[CivicAccess-discuss] postal code --> riding

[Tracey P. Lauriault]

Its a great tool but not for this purpose since our federal electoral
districts (FEDs) are organized by FED name which are agglomerations of
postal codes, so you find your MP/riding leader by searching the postal code
or by FED if you actually know the name of your FED.

On Sat, Sep 13, 2008 at 11:54 AM, Christopher D. Ritter <
christopherritter at gmail.com> wrote:

> I wonder if this might be of any help?
>
> http://www.geonames.org/
>
>
> On Sat, Sep 13, 2008 at 10:17 AM, Daniel Haran <chebuctonian at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> On Sat, Sep 13, 2008 at 9:57 AM, Jennifer Bell <jenniferlianne at yahoo.ca>
>> wrote:
>> >
>> > It seems the API I mentioned before for postal code to riding lookups
>> may charge fees for use of their API... Which is fair enough, since they
>> paid for it.
>>
>> Which is why that approach is limited in the long-term (not saying
>> it's a bad idea, especially if it raises awareness about the need for
>> fundamental change here).
>>
>> > This gave me an idea: one way of getting past the (astounding) postal
>> code to riding $3K cost is to create a paralell data set by collecting input
>> from users.
>> >
>> > A website could say: You are the first person from that postal code to
>> use our site.  Please use one of these services [list] to look up your
>> riding, and enter the name below.  (There would also have to be a mechanism
>> for reporting incorrect ridings.)  The resulting data set would then be
>> owned by the website who could re-distribute it as they choose (eg. for
>> free).
>> >
>> > Does anyone see any problems with this?  Has it been tried before?
>>
>> Problems? Yes. Postal codes that change all the damned time, and over
>> 800k of them.
>>
>> There are other ways to hack around the problem - the address
>> verification data from Canada Post is cheaper than the postal code ->
>> EDID file. Since we have EDID polygons, we could probably hack around
>> it (though probably fall afoul of their copyright terms for that,
>> unless it were somehow decoupled ;)
>>
>>
>> What's the status of lobbying on this issue? It is high time we took
>> it if they haven't answered our calls. I would scrape it if someone
>> were to use it.
>>
>> Daniel.
>>
>> PS: Is anyone else annoyed we're *still* talking about this file?
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>>
>
>
>
> --
> Christopher D. Ritter
> User Experience Designer
> christopherritter at gmail.com
>
> Visit Critteropolis Today!
> critteropolis.myminicity.com
>
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-- 
Tracey P. Lauriault
613-234-2805
https://gcrc.carleton.ca/confluence/display/GCRCWEB/Lauriault
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