Comments on: Mash-ups for government transparency http://www.theopenhouseproject.com/2007/01/25/mash-ups-for-government-transparency/ Recommendations, Resources, and Reform Mon, 14 Feb 2011 15:53:58 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Legislative Databases recommendation makes it to House Leg Branch Appropriations markup | The Open House Project http://www.theopenhouseproject.com/2007/01/25/mash-ups-for-government-transparency/comment-page-1/#comment-11082 Legislative Databases recommendation makes it to House Leg Branch Appropriations markup | The Open House Project Mon, 14 Jul 2008 17:43:02 +0000 http://www.theopenhouseproject.com/2007/01/25/mash-ups-for-government-transparency/#comment-11082 [...] (Other links: last year’s leg branch appropriations blog post, my first or one of my first posts here about structured data) [...] [...] (Other links: last year’s leg branch appropriations blog post, my first or one of my first posts here about structured data) [...]

]]> By: States are leading the way with downloadable legislative databases | The Open House Project http://www.theopenhouseproject.com/2007/01/25/mash-ups-for-government-transparency/comment-page-1/#comment-22 States are leading the way with downloadable legislative databases | The Open House Project Thu, 22 Feb 2007 23:32:40 +0000 http://www.theopenhouseproject.com/2007/01/25/mash-ups-for-government-transparency/#comment-22 [...] I’ve blogged here before (1, 2) about how publishing raw, structured data that can be processed by computers can have unpredictable benefits, and I feel strongly that Congress should provide a raw database download of the status of all legislation. (They have the database already; it’s what powers THOMAS.) I didn’t realize, though, that a number of state legislatures are already leading the way in this regard. [...] [...] I’ve blogged here before (1, 2) about how publishing raw, structured data that can be processed by computers can have unpredictable benefits, and I feel strongly that Congress should provide a raw database download of the status of all legislation. (They have the database already; it’s what powers THOMAS.) I didn’t realize, though, that a number of state legislatures are already leading the way in this regard. [...]

]]> By: Bill Versioning: Unintended consequences of data openness | The Open House Project http://www.theopenhouseproject.com/2007/01/25/mash-ups-for-government-transparency/comment-page-1/#comment-16 Bill Versioning: Unintended consequences of data openness | The Open House Project Wed, 14 Feb 2007 12:35:23 +0000 http://www.theopenhouseproject.com/2007/01/25/mash-ups-for-government-transparency/#comment-16 [...] This really goes to the same point that I blogged about last time, which is that what it means to be on the Web in 2007 is to publish things in parallel: once for people to view within their web browser as they surf the web (the PDFs, GPO formatted text, and THOMAS HTML formatted text), and again (the THOMAS HTML text as a proxy for the original plain-text files) for computers to mix and match to provide people with useful new ways to appreciate the same information. [...] [...] This really goes to the same point that I blogged about last time, which is that what it means to be on the Web in 2007 is to publish things in parallel: once for people to view within their web browser as they surf the web (the PDFs, GPO formatted text, and THOMAS HTML formatted text), and again (the THOMAS HTML text as a proxy for the original plain-text files) for computers to mix and match to provide people with useful new ways to appreciate the same information. [...]

]]> By: Joshua Tauberer http://www.theopenhouseproject.com/2007/01/25/mash-ups-for-government-transparency/comment-page-1/#comment-15 Joshua Tauberer Wed, 14 Feb 2007 11:37:24 +0000 http://www.theopenhouseproject.com/2007/01/25/mash-ups-for-government-transparency/#comment-15 Afaik, the definitions at xml.house.gov were designed strictly for a representation of the text of legislation in XML, and for that purpose what they did seemed pretty well done to me. It's in active use by the House (http://thomas.loc.gov/home/gpoxmlc110/) and is apparently starting to be used by the Senate (but I don't think any XML files from the Senate have been posted publicly anywhere yet). (As for the Census data, I plan to release a RDF version of the 2000 Census in the coming weeks, which should in principle lower the barrier to using the data --- provided semantic web/RDF tools continue to develop.) Afaik, the definitions at xml.house.gov were designed strictly for a representation of the text of legislation in XML, and for that purpose what they did seemed pretty well done to me. It’s in active use by the House (http://thomas.loc.gov/home/gpoxmlc110/) and is apparently starting to be used by the Senate (but I don’t think any XML files from the Senate have been posted publicly anywhere yet).

(As for the Census data, I plan to release a RDF version of the 2000 Census in the coming weeks, which should in principle lower the barrier to using the data — provided semantic web/RDF tools continue to develop.)

]]> By: bolson http://www.theopenhouseproject.com/2007/01/25/mash-ups-for-government-transparency/comment-page-1/#comment-14 bolson Tue, 13 Feb 2007 00:51:23 +0000 http://www.theopenhouseproject.com/2007/01/25/mash-ups-for-government-transparency/#comment-14 I made my own little reprocessing of the Senate and House data at http://bolson.org/gov/us/senate/ and http://bolson.org/gov/us/house/ Mostly I wanted to reorganize it into voting record by member, rather than by vote, to get a quick view of what my rep and senators had done. XML.house.gov has done some good stuff, but seems to me to suffer from a common malady of moving to XML, defining lots of schema without a clear purpose of what data to store and why, towards what purpose of answering what questions and towards specific uses of the data. I guess on the plus side if they just store and publish all the common data they generate, we'll be able to digest it into something useful. On the down side It'll become baroque and hard to manage - like the Census data - and require a lot of set up time to write code to parse the data and get to the part you care about. I made my own little reprocessing of the Senate and House data at http://bolson.org/gov/us/senate/ and http://bolson.org/gov/us/house/

Mostly I wanted to reorganize it into voting record by member, rather than by vote, to get a quick view of what my rep and senators had done.

XML.house.gov has done some good stuff, but seems to me to suffer from a common malady of moving to XML, defining lots of schema without a clear purpose of what data to store and why, towards what purpose of answering what questions and towards specific uses of the data. I guess on the plus side if they just store and publish all the common data they generate, we’ll be able to digest it into something useful. On the down side It’ll become baroque and hard to manage – like the Census data – and require a lot of set up time to write code to parse the data and get to the part you care about.

]]> By: Joshua Tauberer’s Blog » Blog Archive » The Open House Project http://www.theopenhouseproject.com/2007/01/25/mash-ups-for-government-transparency/comment-page-1/#comment-8 Joshua Tauberer’s Blog » Blog Archive » The Open House Project Fri, 09 Feb 2007 03:01:39 +0000 http://www.theopenhouseproject.com/2007/01/25/mash-ups-for-government-transparency/#comment-8 [...] Mash-ups for government transparency [...] [...] Mash-ups for government transparency [...]

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