The Wired.com How-To Open Up Government Data wiki

[Alexis Madrigal]

Hello Everyone,

You may remember my name from an email I sent to the group a couple
months ago looking for areas where government-produced data could be
made more available or usable. I've received several queries about the
state of the article — and now I can finally give you some good news.

Ahead of the official launch on Sunday, I just wanted to thank this
group, who informed much of this work, and invite you to participate
in the experiment. If it works, I think it could really be a great
model for what people kind of annoying call service-journalism.

The story is going out on the Wired home page at midnight eastern on
Sunday night under the headline, "Data.gov Is Coming — Let's Help
Build It". But I should warn you. It's not a traditional news story.
It's a wiki, which actually, is already live:
http://howto.wired.com/wiki/Open_Up_Government_Data. I'll explain in
greater depth later, but the idea is to combine the crowd's dataset
trouble spotting with Wired's voice/platform and my elbow grease to
get important and valuable datasets made available and usable. Vivek
Kundra seems like an ally — as do his superiors — but we want to hold
them to their claims about wanting to open up government data.

Here's a little explanation of how we got from the original email to
this point. First, you are all brave people for fighting the good
fight on behalf of all of us. Peering into the dark caverns of
government data nearly broke my spirit (and oddly gave me a newfound
fear of spiders, or at least poisonous things). After a hundred hours
spent researching, revising, and rewriting, we realized that what I
was doing wasn't working. The actual mode of journalism with its
traditional endgoal of a "finished product" article that tells people
how it is wasn't up to the task.

The idea had always been that this was collaborative action, so why
the hell was I trying to create a piece of content in static form? So,
we pivoted, sliced up pieces of reporting and writing from the 2,000
word feature and tossed away its carcass. It hurt. But it hurt so
good.

Now, we're just hoping that we can get some momentum behind this
project and start to help build Data.gov. You all could go a long way
towards establishing that moment and what you have in your brains is
incredibly valuable. I hope you can devote a few minutes to sharing it
with us. (And of course linking any and all complementary efforts that
are already underway.)

Thank you, and as always, feel free to get in touch via any medium.
(Particularly if you have any trouble with the mediawiki markup
language or find a fresh, new bug on the site.)

Best,

Alexis Madrigal
W: 415.276.8481
M: 415.602.4953
Staff Writer, Science and Energy
Wired.com
Magazine Publishers of America, Website of the Year — News

Wired Science: http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/
Magazine Publishers of America, Best Magazine Blog Finalist

Twitter: @alexismadrigal
Shorty Awards Finalist for Best in #Green

Book Research: http://www.greentechhistory.com

[Ton Zijlstra]

That is very good to hear Alexis!
Looking forward to seeing the wiki. Currently I am working for the Dutch ministry for the interior to create a.o. an overview of available data sources that would be available to open up. At the same time another team is working on the 'demand' side, with the British 'Show us a better way' as an example.
Hopefully we will be able to add to the coming wiki with our experiences and info here in the Netherlands/EU.

best,

Ton


-------------------------------------------
Interdependent Thoughts
Ton Zijlstra

t...@tonzijlstra.eu
+31-6-34489360

http://zylstra.org/blog
-------------------------------------------

[Jose M. Alonso]

Hi Ton, Alexis, all,

I've subscribed to this mailing list a couple weeks ago and have been
just monitoring the discussions from a distance, hope this message
will also serve as an introduction.

There's a Group at W3C that has been working on this issues at an
international scale for quite some time already. You might want to be
in touch with us. We are compiling use cases and eGovernment issues.
The Group will publish a first draft of the issues document very soon,
the editor's draft holds the latest version of the text, that is being
constantly updated and improved.

The Group is holding an open meeting in Washington DC next week (12-13
March) and there are still a few seats available. Some pointers follow.

W3C eGovernment Interest Group
http://www.w3.org/2007/eGov/IG/
Editor's Draft of the Issues Document
http://www.w3.org/2007/eGov/IG/Group/docs/note
Draft Use Cases
http://www.w3.org/2007/eGov/IG/wiki/Category:Use_Case
Open Meeting in DC
http://www.w3.org/2007/eGov/IG/wiki/F2F2


If you need further info, just drop me a line. I believe other Group
Members are also subscribed to this list. Group Membership is open and
subscription to the mailing list, too.

-- Jose

--
Jose M. Alonso <jos...@w3.org> W3C/CTIC
eGovernment Lead http://www.w3.org/2007/eGov/

[Alexis Madrigal]

Ok, I am happy to report that Conde Nast's tech team took my request
seriously and the wiki is open for business, i.e., editing.

http://howto.wired.com/wiki/Open_Up_Government_Data

I look forward to any and all correspondence.

Best,

Alexis

--

[David Orban]

> seriously and the wiki is open for business, i.e., editing.

Very nice, Alexis! And great approach in involving people in new types
of collaborative reporting. I took the opportunity, and registered on
the site (was surprised to learn that wasn't yet, given that I am a
Wired magazine reader since the first issue).

Both comments—from Ton, regarding the Dutch initiatives, and from Jose
concerning the W3C efforts—were made beore the wiki was live. I hope
that instead of relying on you to decide how to add these pieces to
the puzzle, your approach will be successful, and the community will
quickly enhance, and enrich your pages with details.

For example, I will likely dabble with not only some reference
sections, but also boldly taking to the wording of some of the
sentences themselves, trying to make the main body less decidedly US
centric: instead of "Our government generates tons of data" the
sentence will become "Governments generate tons of data." :)

We have a neglected wiki as well, on http://wiki.opengovdata.org, and
I am sure that the wide visibility of Wired's pages wil avoid its fate
of emptiness, allowing much of the information that has crossed this
list and more to move to your wiki.

David Orban
skype, twitter, linkedin, sl, etc: davidorban

[Steven Clift]

I've cross-posted your note to the 2500 people on my international
Democracies Online Newswire - http://dowire.org

And my local/state/national e-democracy exchange http://dowire.org/us

Steven Clift