Comments on: Tim Berners-Lee’s missing star

By: Kerstin Forsberg

Kerstin Forsberg — Fri, 25 May 2012 20:07:39 +0000

Good point! So, how about making associated meta-data 4/5 star rated before going beyond 3 star for the many data sets?

By: Hjalmar Gislason

Hjalmar Gislason — Fri, 25 May 2012 19:31:42 +0000

I can agree with this, up to a point. TBL's rationale here is probably that when the GOVERNMENT is publishing data, it should do so in formats that are non-proprietary to ensure that there are absolutely no discriminating issues or "favoritism" involved. And I agree with him. I will on the other hand agree with you that for most people, Excel files are more approachable than CSV files for human consumption. However, I'd add the fact that there are other and even more approachable methods for that, e.g. using proper, web-based data publishing solutions such as - touting my own horn - DataMarket's Enterprise solution.

By: Tom Schenk Jr. (@tomschenkjr)

Tom Schenk Jr. (@tomschenkjr) — Fri, 25 May 2012 18:59:57 +0000

I like CSV and is my main storage mechanism for data sets for reasons stated before. But should that be such a goal for this listl? To me, open source tends to be about accessibility and understandable for many users.
Often, I see novice users more bewildered about CSV data than Excel. While CSV is better, I think the emphasis should be on users understanding. I rarely see formats like Excel being huge barriers. Besides CSV, merely stating “non-proprietary” can be much worse than Excel. To wit, xml structured data to a novice or even intermediate user can be absolute hell. Even in R, it can be a lot of work to get an XML document imported. Given the choice, Excel is much better option.
To me, it makes more sense for Excel and CSV (e.g., machine readable format) to be 2 stars and consistent format/dicoverability (3.5 stars) be placed at 3 stars. Although, “consistent” needs to be defined. It’s very easy to say data needs to be consistent, but that can be a deep topic.

By: jurgen

jurgen — Fri, 25 May 2012 17:50:10 +0000

I think there are a few more things that could make it into the 3.5th star: data providers work with vintages and publish every vintage in a new directory, so you can’t automatically find the latest content. I would also argue that csv’s with time across columns is bad practice, especially if the rightmost columns are footnotes, not to talk about the unstandardized way of placing table/metric/series/entity/data point annotations that make things unnecessarily hard.
Star 4 and 5 will gradually evolve, but I think the big step is getting from OPEN to USEABLE OPEN data.