[gentoo-user] A question about Wikis... (A bit off topic...)

[Steve]

I'm trying to establish a shared repository for semi-structured data... 
This could be interpreted in many ways, so I'll try to illustrate with 
an example.

Say I'm researching a new topic - for example, the Oil Industry... and 
I'm looking to establish a shared resource detailing relevant 
information.  From the outset, I recognise that a completely free-form 
approach isn't appropriate... there are a number of 'key entities' - for 
example, Oil Companies; Oil Executives; Oil Fields; Oil Consultancies - 
etc.  Hence, I know that I will be interested to develop a coherent 
profile of all the Oil Companies in a similar format.  If I were to 
establish the market capitalisation for one oil company, I'd want to 
make it clear that this information is 'unknown' for other companies 
rather than simply not mention it.  Similarly, for CEO; tax status - 
etc.  When it comes to the directors, perhaps I want to establish "who's 
who" style information on them... where I'd collect their educational 
backgrounds; URLs for appearances in the press etc.

I imagine that software that supports the development of such flexibly 
structured information would be of great value to a wide range of 
applications.  For example, it would be a fantastic resource for 
journalists; with other data, it might serve as a great way for business 
oriented research; it could be used to support networking (in a 
business/social sense) - and a whole lot of applications I can't imagine 
myself, I'm sure.

Is there any existing software that does this sort of thing?  A wiki 
goes part-way, but I'd want to be able to establish 'type' for pages... 
so that, for example, every record of a company has standard fields into 
which various statistics can be filled-in... and where URLs to external 
data is prompted...

Any ideas?