Systems Atlas Project

CONTRIBUTE Open project

The most useful thing you can send is a case that breaks a division.

This is an open project currently led by one person. That is a description of where it is, not of how it should stay.

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An account lets you comment on any node and propose changes from the site itself — no git, no YAML. Everything is reviewed before it appears, and rejections are published with their reasons.

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The repository github.com/judegordon/systems-atlas

The taxonomy is YAML under atlas/, one file per domain. That is the thing to edit. The site is generated from it.

A case that breaks a division

If you can name something that will not classify cleanly, or that fits in two places at once, that is worth more than a new category.

Say which node it breaks and what you were trying to classify. A source helps. What you would do instead is optional — the case alone is useful.

Open a “break a division” issue

Everything else

Also welcome, and needed: definitions, sources, boundary cases, code, design, and corrections to anything.

Two things about filling a gap. Every exclusion has to say where the excluded thing goes, because excluding something without a destination leaves it nowhere. And a definition without a source is an opinion with formatting.

If you are unsure, put it in uncertainty rather than resolving it confidently. Recorded uncertainty is worth more than false confidence.

Open an “add a definition or source” issue

How it works

  1. Open an issue first, for anything beyond a typo. It saves you writing something that turns out to conflict with a decision made elsewhere.
  2. Fork, edit the YAML, run the validator. Read docs/SCHEMA.md before touching a file — it is the field reference.
  3. Open a pull request against the YAML. It will be reviewed on content, not markup.

npm run validate

A pull request that fails validation will say exactly why. Validation reports but does not block: the atlas has real unresolved errors, and publishing them is the point. Do not edit the taxonomy to silence one — those are findings, and they belong in diagnostics/.

Review

Pull requests are reviewed against the six rules, and against whether the justification actually supports the division. Expect to be asked for a source. Expect disagreement to be recorded rather than settled quietly.

When a division fails — a case will not classify, two categories overlap, a definition turns out circular — it gets a file in diagnostics/. Including when the outcome is unresolved. Especially then.

Credit and licences

Anything merged keeps your attribution in the git history, which is the real credit record.

  • Content — the taxonomy, the lenses, the diagnostics — is CC BY 4.0.
  • Code is MIT.

Funding

The project is self-funded and carries no advertising, now or later. Conversations about funding are welcome — they are just not being solicited from this page.

It is paid for by client work. Every source of money in and every category of money out is published, including salary — see funding.

Getting in touch

An issue is usually the right place. For anything larger than a pull request, including working on this in a sustained way: inbox@systemsatlasproject.com.