[open-bibliography] Wikipedia project: bibliographic-archival data base

[Karen Coyle]

Quoting Jim Pitman <pitman at stat.Berkeley.EDU>:


> It is wrong to call data open if it is subject to arbitary access  
> restrictions like 3K entries a day.

Access restrictions of this nature generally are not related to  
openness but to system load. Nearly every system that has powerful  
APIs implements some limits to keep API requests from bringing down  
the system. It's a common courtesy to make contact with system folks  
if you are considering doing something that might put a load on their  
system, like downloading large amounts of data. I've watched many  
systems teams negotiate frequencies (one-second intervals) or times  
(over-night) to help users get what they need without damaging the  
service to others. Another option is for systems that anticipate  
frequent requests for "everything" to provide dumps. I see a lot of  
willingness to accommodate a variety of needs on the part of users.

kc

-- 
Karen Coyle
kcoyle at kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net
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