MobilityData’s heard a number of pains from the community about the GTFS best practices and the spec’s SHOULD statements living in two different places:
Producers do not always refer to the best practices, and so moving these into the official spec would give the best practices greater visibility and improve data quality for everyone
Merging the best practices in the spec would make it easier for regulators to point producers to one place to get the information they need to create their GTFS feeds
We recognize this is a big effort that will require much community discussion, so we want to propose clear phases to this work, suggested below. Each phase will include a corresponding PR on the Best Practices repo to remove the rules that have been added to the spec. Any community members are welcome to open a PR to merge best practices — the goal of this phasing plan is for everyone to be roughly aligned on steps so anyone can move to action.
Are there phases you’d split up to be more granular? (The File Recommendations in particular come to mind). If so, which best practices may require more discussion or are higher priority?
Curious if those who voted for https://github.com/google/transit/pull/386 have any feedback on this plan: @gcamp, @markstos, @westontrillium, @derhuerst, @doconnoronca, @NomeQ, @evansiroky, @philip-cline, @bdferris-v2
Problem
Referenced from #375 and #376:
MobilityData’s heard a number of pains from the community about the GTFS best practices and the spec’s SHOULD statements living in two different places:
Phasing Plan
Based on this feedback, MobilityData is interested in working to merge the best practices into the official spec. There’s notable community interest in this based on the successful adoption of a recommended presence in the spec.
We recognize this is a big effort that will require much community discussion, so we want to propose clear phases to this work, suggested below. Each phase will include a corresponding PR on the Best Practices repo to remove the rules that have been added to the spec. Any community members are welcome to open a PR to merge best practices — the goal of this phasing plan is for everyone to be roughly aligned on steps so anyone can move to action.
MobilityData commits to updating the Best Practices repo to point new best practice discussion and PRs to https://github.com/google/transit, and add previous Best Practice issues to the spec repository.
Outstanding Questions for Community
Are there phases you’d split up to be more granular? (The File Recommendations in particular come to mind). If so, which best practices may require more discussion or are higher priority?
Curious if those who voted for https://github.com/google/transit/pull/386 have any feedback on this plan: @gcamp, @markstos, @westontrillium, @derhuerst, @doconnoronca, @NomeQ, @evansiroky, @philip-cline, @bdferris-v2
We don't have any strong opinions on the phasing. It looks like a reasonable plan.
I agree with @NomeQ
😻
And I really appreciate the thought that went into the phasing plan and the transparency that it provides. Bravo! 🙌
Phasing seems reasonable; I don't have strong opinions.