The EDH community information project is a structured, DITA-based local knowledge base for El Dorado Hills, California — published using the Oxygen WebHelp Responsive format. It’s designed so residents, visitors, and local organizations can explore trusted, well-organized information about the community.

Beyond that, it serves as a model for other communities and organizations interested in planning and building similar local knowledge systems. 

The project, including this post, are being developed as a joint effort between us and various AI assistants, including Perplexity AI.

Explore the external version of the project

Here are some questions and answers related to information ownership.

1. Who owns the information in our EDH prototype?

Legally, VRJ Associates does — but ideally, stewardship should belong to the community itself. A sustainable local knowledge base thrives when ownership is shared among residents, civic groups, and local institutions.

That requires people willing to listen to many voices, find workable compromises, and commit resources to hosting and maintaining the information. Keeping the data current is no small task — if the EDH knowledge base reflected all the community changes over the last 20 years, it might have been updated 25-100 times already.

2. What could a community do with the information?

Our current EDH prototype proves the concept, but its real power lies in what comes next — a living, regularly updated collection of FAQs and trusted local resources that benefit schools, libraries, small businesses, and real estate professionals alike.

These organizations could adapt or redistribute portions of the data to meet their own needs.

For example, imagine a junior high teacher running a unit on the California Gold Rush. A locally grounded, curated resource could make that topic more tangible for students — connecting local history to classroom learning.

3. Who decides what counts as community information?

And if the data is “open,” who is responsible when it’s misused or misunderstood?

These questions get to the heart of information responsibility — ensuring accuracy, fairness, and inclusion.

Communities must balance diverse perspectives, reconcile conflicting narratives, and consider how official data coexists with lived experience and grassroots contributions. In practice, that means building structures that respect privacy, context, and credibility while maintaining openness and accessibility.

Even something as simple as the EDH “rocks” carries layers of meaning depending on audience and intent.

4. When does a community knowledge base become “official” – and should it?

Should a knowledge base like EDH’s be viewed as an extension of government records, or as a complementary resource that fills in the gaps with local knowledge and context?

“Authority” in this case may come less from a formal label and more from consistent transparency, accuracy, and community participation.

5. What language should community information be in?

Ideally, in English and any other languages that are widely spoken in the region. For a project like EDH, multilingual support is entirely feasible  — especially with today’s reliable machine translation tools and community involvement in verifying key content.

What’s next?

This prototype is a foundation — a working demonstration of how structured, community-centered information can take shape. The next step would be to bring local stakeholders into the conversation about stewardship, sustainability, and expansion.