Let's Get this Party Started

[Dan Melton]

Hey Everyone,

It's a been a little over a week, so hopefully, plenty of time for
interested parties to join.

I'd like to get the conversation started and see if we can get a
working agreement together on the need and the preliminary solution
for comment.

So, perhaps, each one of us could start by stating the problem or need
you have in your own organization?

For us:
API standard Need:
To be a bit more precise about our need, we want to pass on a standard
json/xml object for government agencies. That json needs a standard
schema that represents the ontology of government relationships that
is hopefully non-US specific.

Export/Import Need:
When we get new bulk data in or we scrape a public entity's website,
we need to add the government agency into the system, check whether or
not it already exists, and add it to it's proper government sponsor
(i.e. department of a city). I'd rather work with a few others to
define/agree on what the standard is, make it interoperable, and then
we can share data back and forth without worrying about tracking
special ids. We've got a building/growing list of 12,000 cities/
counties in the US with all kinds of interesting tasty layers of data,
but I'm running into issues around returning it in a standard way that
makes sense for others. I'd like to start adding Canadian, Mexican and
European cities at some point, which really starts messing up the
identification (can't rely on US census or STFIDs anymore).

Central Repo Need:
It'd be great if we could have a central server or address book that
everyone can upload and add their data too. It could crowd-source the
collection of government information. Then we can drilldown and grabd
a list of all transportation departments in a country. This is helpful
on a number of levels, from promoting open source products to agencies
to standardization of market data.

What are your needs/ideas?

Tools
I set up a github repo to coordinate our versions and consolidate
sample specs in the space at https://github.com/CivComs/govspec. Send
me your github name and I'll add you to the repo. If you don't
have or use git, no problem, create an account at github and you can
edit/contribute through github's online interface (which is pretty
slick).

Thanks
Dan