---
id: about/audience
about:
  label: 'Who this is for, and what it is trying to do'
  description: >-
    The intended audience and the goals behind the guide, stated so that anyone
    can check the guide against them.
  pinned: 1
provenance:
  origin: survey
  reviewed: '2026-10-02'
  reviewed_by: machine draft from Anselm's stated intentions; not yet rewritten by him
  status: proposed
---
# Who this is for, and what it is trying to do

This page is the guide's statement of intent. Every other page can be checked
against it. If a page fails these aims, that is a fault in the page, and we
would like to hear about it.

## Who it is for

People who want to understand a place they care about and are wondering
whether a model could help.

- Someone who farms or manages land and wants to know what a change would do
  to their water, soil or income.
- Someone who works for a town or an agency and needs to show residents what
  a proposal would do, and hear what they would do differently.
- A group of neighbours with a question about a road, a river, a development
  or a fire risk, and no budget.
- People who build these models for a living, who want a shared reference
  and a place to compare notes.

You do not need a technical background to use the guide. Specialists are
welcome and the detail they need is here, one layer down on every page.

## What it is trying to do

1. **Help people see their own place better.** Local understanding is the
   point. The technology is a means.
2. **Answer "so you want to make a digital twin?" honestly**, including when
   the answer is that a map, a spreadsheet or someone else's model will do.
3. **Collect the tools, data and methods in one place**, described evenly,
   with what each costs and what it takes to use.
4. **Leave every reader with a next step**: something to try, a checklist, a
   person to ask.
5. **Keep nobody out.** Plain words first. Technical terms explained where
   they appear.
6. **Serve the people doing this work as a whole**, across tools and
   vendors, as a common good.

## What it is not

- It does not sell a product or favour one.
- It does not rank tools by popularity.
- It does not speak for the field. It is a reference that people in the
  field are invited to correct.

## How it is kept

- Every entry names its sources and the date it was last checked.
- Where the guide has not checked something, it says "not yet reviewed".
- Software agents help find and draft material. A person approves everything
  that is shown.
- The whole guide is plain text in a public repository, free to read and
  reuse, and readable by AI assistants as well as people.

## Holding the guide to this

If a page talks over your head, favours a vendor, states something without a
source, or leaves you with nowhere to go, it has missed these aims. Tell us
which page.