Why Wikirate and what is a "company"?
+Discussion
I recently found this site via a friend. Its well designed, with some data feeds but with little community generated content. I see two challenges for this site and wanted to start a discussion on them...
First, its not clear to me why this site needs to exist at all, given all the other more established places to do the same thing. For example, why does it makes sense to have this site instead of simply adding the content to the already well developed and used site Wikipedia? Why is it better to have a page on Apple here when there is already a (much more complete and up to date) profile of Apple on Wikipedia that includes a section on enviroment and social impacts? It seems like the sponsor grant money might be better served setting up data feeds or generating community activity towards that site. Likewise, for the conversations feature of this site there are much better sites already in place like Quora.
A second issue I have immediately is with the organization around "company"... how is that defined? Once you start having high volumes of overviews created the task of company dissamibguation and maintenance is going to be significant. If you mean "company" as in the financial holding entity, then many of the overviews on this site are going to connect to companies no one ever hears about because in fact their subsidiaries are the actual brand operators. For example, a "company" could be the clothing retailer Zaras. But they are wholly owned by Inditex, so maybe its better to list Inditex as the "company" even though they make no operating decisions at all. But Inditex itself is majority owned by a private holding "company" Gartler. So maybe its better to list Gartler as the "company"on wikirate. Even if you get this right (which would be hard to know how to verify), it changes. Businesses aquire, merge, and divest parts of organizations constantly. Who keeps track of those changes?
...again, a good site design, but I think these two issues are real blockers to it being sustainable and useful.
Hi Jonah,
good questions! Let me try to answer the first one: the goal of Wikirate is more than just aggregating information around companies' actions with respect to sustainability. Unlike Wikipedia, where bits of information can only be combined to an overview entry, the vision of Wikirate is to provide tools that enable users to break down information into elements, which can be recombined into multiple more "dynamic" ways of making sense of data, such as maps, timelines and ratings. Last year, the dev team has been mainly working on the basic (but very important!) functionalities, such as adding online sources, notes and citing notes in overviews; and only this year the focus has been shifted to the more "exciting" features, like ratings. However, it's important to understand that in order to really create full transparency around sustainability issues, context is just as crucial as facts. So on Wikirate, overviews and ratings complement each other.
Hi Jonah,
thank you for your thoughts. So far we built only the "wiki" part, and this year we ll add the "rate" part of it. With that it will become much clearer who we differentiate ourselves from any other site, including wikipedia. Have you read for example http://wikirate.org/Introducing_ratings?
Combining wiki and rate, and making it much easier for anyone to participate via simple note additions (you don't need to consider context to add new information - much easier compared to wikipedia!), will make wikirate very powerful and unique.
I will let Ethan comment on the company definition and mapping :-)
Philipp
Here is a first attempt to answer the "What is a company?" question. (Once we get that to a place we like, we should probably link to it from the Company page.
Jonah,
Nice to see these questions being asked. Why Wikirate? Why isn't Wikipedia enough?
Wikirate is about fulfilling the consumer's desire to know whether or not they should purchase something, and, consequently, shaping a business environment in which companies that impact their communities and the world for the better are more successful than those companies that impact their communities and the world for the worse.
Wikipedia provides only brief allusions to some such impacts (often buried somewhere in the depths of obscure subtext or discussion threads), such as the environmental impacts associated with the extraction of certain resources in certain regions, perhaps by certain companies.
The consumer has to piece-together from various allusions the probable impacts associated with each of their many daily purchasing decisions. Not only is this infeasible for most people working full-time jobs and with families to care for, but, even if they were to do so, the best they could come up with is a vague impression of what impacts might be associated with a given purchase.
Wikirate, on the other hand, would be designed to empower the busy consumer to base their purchasing decision according to specific impacts associated with the purchass in question, and empower them to do so efficiently, quickly, and, possibly, at the time of making the purchase. This would be feasible by simply looking-up ratings on the product or company in question.
Let's take a particular case in point, a particular piece of jewelry: a luxury watch. Say a busy salary-man might want to buy one for his spouse for their 10th wedding anniversary. Suppose he doesn't have the time to do the research he would like because he thought the upcoming anniversary was going to be their 9th rather than their 10th, and so didn't realized he should get an extra special gift this year instead of the usual flowers and a dinner-out at a somewhat fancy restaurant.
And so, on his only day off before the upcoming anniversary date, he's rushed down to the mall to find a luxury watch to purchase. He doesn't have more than a couple of hours to find the right one. He would like to do as much research as he did for the purchase of the wedding ring he bought 10 years earlier. At that time, he had made sure to buy a ring with registered diamonds, and check the reputability of the registration process. He did so because he knew his wife would look into such issues, and knew that if there was any possibility that the diamonds were conflict diamonds she probably wouldn't wear it.
Likewise, with this purchase of a luxury watch, he knows his wife would never want to wear one associated with any sort of unethical impacts, be they negative environmental or social impacts. He couldn't possibly get a watch with any possibility of the diamonds therein being conflict diamonds or even the precious metals therein having been mined with child or slave labor. Sadly, he simply doesn't have time to do the necessary research. He makes some frantic phone calls to some of his friends to get some advice and learns that he could use something called Wikirate to help him.
He downloads the app and sees that he can compare ratings of impacts associated with the production, distribution, and retail of various types and brands of watches. Not only that, but he sees that the Wikirate community provides details on how the ratings have been determined, with links to the various discussions on the various types and brands of watches, overviews on associated companies involved in the supply chain as well as specific impacts of specific business practices. There are links to other overviews, other discussions, and other ratings on the various companies involved in the supply chain of each luxury watch's materials, all of which were used in constructing the crowdsourced rating. In addition, he can also browse various indicators by which ratings were also in part determined.
For instance, he can list the types of luxury watches according to the number of deaths associated with their production and distribution. One type of one brand of luxury watch has an estimated 0.03 deaths attributable to its production. He unpacks the figure and sees the estimates of number of deaths resulting from global warming attributable to the carbon footprint associated with the watch's production, the estimates of number of deaths resulting from conflicts for precious metals or gems used in the watch's production, the estimates of the number of deaths resulting from the use of slave labor in mining operations for metals used in the watch's construction, the estimates of the number of deaths resulting from disease in communities associated with the pollution of ground water near mining operations for metals used in the watch's production, estimate of number of deaths resulting from poor health or malnutition or poverty of workers, etc.). He browses another type and brand of luxury watch which has only 0.01 deaths attributable to it and unpacks those figures. He browses various types of various brands of luxury watches, and is dismayed to learn that every single type of every brand available has at least some amount of 'associated death' attributable to its production. Then he notices that in spite of all of them having certain number of associated deaths attributed to their production, some nevertheless have an overall positive Wikirate rating.
Curious as to how this could be possible, he reads that of all the brands of luxury watches with positive overall crowdsourced ratings, one particular luxury watch brand has been successful in offsetting its historical 'negative impact debt' by paying more in taxes by being based in a nation with a high corporate tax environment rather than in a tax haven, as well as donating more of its profits to certain highly rated charities. As such, the overall ethical impact rating as determined by the Wikirate community for that particular brand of luxury watch is positive rather than negative in spite of is associated deaths indicator. Nevertheless, he is still bothered by the 'associated deaths' indicator of the brand. As such, he decides to list all luxury watches according to their overall impact rating and according to 'associated deaths' indicator so as to find the best ethical option for his purchase. He finds various types of one particular brand with a low 'associated deaths' indicator and a highly positive overall rating. He browses those types, chooses one he thinks his wife will like in terms of aesthetics, and purchases it right then and there through links to the webste of the nearest watch retailer which carries that particular type and brand.
Of course, this level of functionality is a long way off, clearly. Nevertheless, it answers how Wikirate is differentiated from Wikipedia. Insofar as I understand the direction Wikirate is heading, the aim is to provide consumers with as-exact-as-possible estimates on the impacts associated with their purchases, either positive or negative, so as to empower them to quickly and efficiently determine the best ethical option for their purchasing decisions.
I personally think that consumers will be increasingly demanding ethical purchase options, especially as the negative impacts of human activity become more apparent. Even now, consumers are increasingly basing their lifestyle, employment, and purchasing decisions on what they perceive are the impacts associated with such choices. Moreover, they are increasingly demanding that 'companies' (however we define the term) do likewise and conduct themselves more ethically according to what is becoming more widely considered to be socially and environmentally responsible business practices.
At some point, a critical mass of consumer demand for adequately presented information pertaining to the impacts associated with their purchases will result in Wikirate's sudden and exponentially growing importance. Wikipedia's purview is simply not set up to fulfill this impending critical mass of consumer demand for widely available, efficiently accessible, information pertinent to the ethical impacts associated with particular purchasing decisions.
I think a turning point will be reached when 'companies' (retailers specifically) become 'incentivized' to provide consumers with sound and irrefutable facts and analysis that they will start demanding as a part of their purchasing decision-making process. If the retailer in question doesn't have such information available for the consumer, the consumer will shop at a retail store which does provide such information.
At that point, Wikirate could become an invaluable resource to retailers who for the sake of their business's financial best interest will train their sales people to direct customers to consult Wikirate overviews, discussions, and ratings, and even make use of Wikirate overviews, discussions, and ratings themselves in the process of advising their customers in their purchasing decision process.
The big turning point will come when companies themselves offer up their own information on their own supply chains, etc., (to which only they have access) to be publicly audited by the Wikirate community.
At such time, such infromation need only be monitored by the Wikirate community in such a way that ensures the consumer can continue to base their purchasing decisions effectively on sound information, reputable overviews, genuine discussions, and soundly constructed crowdsourced ratings. At that point, if Wikirate becomes widely used by consumers, no longer will companies be financially incentivized to conduct themselves in secrecy and hide their environmentally and socially irresponsible business practices, but, instead, they will be financially incentivized towards conducting themselves with increased transparency and even participating in the construction of Wikirate ratings. And as a consequence of being financially incentivized to conduct themselves transparently by such ratings and consumers use of such ratings upon which to base their purchasing decisions, companies will finally be financially incentivized to conduct their business in an environmentally, socially, and ethically responsible manner.