Query about marking public domain content

[ldodds]

Am slightly confused by one of the questions and areas of improvement so filing here for clarification. @JeniT can you confirm if this is a bug or intentional?

For the metoffice data point data I've answer the question: "Is there any copyright in the content of this data?" as "no, the data only contains facts and numbers" -- the API only returns measurements, there's no content, e.g. text, etc in the data.

The certificate then asks me: "Is the content of the data marked as public domain?". I've already answered that there's no content, so why is this question necessary?

If I say no -- because there is no content -- then to improve to Standard level I'm told "You should mark public domain content as public domain". Seems counter-intuitive to me.

[JeniT]

Having the content explicitly marked as public domain (ie an explicit assertion that there are no rights in the content that you need to worry about) saves reusers from having to make their own assessment about whether there are or are not rights in the content. So it's good practice to make that statement even if you don't think it needs saying.

[sumikasan]

Rephrase the question to make it easier to understand the rational behind the queries.

[pkqk]

as Ellen said, rephrase question to ask if it is clear to users of the data that there is no copyright, as opposed to the publisher knowing that there is not copyright.

[shevski]

'Is the content of the data marked as public domain?' shows up after choosing 'no, the data only contains facts and numbers' for Is there any copyright in the content of this data? -- might be clearer to ask 'Is it clear to users that this data has no copyright and can be freely used' with the help text about best practices being labelling it as public domian