Well here’s another gap in the data journalism process ever-so-slightly plugged: Tony Hirst blogs about a new Q&A site that Rufus Pollock has built. Get the Data allows you to “ask your data related questions, including, but not limited to, the following:

• “where to find data relating to a particular issue;
• “how to query Linked Data sources to get just the data set you require;
• “what tools to use to explore a data set in a visual way;
• “how to cleanse data or get it into a format you can work with using third party visualisation or analysis tools.”

As Tony explains (the site came out of a conversation between him and Rufus):

“In some cases the data will exist in a queryable and machine readable form somewhere, if only you knew where to look. In other cases, you might have found a data source but lack the query writing expertise to get hold of just the data you want in a format you can make use of.”

He also invites people to help populate the site:

“If you publish data via some sort of API or queryable interface, why not considering posting self-answered questions using examples from your FAQ?

“If you’re running a hackday, why not use GetTheData.org to post questions arising in the scoping the hacks, tweet a link to the question to your event backchannel and give the remote participants a chance to contribute back, at the same time adding to the online legacy of your event.”

Off you go then.