Futurepedia will be a public wiki in many languages that covers a topic Wikipedia doesn't allow--thinking and writing about the future. We envision this as a major advance to global foresight culture, something all the world's citizens should have. We've reserved Futurepedia.org for this, and are just waiting for volunteers to help us find sponsors. Perhaps you?

At Futurepedia you will find structured speculations on possible, probable, and preferable (3P's) futures in science, technology, environmental, economic, political, and social (STEEPS) domains. As in Wikipedia we will use MediaWiki software, and all material will be shared in a Creative Commons share-alike or GNU Free Documentation License.

As in Scholarpedia, the first section of each page will be written by a relevant foresight scholar, beginning with links to good online pages (Wikipedia, Scholarpedia, etc.) on the history and present status of the topic, followed by a brief (typically 3-5 pages) scholarly article on the possible, probable, and preferable futures of the topic. This foresight article will be written in Schools of Thought (SoT) format, where each major SoT is described in a few summary paragraphs, and references some of the leading thinkers advancing the school, and supporting publications. These sections will be anonymously peer-reviewed for reliability and will be citable as peer-reviewed publications, and yet will also be continually revised and improved, as with any wiki page. Also as in Scholarpedia, every page will have a curator, typically the page author, who maintains the page for relevance, accuracy, readability, and reliability

As in Wikipedia, the remaining sections of every page will be publicly editable by anyone who creates a RealName account, to capture the collective foresight of our global community of foresight thinkers, professional and lay.

A well-developed Futurepedia should have at least the following sections, among others:

1. Education. Links to frameworks, courses, and resources for professionals in Foresight Education.
2. Research. Links to pre-print communities, methods, and tools used by professionals in Foresight Research.
3. Employment. Descriptions of Foresight Employers and Jobs available in major cities around the world.
4. Encyclopedia. Outlines of Possible, Probable, and Preferable Futures in a wide range of STEEPS topics.
5. Polling/Delphi/Prediction Market. Tools for capturing the collective wisdom of the Futurepedia-using crowd.

Education, Research, and Employment are being presently being addressed as FERN projects, and hosted on this FERN wiki. See links above.

The Encyclopedia portion will need both a substantial resources commitment ($500K+ in a Foundation Fund to provide $25K of annual supporting funds) and a team of passionate Volunteers (including you?) to launch this ambitious project. There are a number of small futures wikis that have been started in recent years, such as Forwiki for futures practices and Future.wikia.com. Partnering with one of these might be a great early strategy, if they have the same vision. Polling/Delphi/PM's might best be done later, partnering with a professional in the space, such as Intrade.com.

Affiliation of this wiki with APF, WFS, WFSF, the Millennium Project, and other leading futures organizations, as well as all the graduate foresight programs, would be ideal.