Reference services provide shared public knowledge that Pancakes nodes can use without centralizing private household or personal information.
Reference services answer questions about the world.
They do not answer questions about people.
This document defines:
It does not define symbolic meaning, GIS implementation, application behaviour, or private household storage.
A reference service is an open or community-governed source of stable public knowledge.
Examples include:
Reference services describe the shared world.
They do not describe individual lives.
Pancakes deliberately separates public knowledge from private interpretation.
Public knowledge includes:
Private knowledge includes:
Nodes combine both locally.
```text id=”9a0xyv” Private transformation
+
Public reference knowledge
↓
Local meaning
Meaning belongs to the node.
Not the reference service.
---
# Reference Service Families
Reference services organize public knowledge into reusable domains.
---
## Geographic
Examples include:
* watersheds
* aquifers
* municipalities
* parks
* trails
* conservation areas
* ecological regions
---
## Goods
Examples include:
* barcodes
* ingredients
* packaging
* repairability
* recycling
* commodity identity
* standards
---
## Civic Infrastructure
Examples include:
* water systems
* wastewater
* transit
* libraries
* schools
* public health
* waste collection
* emergency alerts
---
## Ecological
Examples include:
* species
* habitats
* pollinators
* migration routes
* native plants
* invasive species
* restoration guidance
---
## Knowledge
Examples include:
* educational resources
* standards
* public datasets
* repair manuals
* community-maintained recipes
* safety guidance
---
Future domains might include:
* weather
* astronomy
* geology
* accessibility
* heritage
* agriculture
* energy
* public transportation
The architecture should remain open to future domains.
---
# Relationship To Nodes
Reference services are passive.
Nodes are active.
Reference services answer questions.
Nodes decide:
* what to ask
* what to remember
* what to ignore
* what to combine
* what to share
Nodes should prefer:
* local caches
* downloaded datasets
* regional mirrors
* offline operation
when those approaches improve privacy and resilience.
---
# Relationship To Capabilities
Capabilities consume reference services.
Examples include:
* GIS
* barcode
* pollinator stewardship
* civic infrastructure
* inventory
* weather
Capabilities translate public knowledge into domain-specific behaviour.
Reference services remain application-independent.
---
# Relationship To Place
Reference services describe places.
Nodes relate to places.
GIS may identify:
* watersheds
* parks
* trails
* municipalities
* conservation authorities
The node determines whether those relationships matter.
Place remains a local relationship rather than a centralized profile.
---
# Relationship To Symbolic Systems
Reference services do not produce symbolic meaning.
They expose public structure.
For example:
```text id="2d2n8y"
Reference service
"This location is inside a wetland."
↓
Node
"A stewardship walk occurred here."
↓
Pitchfork
movement
wetland
stewardship
↓
Projection
Ember Moss
The wetland is public knowledge.
The walk is private.
The symbolic spectrum emerges locally.
The RPG projection occurs later.
These responsibilities should remain separate.
Reference services support quality-of-life understanding.
Examples include:
Reference services expose conditions.
Nodes determine personal relevance.
Quality-of-life interpretation remains local.
Reference services should minimize personal information exposure.
Prefer:
Avoid:
Reference services should not become surveillance infrastructure.
Reference services should support:
Communities should be free to operate trusted mirrors or alternative implementations.
No single organization should own public knowledge.
Public knowledge should remain reusable.
Meaning should emerge locally.
Reference services should expose facts rather than interpretations.
Private household history should remain private.
Reference services should compose naturally with capabilities.
Plural implementations should be encouraged.
Reference services are not:
Reference services also do not replace community authority.
Some ecological, Indigenous, historical, or cultural knowledge requires governance beyond what a generic public reference service should publish.
An open GIS service identifies watersheds, parks, municipalities, trails, and ecological regions.
A barcode database identifies products, ingredients, repairability, packaging, and recycling guidance.
A civic infrastructure registry identifies water systems, transit agencies, public health regions, and emergency alerts.
A species database identifies native plants, pollinators, habitats, and invasive species.
A repair knowledge service publishes repair manuals, maintenance guidance, and replacement part information.
A public recipe registry publishes recipes for food preparation, repair, education, stewardship, and community practices.
Nodes combine these public facts with local transformations to produce meaningful local interpretations.
Later documents should reference this article whenever they require canonical language for:
Application documents should describe concrete datasets, APIs, and client behaviour.
They should not redefine the reference service architecture.