[ckan-discuss] Next steps on datacatalogs.org?

[Richard Cyganiak]

Will,

On 4 Oct 2011, at 09:28, William Waites wrote:
> Surely there's an alternative geocoding API go GOOG.

I'm sure there are. Google's just happens to be the one I'm familiar with. I'm happy to learn about others if anyone has some useful information to share.

> It would be a shame
> to have to rely on proprietary data and services to present information
> about ostensibly open data catalogues.

datacatalogs.org just offers a text field for spatial extent (and a second field that's supposed to give a machine-readable representation of spatial extent, but only gives instruction for country-level and upwards, thus not helping for the growing number of local catalogs). Geocoding on the text field is a low-hanging fruit.

Do you have any advice for using the spatial field for sub-national regions?

> Are you even allowed to republish
> the polygons you get from them?

My motivation is not republishing, but display on a map. It's also just bounding boxes, no polygons.

Best,
Richard