[okfn-labs] Crowdcrafting + reference lists = crowdsource lists of stuff?

[Thomas Hirsch]

The preference for an authoritative source is usually determined by
legal context.

When you think of geodata, administration, finances, building
regulations, business registers, road planning, they require you to
use an authoritative source if you want to do something official with
the data. You do not need to if your application is not bound by these
laws, but you can expect that any other sources are (by law) faulty.
Even errors in the authoritative source are official errors.

If there is no legal requirement to an authoritative source, rely on
the one that has the most users and the best feedback channels. Errors
happen everywhere. You may be able to set up a better data source just
by incorporating data from the others and providing an excellent
feedback channel (which is forwarded to the other sources).

Collecting data on community based organizations is a matter of
effort. I maintained a register of food coops for a while, wiki based.
It was by nature incomplete and outdated. On the other hand, if you
dedicate yourself to ringing every entry once a month to see if their
data is correct, you can mediate at least the dating issues.