When Jacob Harris left The New York Times last month to work for the federal government at 18F — a sort of in-house digital consultancy to up the digital smarts of government — one could imagine the benefits of having a skilled data journalist now working on the inside. Someone who’d spent lots of time dealing with government data now might have a hand (however small — this is the federal government we’re talking about, after all) in improving the quality of that data. So it wasn’t too surprising to see him tweet this last night:
Do any of you have strong opinions about http://t.co/LakM4nc0RO? What is it doing wrong? What would make it better?
— Jacob Harris (@harrisj) May 26, 2015
Data.gov is, of course, the feds’ open data portal: “Here you will find data, tools, and resources to conduct research, develop web and mobile applications, design data visualizations, and more.”
Harris later clarified that he was asking for his “personal curiosity, not any work assignment.” But he nonetheless got an interesting range of responses — a sort of communal wish list from a group of (mostly) journalists about how government data could better serve their needs and the demands of transparency. Here are a few of the responses that stood out to me.
@harrisj last time I looked mist of the data sets were old and/or irrelevant.
— Wendell Cochran (@wcochran) May 26, 2015
@harrisj more high quality data sets, tied to demand signals from FOIA. stop calling this kind of thing open data: http://t.co/pSRjIpruzI
— Alex Howard (@digiphile) May 26, 2015
@harrisj It lacks data on deliberations, management, and results, a subtle diversion from gov transparency to open gov data. @derekwillis
— Jim Harper (@Jim_Harper) May 26, 2015
@digiphile @harrisj Real-time campaign contributions, election results, lawmaker emails, and a pony. I'd settle for a pony.
— Brian Boyer (@brianboyer) May 26, 2015
@brianboyer @digiphile @harrisj Election. Results.
— Jeremy Bowers (@jeremybowers) May 26, 2015
@digiphile @harrisj Govt. funds many studies through universities, are their data sets included? How abt IOM type reports?
— PTSDinfo (@PTSDinfo) May 27, 2015
@harrisj it's confusing to have agency pages and http://t.co/ZFa2EV2f97 pages. Consolidate.
— matt carmichael (@mcarmichael) May 26, 2015
@harrisj Datasets no longer being updated should be flagged as "retired."
— Becky Sweger (@bendystraw) May 27, 2015
@harrisj group data updated regularly (e.g., public budget db files) together so ppl can see everything & grab the version they need
— Becky Sweger (@bendystraw) May 27, 2015
e.g., a search for "public budget database" returns 3 things & they all look like they're from the FY 2012 request http://t.co/412YQFY9uU
— Becky Sweger (@bendystraw) May 27, 2015
@harrisj Would be super swell to see an estimate for dataset's next expected update.
— Becky Sweger (@bendystraw) May 27, 2015
@harrisj If it could be easier to sort wheat from chaff, and if there could be less chaff.
— Chris Zubak-Skees (@zubakskees) May 27, 2015
@zubakskees would you like to see which ones were most used and sample news stories/apps using a data set?
— Jacob Harris (@harrisj) May 27, 2015
@harrisj Check out the London Natural History Museum's new data portal as an example of what to do right.
— Bob Corrigan (@bobcorrigan) May 27, 2015
@harrisj We have learned a lot about making data accessible in the @eol TraitBank effort and the lesson is "it's very difficult to do well".
— Bob Corrigan (@bobcorrigan) May 27, 2015
@harrisj I think it focuses way too much on "here's a bunch of stuff" and way too little on making you good at finding/using government data
— Dan Munz (@dan_munz) May 27, 2015
@bobcorrigan @eol Well, it’s also a question of which audiences you make it accessible for. Scientists have diff needs from public I’d guess
— Jacob Harris (@harrisj) May 27, 2015
@krees @harrisj fwiw vast majority of users get there via googling a dataset, folks don't chill on http://t.co/ouPvPaWJEw, someday
— Rebecca Williams (@internetrebecca) May 27, 2015
@harrisj As you're finding, few people understand http://t.co/L1ZuP91h0M. It's a library, not a publishing house.
— Waldo Jaquith (@waldojaquith) May 27, 2015
@waldojaquith You have hit the nail on the head, sir
— Jacob Harris (@harrisj) May 27, 2015
@harrisj @waldojaquith But the "library" isn't useful. If we want to find the PDFs the gov has already put out we can just google
— Keith Collins (@collinskeith) May 27, 2015
@collinskeith @waldojaquith Sadly, I think what Waldo is getting at is that http://t.co/LakM4nc0RO has no power on what data is provided
— Jacob Harris (@harrisj) May 27, 2015
@harrisj @collinskeith Also, they have a staff of…what, 3? Hyon, Phil, and Rebecca? They have basically no resources.
— Waldo Jaquith (@waldojaquith) May 27, 2015
