Here are thoughts from Tony Hirst, one of the first adopters and success stories for the Guardian’s Open Platform, on what the OP’s DataStore is and is not doing, in terms of data curation (or gardening). He asks:

“Is the Guardian DataStore adding value to the data in the data store in an accessibility sense: by reducing the need for data mungers to have to process the data, so that it can be used in a plug’n’play way by the statisticians and the data visualisers, whether they’re professionals, amateurs or good old Jo Public?”

Hirst has a number of queries in regards to data quality and ‘misleading’ linking on the Guardian DataBlog. In a later comment, he wonders whether there is a ‘data style guide’ available yet.

If you’re not all that au fait with the data lingo, this post might be a bit indigestible, so we’ll follow with a translation in coming days.

Related on Journalism.co.uk: Q&A with Hirst, April 8, 2009.