveyed. Until the new web API is put into production, we will periodically import the ISFDB data into our own database. Once the new web API is in production, we will consider feeding bibliography updates back to the ISFDB so people can survey fiction that might not yet be in the database.