Data upload/sharing across Stack Exchange sites

Question

This is a request for a feature for Open Data Beta and perhaps for many other SE sites which needs a data sharing tool.

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I have some data which is Open (free from copyright, patents or other control mechanisms) and I want to share it with the users on SE-OpenData. How do I do it without having to host it on some other server and share a link here?

As links change over time, I would like this community to provide an option to upload Open Data and make it available for everyone.

Perhaps, SE can partner with some data sharing service and provide permanent links to resources that we want to share on the site. (Just like jsfiddle.net is used extensively for sharing executable code.)

Also we can have some kind of moderation for data that is shared, check if it is "Open" or not.

Also I would like to add that if this request is implemented, SE - Open Data community is going to be very famous soon.

(The same way a programmer searches for programming related questions, people with interest in Open Data and sharing Open resources would love to use this platform.)

Link to my question on Open Data, in case you are interested in reading some response from the SE Open Data community.

Answer 1

I have thought about this many times and asked some questions about it on Open Data Stack Exchange. I think its a great idea and should be implemented as soon as possible.

There are two options in my opinion: github and datahub.io

I think datahub.io is the optimal solution here, but realize the strengths of github and wouldn't have a problem if it went either way

• datahub.io is supported by okfn and runs on ckan.
• Optimally, moderators would create accounts on datahub.io for their sites, or perhaps just one site that all Stack Exchanges could use. Either way they would direct users there to upload data.
• datahub.io already has sharing integration with fb/twitter/g+, making sharing easy, which can also be tied to the various Stack Exchange accounts on twitter.