RE: dwbp-ISSUE-36: Review requirement: R-FormatMachineRead

I was just commenting on the name of the requirement and its description: "Data should be available in a machine-readable format".

All data on the Web is machine-readable. Whether or not a machine-readable format is easy to process for a specific purpose is a different requirement, and depends very much on the specific purpose that you have in mind.

If we narrow the meaning of "data" in the scope of the WG to things that can be expressed as numbers in tables, I agree that we can declare some formats to be more or better machine-readable, but as far as I have understood, we're not limiting ourselves to that subcategory of data.

Maybe then a suggestion to change the description to:

"Data should be available in a machine-readable format that is adequate for its intended use"?

Makx.


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Lee, Deirdre [mailto:Deirdre.Lee@deri.org]
> Sent: Monday, August 04, 2014 4:35 PM
> To: Data on the Web Best Practices Working Group
> Subject: RE: dwbp-ISSUE-36: Review requirement: R-FormatMachineRead
> 
> I don't think R-FormatStandardized is the same as R-FormatMachineRead.
> Machine-readability is highlighted in many policy documents as being
> vital for Open Data, i.e. G8 OD Charter and EC guidelins. While I
> agree that all files on the Web are technically machine-readable, I
> don't think this infers that all data is machine-readable. While pdf
> is standardised, for most applications, it is difficult to process
> data contained within.
> I suggest we try and strengthen this requirement with other use-cases.
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Data on the Web Best Practices Working Group Issue Tracker
> [mailto:sysbot+tracker@w3.org]
> Sent: 03 June 2014 23:45
> To: public-dwbp-wg@w3.org
> Subject: dwbp-ISSUE-36: Review requirement: R-FormatMachineRead
> 
> dwbp-ISSUE-36: Review requirement: R-FormatMachineRead
> 
> http://www.w3.org/2013/dwbp/track/issues/36
> 
> Raised by: Makx Dekkers
> On product:
> 
> R-FormatMachineRead seems to be more specific than the requirement
> from the two use cases listed as motivation. The cases seem to be
> pointing to the problem of different formats which is already included
> as R-FormatStandardised. I am actually not so sure about R-
> FormatMachineRead in principle. After all, all formats of data on the
> Web (which is what we are concerned with) are machine-readable – it
> can only be on the Web if it is a file on a computer. Some formats may
> be easier to process for certain purposes but they are all machine-
> readable. For example, for a visually-impaired person with a PDF-to-
> speech reader, PDF is an ideal machine-readable format. Maybe the
> requirement is rather that data should be published in formats that
> are appropriate for its intended or potential use?
> 
>

Received on Monday, 4 August 2014 19:11:58 UTC