Comments on: A revolution in Whitehall

By: Mike Williams

Mike Williams — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 09:43:53 +0000

Exactly the paradigm to follow, at least with the data in the public domain there is the opportunity for the community to review it. Let’s hope a mechanism can be developped for the community to feed back what they have found back to the powers that be.

By: TimW

TimW — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 09:05:10 +0000

My last post appears to have gone. Was it the URL?Michael Blastland has written a good article on this on the BBC website.

By: TimW

TimW — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 15:32:22 +0000

Michael Blastland’s article on the BBC website is good…

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8474581.stm

His other columns are worth reading too.

By: TimW

TimW — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 13:05:30 +0000

“…data.gov.uk also represents the publish first and sort out the quality / metadata later paradigm which governments must follow, an evolutionary approach is vital in the fast moving world of web today, achieving perfection and accounting for all potential uses of data is not feasible and can no longer be used as an excuse not release data ‘as is’…”

This is a typical attitude of many people for whom completion of a project or the roll-out of a system is more important than the data that underlies it. The problem is that it’s the data that is the foundation of the decision making process and bad data will result in bad decisions. Well fine. As long as any use of such data is always prefixed by a “This data is may be rubbish – do not use it to make any decisions or form any opinion” disclaimer!

We’ve already had an example of this with the release of the MOT data. I would say the data is almost useless, because things like mileage and reasons for failure are not included. Some people appreciate this but others won’t be aware of it. Given the deficiencies in the data, what point is there in publishing it? Putting it in the public domain seems to be more important than whether it’s fit for purpose. Putting something in the public domain does not override all other considerations!

By: Brian Williams

Brian Williams — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 17:51:51 +0000

Ed, a bit of proofreading: “our many of us every expected ” should be “how many of us ever expected”. Did you use a mobile phone?

By: Richard Treves

Richard Treves — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 09:51:39 +0000

You’re completely right, there a wave of public data heading our way which is fantastic news. I worry a] can we handle it (part of which is my interest in design) b] as you point out, the momentum must be kept up.

By: John Goodwin

John Goodwin — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 08:24:12 +0000

http://data.ordnancesurvey.co.uk