Quick question -- as we build more data files in XML, we need to know how descriptive the tags for data elements should be. We'll always try to give clear and comprehensive definitions for the data in the metadata pages, but the tags themselves might be abbreviated pretty extensively in order to reduce the size of the files. Would these abbreviated tags pose a problem for you in the way you expect to use the data? Or is it ok for us to be a little cryptic in the tagging itself so long as we're thorough somewhere else?
This will become much more important very soon as we build the process for downloading detailed information about contributions and expenditures. These files will ultimately contain millions of records (with a query process on the front end that will allow you to focus on just those entries you're interested in) so XML with long tags becomes a problem.
Post a comment to let us know how you feel. Thanks
