The taxonomy is very biased towards representing environmental groups at the expense of non-environmental groups. It includes tiny categories that have only a handful of environmental groups, whereas a thousand or more non-environmental groups are often lumped together in a single category.

The existing taxonomy is only acceptable if this site wants to be a traditional environmental site. If it wants to represent the other social movements, it needs to change.

For instance, this site cares more about distinguishing between different types of animals than representing people of color. Race is a critical issue and should be listed as a main category with sub categories under it (possibly sub-categories include white anti-racism, Asian/Asian-American/Pacific Islander, Latino/a, African American, Native American, Bi-Racial, Arab American, etc - addmittedly a US-biased list, but it would be possible to extend this to the rest of the world).

Hi Akreider,

In your first post you mention the danger of data siloing if WiserEarth does not develop an open API. I agree that WiserEarth should take the steps necessary to allow other sites to take and repurpose WiserEarth data. I'm sure you know, as someone that runs a non-profit site, new features can take awhile to implement due to resources limitations.

But if you are concerned about data siloing, I think you should also be concerned with issue siloing. The tools and features of WiserEarth are designed (and being designed) to help single issue groups find their commonality with other single issue groups. The long list of animal species protection areas should realize that the protection of a single family/species is insufficient, and that the wider goal of biodiversity conservation is essential. Unfortunately, many groups are still single-issue focus, so the detailed taxonomy was developed to meet those groups where they are now, instead of trying to jam them into a place they haven't gone before.

Likewise, many social justice groups focus on a particular race of people. Not only is this insufficient, but it could be detrimental to the essential goal of justice for everyone. I would rather see the animal family groups combine than for WiserEarth to encourage different races to silo themselves. Especially when the systemic cause of all oppression can be traced back to the same old culprits like war and economic injustice.

And from a practically perspective, I do not think it is feasible. You listed the few ethnicities common in the US, but that would open the floodgates to a massive expansion in taxonomy. I believe the taxonomy would be become unweidly.

Finally, I suspect their are more environmental areas than social areas, but it isn't hugely biased. A keyword search on 'social' returns 96 Areas out of 379 total, or 25%. In addition, many environmental areas are social areas, like Asthma and Environmental Health. Moreover, many of the groups, like Democracy Education and Journalism, do not favor either side.

I would support increasing the number of social ones if they are appropriate. But I wouldn't support them just to achieve parity with environment.

Oops I got my two discussions mixed up in the same topic area!

So this area is now officially for Data Sharing.

The race/ethnicity discussion is moved elsewhere. And if someone wants to talk about the taxonomy (categories) they can do it in that area, or perhaps create a new topic.