Comment by tschiller | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tschiller | Hacker News Reader

Open Synthesis (https://www.opensynthesis.org)

Open Synthesis is an open platform for CIA-style analysis of current events. Our mission is to help the public synthesize the flood of information from the media into actionable conclusions. Examples from https://www.opensynthesis.org/boards/:

- What is the relationship between WikiLeaks and Russian intelligence?

- What caused the Space X Falcon 9 explosion?

Now that we have a basic MVP, here's what we want to accomplish this month:

- Improve new user onboarding; reduce the learning curve of the main analysis interface

- Design and implement a moderation system; enable public sign-ups on the site

- Engage an initial set of journalists/analysts to get their feedback on requirements

- Surface information about evidence quality

- Create basic branding materials (e.g., logo)

In addition to these immediate goals, we're looking for designers to help with UI/UX design of the site, especially figuring out how to adapt the analysis tool for mobile.

Skills we need: design, UX, UI, internationalization, community design, community development, moderation, test engineering, Django, Python 3

License: GPLv3

Sandbox deployment (with no account/editing restrictions): https://open-synthesis-sandbox.herokuapp.com

Help Wanted issues: https://github.com/twschiller/open-synthesis/labels/help%20w...

HN-selected issues: https://github.com/twschiller/open-synthesis/labels/ask%20hn

Project Chat (Gitter): https://gitter.im/open-synthesis/Lobby

Should people know what "CIA-style analysis" means? Your short description should explain what this means, or link to an explanation -- otherwise it tells people nothing.

Thanks for the feedback, I was trying to keep the post short. There's a description of the technique in the GitHub readme and on the front-page of the site.

For reference, the site currently supports the Analysis of Competing Hypotheses (ACH) technique [1]. ACH is a structured way of determining which explanation/hypothesis is most consistent with the available evidence.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analysis_of_competing_hypothes...

Are there plans for any other structured analysis methodologies? Like some from this book: https://www.amazon.com/Structured-Analytic-Techniques-Intell...

Yep, that's the plan! Any methodologies in particular you suggest? ACH seemed like a good choice to start out with because it's relatively simple and well-known

It will be interesting to see which techniques from intelligence analysis and business best lend themselves to collaborative analysis on the internet.

Well, techniques like starbursting, [cross-]impact matrix and quadrant crunching can become much easier with a proper software interface.

Nice work so far. I have used/worked on similar projects in the past, but more focused on financial analysis specifically. HF's try these types of things all the time as you may know.

I think the potential here is very cool and may be interested in helping if I can.

But if I may ask: What's the future goal for this? More so, what do you mean by "actionable conclusions"?

(Like in finance the actionable conclusions were something along the lines of risk management/buy/sell/hedge it)

I'm all for better info and getting the true full story about events; but curious what actionable conclusion means here.

Happy to chat offline about it if more appropriate. Again, great work.

I'm very interested in your project and would like to contribute, having tried to design similar projects in the past but never making it past the brainstorming stage.

Sent you an email, would be interested in hearing the other projects you've thought about

A few years ago I wrote my own toy ACH framework! I would love to come help out.

Sent you an email, thanks!

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