Re: Toronto Sun: Toronto’s data open but almost useless

Posted by David Eaves on Jul 07, 2011; 8:36pm
URL: http://civicaccess.416.s1.nabble.com/Toronto-Sun-Toronto-s-data-open-but-almost-useless-tp3414p3429.html

James, there are always going to be asymmetries in resources and access.

My fear is on this is that you are creating a new condition - data can
only be released if it eliminates these asymmetries. That is simply not
possible. The government can't make data "accessible" to meet the
infinite number of use cases that would eliminate such asymmetries.
Worse, when these arguments come up they are usually done in an effort
to terminate open data policies. If you are opposed to any data set that
one group might be better positioned to exploit than another group - you
are essentially opposed to the release of any or all datasets.

On 11-07-07 1:18 PM, James McKinney wrote:

> Yes, perhaps data vs. information, available vs. accessible are better
> terms to use as Nik suggests.
>
> What I'm pointing out is that open data is available to all (with an
> Internet connection), but not accessible to all. Not everyone who
> would benefit from open data is able to benefit from it, due to lack
> of technical expertise, for example. Take, for example, open data on
> the locations and other metadata for homeless shelters. Imagine that
> through some telecenter initiative, a homeless person gets access to
> the Shapefile published by the town of Podunk. Unless they happens to
> have the technical skills, they can't benefit from it. If some
> well-meaning developer made an iPhone app plotting the nearest
> homeless shelters on a map, they'll probably never see it. An example
> effective route to making this data accessible to homeless people
> would be for some local NGO (or the government itself) to take that
> data and print a map to distribute.
>
> The debate is whether government should make data both available and
> accessible, or to just make it available and rely on NGOs, developers
> and others to make it accessible, i.e. designed and structured so as
> to be usable by the broad public. Hope that clarifies what I meant!
>
> On Thu, Jul 7, 2011 at 3:07 PM, Nik G<[hidden email]>  wrote:
>> Wouldn't it be great to agree not to define another new term? 'Data' and
>> 'Information' are good enough. Public = Publically Available is hopefully
>> obvious too :)
>>
>> -----Original Message----- From: Glen Newton
>> Sent: Thursday, July 07, 2011 2:53 PM
>> To: civicaccess discuss
>> Subject: Re: [CivicAccess-discuss]Toronto Sun: Toronto’s data open but
>> almost useless
>>
>> On Thu, Jul 7, 2011 at 2:30 PM, James McKinney<[hidden email]>
>> wrote:
>>> I defined my use of public data as "open data that is
>>> citizen-ready", i.e. usable by all stakeholders.
>> 1 - It is not clear to me what "citizen-ready" means
>> 2 - "usable by all stakeholders" makes it even less clear to me
>>
>> Could you explain what you mean by "citizen-ready"? The way you are
>> using it suggests it should be obvious to me. :-)
>> I think getting consensus (if possible) on the definition would be a
>> useful thing.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Glen
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Jul 7, 2011 at 2:30 PM, James McKinney<[hidden email]>
>> wrote:
>>> On Thu, Jul 7, 2011 at 1:54 PM, Nik G<[hidden email]>  wrote:
>>>> While I agree with you that we're disagreeing on terms, it's also
>>>> important
>>>> to point out that it's not really "Public vs Open" data discussion. You
>>>> probably read Melanie Chernoff's article on the differences
>>>>
>>>> (http://opensource.com/government/10/12/what-%E2%80%9Copen-data%E2%80%9D-means-%E2%80%93-and-what-it-doesn%E2%80%99t),
>>> Just read the article. I am not using "public data" to mean "publicly
>>> available data". I defined my use of public data as "open data that is
>>> citizen-ready", i.e. usable by all stakeholders. There is no commonly
>>> agreed-upon meaning for "public data", and perhaps there is a better
>>> term for the meaning that I intend. In any case, I think you would
>>> agree that this is in fact a "public vs open" discussion, in my usage.
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
>>> [hidden email]
>>> http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> -
>> _______________________________________________
>> CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
>> [hidden email]
>> http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss
>> _______________________________________________
>> CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
>> [hidden email]
>> http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss
> _______________________________________________
> CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
> [hidden email]
> http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss