Comparative Mind Database

There's a possibly cool project in the offing to create a Comparative Mind Database. My mate Dave's mate Wayne has written some useful thoughts on the challenges facing such an endeavour over at his blog. Wayne's right - there are some tricky questions. I think his list is pretty good, but would add a concern that isn't specifically related to design, but to the economics of the affair.

If it takes work (over and above what can be automated) to get research reflected in the CMD, which it will, then it has, as far as possible, to be in the interests of the people doing the science to do the work. That pretty much has to mean that the payoff in terms of impact for work already done and quality of ongoing work should be greater than the cost, over some acceptable time scale.