# The Magic of Small Databases - Host: [tomcritchlow.com](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/hosts/tomcritchlow.com/) - Saved: February 2, 2023 (2023-02-02T15:37:04Z) - Record: https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/020efaa3df94/ - JSON: https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/020efaa3df94.json ## What Jamie wrote I love this idea of small databases. I've published this kind of thing on my own website for decades. Thanks to the amazing Wayback Machine at [Internet Archive](https://archive.org) you can see my [list of laserdiscs](https://web.archive.org/web/20020629061204fw_/http://www.thingelstad.com/early-days/hobbies/ld-list.html) and even my [list of CDs](https://web.archive.org/web/20020629055802fw_/http://www.thingelstad.com/early-days/hobbies/cd-list.html) from 1992! Even today, one of my main website categories is [Lists](https://www.thingelstad.com/lists/) where I continue to curate things like [list of escape rooms](https://www.thingelstad.com/lists/escape-rooms/), [list of vehicles I've owned](https://www.thingelstad.com/lists/vehicles/), even [cameras I've had](https://www.thingelstad.com/lists/cameras/). These are all small databases. > Let’s think through the kinds of use cases and functionality that is important. I’d say that the core features are: > > 1. Creating collections of objects > 2. Adding and updating metadata for the objects (ideally in bulk if needed) > 3. Creating collections, relationships and pathways through the data > 4. Collaborating on these with others > 5. Publishing to the web in an easy to consume way, with stable URLs, search etc > 6. Open standard file formats for export / import / desktop editing > > I think the last point is key to building an ecosystem of this stuff. We have CSV files as a kind of open standard for any kind of data - possible to open it in all kinds of applications (or even edit directly with a text editor) and yet we have no standard concept for a database file that you can just open and edit in a range of applications? As I read this I the screaming remnants of the [Semantic Web](https://www.w3.org/standards/semanticweb/) and [Microformats](https://microformats.io) kept ringing in my head. There was a serious push to support semantic metadata to allow any webpage to have this kind of structure. I went deep down the [Semantic MediaWiki](https://www.semantic-mediawiki.org/wiki/Semantic_MediaWiki) track which brought the world of wiki editing to that same idea. Semantic MediaWiki is probably the closest realization of what this article asks for. But it was massively too difficult. At the root of all this I feel is that you're dealing with a database. As long as that is the metaphor, I think we will struggle with a domain that is too complex. So how do we make the data available in a way that those databases can be completely ephemeral? Microformats seems like the right answer. What is a data version of the web? And how does it interoperate seamlessly with everything else. ## Facts - Kind: [Page](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/kinds/page/) ## Appears in - [WT240: Weekly Thing #240 / Shapes, Tags, Ubiquity](https://weekly.thingelstad.com/archive/240/), Featured ## Mentions - [Semantic MediaWiki - semantic-mediawiki.org](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/18aadf426f60/) (semantic-mediawiki.org, July 31, 2011) ## Same host - [Yes! and… How to be effective in the theatre of work](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/74a8a1e0ee58/) (tomcritchlow.com, November 27, 2019) - [Library JSON - A Proposal for a Decentralized Goodreads](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/f06c2a227646/) (tomcritchlow.com, April 16, 2020) - [Some Notes on Executive Dashboards](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/1dd8375d83b2/) (tomcritchlow.com, May 11, 2022) - [LinkedIn is not a social or professional network, it's a learning network](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/51bdab7e6b72/) (tomcritchlow.com, March 27, 2024) - [Taking Blogging Seriously](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/4b81f8f261e4/) (tomcritchlow.com, July 6, 2025) ## Saved the same week - [Inside CNET’s AI-powered SEO money machine - The Verge](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/b758688f457b/) (theverge.com, February 2, 2023) - [Crypto Theses for 2023 | Gravity Fund](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/af266f040f72/) (gravityfund.vc, February 2, 2023) - [The generative AI revolution has begun—how did we get here? | Ars Technica](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/69f0665574cf/) (arstechnica.com, February 2, 2023) - [Pluralistic: Tiktok’s enshittification (21 Jan 2023)](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/253b752a1fd1/) (pluralistic.net, February 2, 2023) - [Tag Systems](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/5708ec15d35b/) (buttondown.email, February 2, 2023) ## Elsewhere - Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://tomcritchlow.com/2023/01/27/small-databases/