diff --git a/_drafts/2016-07-29-schemas.md b/_drafts/2016-07-29-schemas.md index 1220cfe..7258867 100644 --- a/_drafts/2016-07-29-schemas.md +++ b/_drafts/2016-07-29-schemas.md @@ -56,7 +56,7 @@ General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) is the huge success story here, and th We don’t have enough data points to know whether GTFS is an outlier or a model, but I posit that it’s a model. (Consider that [Open311 emerged in the same way](http://www.open311.org/2010/02/san-francisco-and-dc-set-to-launch-open311-apis/).) There’s no movement to create schemas for the many dozens of core datasets that are being published by governments (or, rather, not being published). The effort required to convene a standards group is apparently not worth the trouble, what with it not happening. The effort required to do this for all of these core datasets is implausibly large. So let’s not. -What we need is for tiny groups of stakeholders—maybe mere pairings of stakeholders—to _just go ahead and create standards within their area of expertise._ And don’t call it a “standard,” if they don’t want to. Call it an “implementation” or “our schema,” or whatever. +What we need is for tiny groups of stakeholders—maybe mere pairings of stakeholders—to _just go ahead and create standards within their area of expertise._ And don’t call it a “standard,” if that sounds too scary. Call it an “implementation” or “our schema,” or whatever. Develop it in the open, document it, set up a validator, put it to work, and get out the word that it exists. As writers like to say, you can’t edit nothing. And, as both Twitter and Wikipedia have demonstrated, being wrong in public is sure to attract people to explain precisely why you are wrong. Once there’s a v1.0 standard, stakeholder-critics will materialize, demand a say, and then they can begin the multi-year process of producing a v2.0 standard. In the meantime, that v1.0 standard will exist, and people can start using it. That initial version starts a conversation, it doesn't end one.