Vergottini: XML, HTML, JSON – Choosing the Right Format for Legislative Text

Grant Vergottini of Xcential Group has posted XML, HTML, JSON – Choosing the Right Format for Legislative Text, at Legix.info.

Here are excerpts:

I find I’m often talking about an information model and XML as if they’re the same thing. However, there is no reason to tie these two things together as one. Instead, we should look at the information model in terms of the information it represents and let the manner in which we express that information be a separate concern. In the last few weeks I have found myself discussing alternative forms of representing legislative information with three people – chatting with Eric Mill at the Sunlight Foundation about HTML microformats (look for a blog from him on this topic soon), Daniel Bennett regarding microdata, and Ari Hershowitz regarding JSON.

I thought I would try and open up a discussion on this topic by shedding some light on it. If we can strip away the discussion of the information model and instead focus on the representation, perhaps we can agree on which formats are better for which applications. Is a format a good storage format, a good transport format, a good analysis/programming format, or a good all-around format? [...]

Several examples are given. Then, Grant writes:

[...] There are many different ways of representing the same legislative model – each with its own strength and weaknesses. Different consumers have different needs. While XML is a good all-around format, it also brings with it some degree of sophistication and complexity that many information consumers simply don’t need to tackle. It should be possible, as a consumer, to specify the form of the information that most closely fits my need and have the legislative data source deliver it to me in that format. [...]

What do you think?

For more details, please see the complete post.

HT @arihersh

Posts and Resources About International Legislation Unhackathon

Here are links to posts and other resources (that I’ve been able to identify) about the International Legislation Unhackathon, held 19 May 2012. (If you know of other posts or resources about the event, please tell us about them in the comments):

• Archived tweets from the event, in .csv format (see other tweets about the event at hashtag #legalhacks)
• U.S. state legislation marked up during the event (click on a shaded state to see legislation from that state)
• National legislation marked up during the event (click on a shaded country to see legislation from that country)
• An overview of the event, and comments contributed during the event, available on the event’s Wiki
• Grant Vergottini’s summary post about the event, entitled Unhackathon Wrapup
• Ari Hershowitz’s summary post about the event, entitled International Legislative Unhackathon and G+ Hangout
• Videos shown during the event
• Grant Vergottini’s new HTML-based XML legislation editor, used during the event
• Grant Vergottini’s posts about the event (written before the event)
• Ari Hershowitz’s posts about the event (written before the event: here and here)
• Alex Hendler’s post looking forward to the event, entitled How to Eat Legislative Sausage
• Background information about the event

Click here for upcoming legal hacking events.

Find news about upcoming legal hacking events at hashtags #legalhack and #legalhacks.

Click here for posts and resources about other legal hacking events held recently.

May 19 International Legislative Hackathon

[Note: For follow-up information about the International Legislation Hackathon 2012 -- including legislation marked up during the event, archived tweets, and videos -- please see Posts and Resources About International Legislation Unhackathon.]

The International Legislative Unhackathon will be held 19 May 2012 at multiple locations:

• the University of California, Hastings College of Law, in San Francisco, California;
• Stanford University in Stanford, California;
• Denver, Colorado; and
• online.

The Twitter hashtag for the event is #legalhacks [Click here to access archived tweets from the event, in .csv format.]

Click here for the event’s Website.

The URL for the Google + hangout for the event is http://bit.ly/Ko6RI0.

Click here for the event’s registration site.

Click here for the event’s Wiki.

The event is being organized by Ari Hershowitz of Tabulaw and Grant Vergottini of Xcential Group.

Here is a description of the event from the event Website:

LEGAL HACKS is hosting an International Legislation UNHackathon sponsored by the Hastings Science and Technology Law Journal.

Participants will gather in groups and “mark up” existing laws into an XML format based on an international standard to promote transparency, accountability, democratic participation, and good governance. Working together, attorneys and technologists will identify the best methods to markup relevant laws into the XML standard.

Some of the key areas of focus will be Constitutions, Privacy laws, and Open Government Laws, but participants can choose to work on other areas of law too.

Don’t know what “mark up?” means? Don’t worry, it’s easy. Come, learn, and contribute!

Please be sure to bring your laptop with an up-to-date browser – either Chrome, Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Safari!

AGENDA FOR MAY 19TH [All times are Pacific Time]

11:30 [a.m.] – 12:30 [p.m.] Registration and Lunch

12:30 – 1:00 [p.m.] Official Start: Ignite Speech, Grant Vergottini, Jim Harper.

(Google+ Hangout On Air)

1:00 – 1:15 Brief tutorial to explain XML standard and how marking up works

1:15 – 1:30 Brainstorm on areas of the law to mark up

1:00 – 5:00 Markup – Break – Discuss

5:00 – post-mixer (location TBA)

Share your thoughts here (Eventbrite) or on the Wiki we have set up for the occasion:

http://code.google.com/p/legal-hack/

For more information, please see the event’s Website.

Click here for Grant Vergottini’s post providing background information about the event.

Click here for the HTML5-based legislation editor that Grant developed for the event.

Hershowitz on Legislative Standards and the International Legislation Unhackathon

Ari Hershowitz of Tabulaw has posted Legislative Standards and the International Legislation Unhackathon, at the Tabulaw Blog.

Here is an excerpt from the post:

The International Legislation Unhackathon is being held May 19 at UC Hastings and Stanford Law Schools. Sign up, if you haven’t already, at http://internationallegislation.eventbrite.com/. [...]

The event is designed to be accessible for non-programmers and non-lawyers (hence an ‘un’hackathon) who will ‘get their hands dirty’ adding metadata to actual legislation, using a developing international standard for legislative data, Akoma Ntoso. Future (and previous) posts will discuss such questions as Why Metadata in Legislation? and Why should legislatures use XML standards. You could get started by reading this excellent post by Andrew Mandelbaum of the National Democratic Institute.

Assuming that you agree that metadata and standards for legislation are a good thing, there are still questions of implementation:
(1) At a technical level (does the proposed standard actually match the structure of real legislation ‘in the wild’; is it workable, etc.), and
(2) At the practical level (will legislatures actually adopt the standard, or can the private sector add the metadata post-facto to legislation?).

This unhackathon will be an experiment in both of these elements of implementation. Grant [Vergottini] is developing a browser-based tool to easily add Akomo Ntosa metadata to legislation. The idea is to lower the barrier for anyone to just try it out. It should take no more than 5 minutes to learn how to add the data fields to legislation. Then the real test– how well does the data model fit the actual data of laws? Can it be extended easily, for example to accomodate the requirements of the DATA Act?

For more information, please see the complete post.

HT Ari Hershowitz.

May 19 International Legislative Hackathon

The International Legislative Unhackathon will be held 19 May 2012 at the University of California, Hastings College of Law, in San Francisco, California, USA.

The event is being organized by Ari Hershowitz of Tabulaw.

Here is the text of the event announcement:

With a little bit of mark-up, we can transform access to law and access to justice worldwide. Government transparency is missing an essential tool: transparent laws and legal structures.

This event aims to provide the tools for governments and citizens worldwide to add structured data to laws, and thereby make the laws more transparent, and lawmakers more accountable.

Launch events will be held at UC Hastings and at Stanford.

We welcome participants from around the world to host your own local event. We suggest the following elements for your event:

1. An Ignite Talk on the importance of structured data for open government.

2. Select a few pieces of legislation to mark up using a developing international XML standard for legislation.

3. Marking up the legislation with the goal of having all countries’ constitutions in XML, and perhaps also selected open government laws.

We are working now on an event website. Share your thoughts here (Eventbrite) or on the wiki we have set up for the occasion: http://code.google.com/p/legal-hack/

Email event organizers for access to the wiki.

For more information, please see the event Website.

HT Pieter Gunst.

First Post about the Upcoming International Legislative Open Standards Hackathon

Grant Vergottini of Xcential Group has posted International Open Standards Hackathon, on his Legix.info blog.

Here is an excerpt of the post:

To further promote and to publicize Akoma Ntoso, I am working with Ari Hershowitz @arihersh to stage an international hackathon within the next few months. The idea is to provide an event for people that will demystify XML and Akoma Ntoso [...] by providing a really easy way for anyone to create a document using the proposed standard. Our goal will be to collect a world’s worth of legislative samples. This could be an important step towards building a library that stitches together all the world’s laws and regulations in an open and transparent way.

We’re currently seeking sponsors, participants, and venues for this hackathon. The interest we have found so far has been quite amazing. If you are interested in helping us make this event a success, please let either Ari or me know.

For more information, please see the complete post.

Hershowitz on an International Legislative Hackathon

Ari Hershowitz of Tabulaw today announced in a tweet:

@grantcv1 and I are now preparing for an international legislative hackathon. More soon…

Please contact Ari for more details.

HT @arihersh.

New Discussion: Should Legal Informatics Technologies Be Open Source?

A new discussion of the question: Should Legal Informatics Technologies Be Open Source? is currently underway. The conversation was begun by Grant Vergottini of Xcential Group, with a new post at the Legix.info blog entitled To Go Open Source or Not? In that post, Mr. Vergottini poses two questions:

1. Which data models should be used in legal informatics systems?
2. Which aspects of these models should be open source?

Ari Hershowitz of Tabulaw has responded with his new post at the Tabulaw blog, entitled Legislative Model: How Much to Open Source?

This topic has been much discussed in the past in the free-access-to-law community. On this blog, I’ve discussed several aspects of this topic. What are your views on this topic today?

September 17: California Law Hackathon

The California Law Hackathon — an effort to build software and tools to improve access to California legislation, on the free Web — will be held 17 September 2011.

Physical locations for the Hackathon, to date, are Berkeley, California, at the Maplight Foundation, and Denver, Colorado, at the Denver Open Media Foundation. Remote online participation will also be enabled; contact Ari Hershowitz for details.

The Hackathon‘s organizers are Ari Hershowitz of Tabulaw and Grant Vergottini of Xcential. [And Mr. Hershowitz told us the following on 9-15-11:] Greg Willson and Karen Suhaka are the organizers for Denver.

The Twitter hashtag for the Hackathon is #calawhack.

According to Mr. Hershowitz’s latest post, agenda items for the hackathon include:

• Cluster related code sections, for search and navigation
• Create a timeline view for each code section
• Bulk downloads for codes and legislation
• Create identifiers for useful legislative units (e.g. language on “unfair practices”)
• Track movement of statutory text from one place in the code to another

For background on the Hackathon, see these posts on Mr. Hershowitz’s blog.

For more information or to sign up, please see the Hackathon wiki or the Hackathon Facebook page.

RESTful API for California Legislation

Grant Vergottini of Xcential Group has released an unofficial RESTful Application Programming Interface (API) for California legislation, according to a post by Ari Hershowitz of Tabulaw.

Specifications for the API are available here and here.

The publication of the specifications for Tthis API is the first product of Mr. Hershowitz’s calaw project and its associated California Law Hackathon, which is tentatively scheduled for 3-4 September 2011.

Click here for more information about the California Law Hackathon and the calaw project.

HT @arihersh.