[Open-data-census] Wrong number of countries in the Census

Sat Nov 1 09:17:06 UTC 2014

Sander, I like the UK youtube video and the EU one -- actually there
is probably a venn diagram on open government too!

Perhaps the French overseas departments are more like UK local
authorities if they do not have a "national" parliament and just share
the same laws of France -- and it appears that France bypasses any
additional EU/EEA/EFTA costs of membership.

I think important legal distinctions such as commonwealth independence
and meaningful devolution (devo max / devo manx) are key differences.

I imagine 45% that voted yes to independence in Scotland already
considered Scotland a country and potentially an important percentage
of the 55% that voted no too that doubted the presented "national"
numbers.

The Isle of Man actually has the oldest continuous parliament in the
world (over 1000 years old and ironically from Norway rule not UK
rule) and the power to introduce faster new/amended laws/regulations
is a key point of successful external jurisdictions.  For example, the
Isle of Man was crowned the bitcoin capital of the world recently by a
key investor and I was able to incorporate a company with bitcoin
shares, the first in the world, specifically due to different laws to
the UK.

The UK reinvoices the Isle of Man something like £2.8m per year for
"national" services such as the EU, UN, embassies, consulates, etc.
Perhaps that is a key difference with France overseas departments and
most UK overseas territories (i.e. rebranded from the unpalatable
Crown colonies)?

> Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2014 23:41:40 +0100
> From: Sander van der Waal <sander.vanderwaal at okfn.org>
> To: Pierre Chrzanowski <pierre.chrzanowski at gmail.com>
> Cc: open-data-census <open-data-census at lists.okfn.org>, Christian
>         Villum <villum at autofunk.dk>
> Subject: Re: [Open-data-census] Wrong number of countries in the
>         Census
> Message-ID:
>         <CAN+1nMwXFoZfv9Zg34Zk4WZ9hdFYBzBss14LjOdv211FXZ8wMA at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> On 31 October 2014 17:19, Pierre Chrzanowski <pierre.chrzanowski at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Thanks Christian,
>>
>> but the FAQ says this: "Each year the open data community and Open
>> Knowledge produces an annual ranking of countries."
>>
>
> As the project has grown we have started to realise that it's not that easy
> to define what is and is not a country, and started using 'place' instead.
> This has not yet been consistently applied, as you found out. I understand
> now why even many big international organisations sometimes try to avoid
> the word 'country'..
>
>
>> and, I think, most of us consider the Open Data Index as the ranking for
>> country level.
>>
>> I understand that choosing one of the definitions over others can lead to
>> polemical discussions but, at the opposite, if I follow your rule of thumb,
>> I open the Index to every jurisdiction in this world.
>>
>
> I would say it depends on whether or not the key datasets about that
> jurisdiction is covered by the country/nation/place/self-governing entity
> they are part of, or not.
>
>
>> My point is that we need to keep some coherency for comparison purposes
>> and that not all places are at country level.
>>
>
> The comparison argument is a good one, and we certainly want to keep the
> conversation open on what the best rule-of-thumb would be to assess what
> places we should and should not consider. While still making sure that
> contributors who are keen find their way to contribute the data they care
> about.
>
>
>> For instance, if we allow Guadeloupe or Martinique, which are integral
>> part of France, to be in the census, then we should also open the Index
>> to all the 101 French departments which are administrated exactly the
>> same way.
>>
>> And I am not making any political judgement here ;)
>
> Thanks for sharing how this would work for Guadeloupe and Martinique
> Pierre. It reminds me of a video
> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNu8XDBSn10> that explains the UK and the
> status of all of its territories [1]. There is a similar one for my home
> country, the Netherlands <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eE_IUPInEuc> [2].
> As you can see there, it will be difficult to fit the status of many
> places, often former colonies, in a single coherent definition. France is
> possibly more consistently organised than other countries. Although I'm not
> sure about eg. Saint-Martin?
>
> Maybe a good question to ask, is whether the key datasets that we assess
> include the data of Guadeloupe and Martinique. Eg. are they part of the
> National map? Do they use the same postal codes system?
>
> Thanks,
> Sander
>
> [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNu8XDBSn10
> [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eE_IUPInEuc
>
>> Best
>> Pierre