So are you sending this to Charles Arthur for a comment?

He can comment whenever he likes. The blog is open.

Les

He can if he happens to come across it, but you'll be aware as a journalist that the right to reply is pretty fundamental to decent reporting. Offering the option of a letters page or comment type of response isn't quite the same thing.

Regards
Guy (Guardian contributor but not acting out of self-interest on this occasion as Charles rarely commissions me)

I'm learning more about blogs every day. Are you saying, Guy, that you called Tessa Jowell for prepublication comment before you suggested her separation announcement was cynical posturing?

http://www.clapperton.co.uk/Blog/Blog.html#unique-entry-id-173

PJ

Hmmm. Interesting. Old media ethics would say you should ask for a comment before publication. Are online journalism ethics different? I don't have an answer. But surely for the sake of a follow-up story you should draw his attention to the post?

I was confident he'd see it. He does post comments here.

But if bothers you, I'll page him.
Pinging Charles Arthur...Pinging Charles Arthur

Les

Actually, I don't know how pinging works. Does that send a message to his blog? I thought it did.
Perhaps not.

Anyway, I tried.

Les

Fair comment from Peter there - although I was commenting on some very public stuff rather than digging around stuff not already in the public domain.

I also allowed Jowell's side of the case to creep into my blog entry.

Ho hum.
I do get a small amount of money from the work I do for UKC, but it's emphatically not dependent on visitor numbers or advertising. The payment could best be described as nominal. I own no shares in UKC.

The example I gave was a real-world one that I knew about. UKC has never offered tides; a different site was affected. I would have mentioned recreational sailors, but wasn't certain how far they might travel and what resources they had. So I went with something I knew was true.

I was trying, under time pressure, to find a real-world example that people could understand. It was a tight deadline. I knew of that case.

And you don't "ping" a blog by mentioning it. You could have found that out by doing some Googling, but of course you didn't have a computer when you were posting your.. oh, hang on.

More to the point is this: I believe fervently that that data should be free. Let a thousand or million mashups bloom. Some will be average, some will be fantastic. Are you really against something that will, according to an indepedent paper, provide a boon to the economy? Or would you rather see the current status quo, where we fall behind the US's innovation because of our retrograde attitude to public copyright?

I'd be interested in your considered answer to this campaign. Because the ad hominem stuff is getting boring already.

Does Charles mention "UK Climbing" in his article? If not, why is it wrong to illustrate something in your writing where you have some inside knowledge?

More to the point, rather than cynical sniping, what about the story?

In the past couple of years I have worked on a couple of transport projects where the stranglehold that the OS holds on data harms us all.

For example, there were plans to include 30 mph speed zones on various services. But the OS wanted money for this.

So you can't add warnings on your GPS system, or on road maps, that this is where to slow down.

Charles may be mad, as is anyone who tried to climb up rocks, but he is not stupid.

You do not mention the other author of the piece, Mike Cross. How about telling us where his vested interest lies.

By the way, what on earth do you mean "one of the Guardian's weekly advertising supplements"? Perhaps unique among the Graun's daily specials, the Technology section is laughably incapable of attracting any advertising.

Silly labels like that suggest the bilious anmd malicious keyboard of a Daily Mail reader or, heaven forbid, writer.

Michael Kenward wrote: Does Charles mention "UK Climbing" in his article? If not, why is it wrong to illustrate something in your writing where you have some inside knowledge?

Is that how it works in scientific publishing? Provided you don't mention by name a company that pays you, you don't have to bother declaring an interest in an article that advances its interests. I don't think so.

Michael Kenward wrote: By the way, what on earth do you mean "one of the Guardian's weekly advertising supplements"? Perhaps unique among the Graun's daily specials, the Technology section is laughably incapable of attracting any advertising.

Would you prefer, "the Guardian's struggling weekly advertising supplement"? Or unsuccessful? Has it occurred to you that these things might be linked? Perhaps there is no need for advertisers to fork out, because the editorial does their job for them. Does the ratecard say, "why buy space when you can buy a journo?" Ho ho.

Les

You show a notable inability to reply to any salient question put to you. I've answered yours. You haven't answered mine - like, do you think the campaign has merit?

If you bothered to look at UKClimbing, you'd find that its popularity won't be affected by stuff like tide tables. But you haven't bothered to look, have you? (Answer that one too, please.)

Also, if the tide data is made available to anyone, for free, then every climbing - and yachting, and beach holiday - website will have access to it. There are many climbing and walking and scrambling sites out there. So there's no competitive benefit, just the general benefit in all having the data. But you probably hadn't considered that either.

Still, I'd welcome the answers as above.

You show a notable inability to reply to any salient question put to you. I've answered yours. You haven't answered mine - like, do you think the campaign has merit? -Charles

Yes it has some merit. I'm for information being free. I broadly support the notion that governments are not good at doing business. Much better to let those who are get on with it.

I've heard persuasive arguments along similar lines for universities, incidentally. Rather than encouraging departments to exploit their own research findings & bring in revenue (which they are very bad at), it's much better if they have an open attitude, encourage entrepreneurship wherever and whenever, then gratefully accept endowments from those individuals and companies who have made millions and want to repay their debt to the institution that supported them and made their early breakthrough possible. Brings in more far money than universities piddling about doing something they are not suited for.

However, I don't find your arguments and examples entirely satisfying. When I expect evidence for an assertion you quote people "who would say that, wouldn't they?" I'm thinking of Keith Dugmore. He represents commercial users of govt information. Are his views on how trivial the revenue raised is particularly useful? Not to me.

You skate over a critical point when you say, "the government should be charged with collecting the best data". How? What risk is there that cash strapped governments of the future will simply cut back on data collected to everyone's disadvantage? That would be easier to do if the departments are not in part revenue generating. I need more reassurance on that. How do you safeguard data collection?

I have implied that I am not taken with your examples. I'm sorry it offends you but it is the case. As Simon Armitage recommends doing of a poem, I thumped the climbing one and listened to the sound it made. It clunked. I couldn't immediately see local economies revitalised by climbers. Even if they are potential big spenders (which they didn't seem to be when I hung around with them at Stanage and Wharncliffe decades back), I wasn't persuaded by the logic. One could equally argue that they might spend more if they got there Saturday morning, found the tides wrong, and so went shopping instead. People spend more at airports when a flight is delayed, don't they? Greater efficiency and certainty wouldn't help those businesses.

Then there was what was unsaid about the climbing case. It seemed obvious to me that websites who bring that information to the public would benefit. You didn't emphasise that. But I knew you were involved in one. I am happy to accept your assurances - deadline, trying to get a vivid example that would resonate with readers, you had personal knowledge. But likewise I don't think you can blame an alert reader for expressing some scepticism about the disinterestedness of it.

If you bothered to look at UKClimbing, you'd find that its popularity won't be affected by stuff like tide tables. But you haven't bothered to look, have you? (Answer that one too, please.) - Charles

I have looked at UKClimbing. I think it is excellent. I've been getting the email for months. I would recommend it to anyone. I got some good advice for trip last year to the Pyrenees from it. What more can I say? Well done.

I didn't take that much notice of its potential use for tide tables, that is true. But I do note your promise on the site:

We will give you the most up-to-date and most comprehensive information that we can, about everything to do with climbing in the UK, and beyond

I thought that might include information from the Hydrographic office, and possibly weather forecasting and OS, for all I know. You now tell me that the site's popularity won't be affected by stuff like tide tables. But that then begs questions about the example - if your climbing site won't be more popular if you offer tide data, what on earth is the whole argument about?

I think that's me done answering your questions. Do you fancy going back to mine?

Have you or Michael Cross been paid by any company that might stand to benefit from the "crown jewels" campaign?

Les