Miscellaneous

Just the Facts

By Anne Skove, Esq.

In our constant battle against urban legal legends, we are always happy to find a new stash of facts.

We were alerted to Factual by Grant, a member of Team Factual. According to its rather detailed (Grant's favorite hiking trail is in New Zealand!) About Us section, Factual is a platform where anyone can share and mash open data on any subject, from busking laws to vegan products (yes, Twizzlers are included on the vegan list!).

Factual includes an open data repository, collaborative tools, data accountability (i.e., citations and history -- not just a lot of stuff some random person decided to post!), data sourcing and improvement.

What does this have to do with courts? Suppose you suddenly must have a list of county courts in England and Wales -- presto! There it is, complete with dates of opening, references, and beautiful alphabetization!

Fun fact: the amount of fun a person could have with Factual is limited only by the person's love of lists.

Full post as published by court-o-rama.org on October 29, 2009 (boomark / email).