[wdmmg-discuss] Open Misinformation and the Illusion of Transparency

Tue Jul 19 15:51:55 BST 2011

* [2011-07-19 16:32:52 +0200] Friedrich Lindenberg <friedrich.lindenberg at okfn.org> écrit:

> and that information about the exact process that was
> applied to the data was published both in a narrative
> (http://blog.okfn.org/2011/06/16/opening-up-government-data-gov-uk-publishes-uk-all-central-government-spending-data-over-25k/)

This is an interesting post. Why is it not linked at all from
http://data.gov.uk/openspending or http://openspending.org/ ?

> and code (https://bitbucket.org/okfn/ukgov-25k-spending) form.

Likewise.

I'm not talking about things that I might know from paying attention
to OKF, I'm talking about what a journalist or statistician or member
of the public might find when they go to the government's web site
looking for information.

> On the content: If you are proposing a large conspiracy theory about
> how government is releasing false or incomplete data; please state
> that. I just don't believe this, as I said before: there is something
> extremely honest about this mess. If you are just surprised over the
> state of bookkeeping - we all are.

*sigh* 

Friedrich, I am not suggesting a conspiracy. But I am suggesting a
tendency on the government's public information department to put as
positive a spin on things as possible and a tendency on OKF's part
and to some extent the "open data movement" generally to be 
surprisingly uncritical of government data intended to promote 
transparency.

> project was to add a big red link to report bad data in the top right

That's great. But you can't report absent data can you?

> p.s. any accusation that I have removed payments to OKF from the data
> is ridiculous. I actually want to know and together with Martin
> proposed that a version of OKFs accounts without PII should be put on
> OpenSpending.

Really Friedrich, I am not accusing you of anything of the sort. I am
quite sure the data is not there to begin with. That isn't even the
problem. The problem is, you go to the Government web site, it tells
you "here is the data about how your money is spent" and directs 
to something different, "here is some data about how some of your
money may have been spent".

-w

-- 
William Waites                <mailto:ww at styx.org>
http://river.styx.org/ww/        <sip:ww at styx.org>
F4B3 39BF E775 CF42 0BAB  3DF0 BE40 A6DF B06F FD45