
White House Open Data Unavailable - runesoerensen
https://open.whitehouse.gov/browse
======
privong
All the data appear to still be available here:
[https://open.obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/](https://open.obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/)

I think that might just be the usual revamping of the White House website for
the new administration. I spot-checked a few datasets and it looked like they
are still available at the link above.

Mods, a better title for this might be "White House Open Data Page Archived"?
And the link changed to the above link?

~~~
runesoerensen
Thanks for sharing this! The notion of archiving "Open Data" due to a change
in government still seems odd considering this is factual, time-stamped data.

~~~
jdoliner
All digital properties go to a clean slate when the Presidency changes hands.
There's nothing odd about this. It's similar to the physical aspects of the
government, such as cabinet posts, that are directly under the Presidents
purview. It being factual really has no bearing on this, although given that
for data it just gets archived rather than completely purged it seems to be an
incredibly reasonable treatment.

The title of this post, on the other hand, is, dare I say, an alternative
fact.

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runesoerensen
Related tweet: _" Today Trump removed all open data (9GB) from the White House
[https://open.whitehouse.gov/browse](https://open.whitehouse.gov/browse) but I
grabbed it all Jan 20! Will distribute soon"_

[https://twitter.com/denormalize/status/831581871230193664](https://twitter.com/denormalize/status/831581871230193664)

~~~
weaksauce
Why did trump do this? What was in the data? Could this be an error?

~~~
ajones
It isn't an error. If you click into one of the individual data sources (links
available on the home page), you see messages like this:

> This page is being updated. It will post records of White House visitors on
> an ongoing basis, once they become available.

> This page is being updated. It will post records of White House staff
> salaries as the data becomes available for the Trump Administration.

~~~
huydotnet
No request sent from the browser

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grzm
Is there more to this than a page of empty results? Looking at this from a
troubleshooting perspective, there are a number of things that could be
causing this page besides the data itself being gone.

I agree, it's something that should be looked into, but before proclaiming a
purge, I'd want to know more about the situation.

~~~
runesoerensen
I did consider using "No Longer Available" rather than "Purged" in the title,
but all things considered I think there's overwhelming reason to believe this
was intentional. Hopefully we'll soon have more information if someone looks
further into this.

~~~
massysett
So you recklessly decided to post something inflammatory just because you
think there's "overwhelming reason to believe" it--so overwhelming that you
haven't cited it? Meanwhile "hopefully" we'll have more information "if
someone looks further into" it?

When Trump does this the New York Times calls it a lie. He often says we "need
to figure out what the hell is going on," just like your "if someone looks
further into this."

~~~
runesoerensen
If the Trump administration wanted to control the story they could've just
posted information about the change on the webpage and redirect users to the
Obama administration archive (which exists, as pointed out here
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13647041](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13647041)).

Instead they chose to break all links and API integrations with no warning or
information.

~~~
grzm
What's _your_ goal? What do _you_ want to accomplish? Raise awareness of
what's going on in the Trump administration? Who's your audience? Do you want
to reach anyone other than people who already share your concerns? Do you want
to be written off by people who aren't already predisposed to agree with you?

Sure, they could have handled this differently. I also suspect that the people
who are running IT at whitehouse.gov may not be used to doing the work that
they're currently doing (how often do you change administrations? I know I
rarely optimize once-every-four-year processes that aren't critical), or are
doing it under time constraints that's preventing them from doing the job the
best they can. Except under the most ideal organizations, I think most of us
have been in situations where things have been rolled out, on purpose or by
accident, that haven't been done the best way possible.

There are plenty of things for people who are concerned about the Trump
administration to watch closely. To raise the alarm at all of them very much
dilutes the power of the alarm for more serious issues.

In such a polarized climate, preaching to the choir isn't going to make things
better. People need to be focused on reaching some kind of shared
understanding, and that takes people paying attention to what they're saying
and how they're saying it, as well as people being willing to listen and
understand (even if they don't agree) what others are trying to say.

------
problems
Is there any reason to believe this won't just be moved to the Obama admin
archive or something?

Seems like it could just be part of the website change process.

~~~
idiot_stick
> _Seems like it could just be part of the website change process._

It might be.

But don't worry, if that's the case I'm sure there will be a story right at
the top of HN that says, "Whoops! Trump didn't delete anything". Because we
hate fake news and are not hypocrites...right?

~~~
jrochkind1
it is the top-voted comment right here before you even made your post.

~~~
idiot_stick
I shouldn't have to read the comments to determine if the headline is a lie or
not.

~~~
jrochkind1
Indeed you shouldn't, I was responding to your suggestion that the HN
community would ignore it if the article content or headline were determined
to be inaccurate. (I _think_ that's what you were suggesting through the
sarcasm?) The community already hadn't ignored it before you even made that
suggestion. So the aspersions against HN's ethical or intellectual consistency
were unwarranted.

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rodionos
It would actually be better for the White House datasets to be cataloged and
managed via catalog.data.gov. They posted some speeches and videos back in
2014 but have been running their own show since then.

[https://www.data.gov/metrics](https://www.data.gov/metrics)

Notice that White House is listed as having a total of 4 datasets.

~~~
bb88
Those pretty much have press releases and other specific videos.

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dj-wonk
I would like to get good answers on this question: What are the U.S.
Government data retention policies and rules?

> As I understand it, the most applicable overarching law is the Federal
> Records Act. More information can be found on the Record Management FAQ.
> Additionally, I've found the NARA Management Guide. ...

Question posted at: [http://opendata.stackexchange.com/questions/10446/cross-
cutt...](http://opendata.stackexchange.com/questions/10446/cross-cutting-u-s-
government-data-retention-policies-and-rules)

------
sunraa
From Jan 26th:
[http://web.archive.org/web/20170126072506/https://open.white...](http://web.archive.org/web/20170126072506/https://open.whitehouse.gov/browse)

Bulk of them seem to be reports to Congress regarding staff with the odd
climate change adaptation task force.

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LyalinDotCom
We as a community need to invest into people who are willing to take the time
and duplicate all data that is "public and open source" in truly independent
repo's. Its simple as that, we know from history that as times change,
government changes, political policies change, the truth becomes a victim.

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69mlgsniperdad
um.. clickbait? misleading for certain.

