Next version of Popolo spec for legislative data published

[ Originally posted to the W3C Open Government Community Group, to which you may subscribe at: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-opengov/ ]

Back in March I announced Popolo, a project to develop open government data specifications, focusing on the legislative branch of government, while remaining useful to a broad set of use cases: http://popoloproject.com/ Since then, it's been used by mySociety in PopIt [1], by the Sunlight Foundation in its municipal data projects [2], and it's making its way into other projects by the Open Knowledge Foundation and others.

My hope is that, by increasing Popolo's adoption, different groups will not only publish data that is interoperable, but will more easily develop interoperable software components, making it easier for groups with fewer resources to launch websites like http://www.theyworkforyou.com/ or http://www.opencongress.org/, from the local to the national level.

Today, I am happy to announce a new version that incorporates the great feedback received since its first iteration. Check it out at http://popoloproject.com/ At this point, I would love to get more feedback and participation in the following questions:

1. Is the spec useful to you? For the classes it covers (people, organizations, memberships, contact info), is anything missing? Can you identify any barriers to adoption, or anything you would change?
2. Is it easy for you to find answers to questions you have about the spec? Is the language clear and easy to understand? Is the content presented in an order than makes sense?
3. What next class can be added to the spec to make it more interesting to adopt? Suggestions that have come up previously are: areas (like electoral districts), events, documents and votes.

You can answer these questions by:

- subscribing and posting to the W3C Open Government Community Group list: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-opengov/
- creating an issue on GitHub: https://github.com/opennorth/popolo-spec/issues
- or simply replying to this list or to me privately

The current next steps for the project are more or less reflected in the GitHub issue tracker [3] and are based on past comments and feedback, so there is definitely an opportunity for you to help determine the project's priorities.

Link: http://popoloproject.com/

Thanks!

[1] https://github.com/mysociety/popit-api
[2] https://github.com/opencivicdata
[3] https://github.com/opennorth/popolo-spec/issues

--
James McKinney
Open North
+1.514.247.0223
http://opennorth.ca/