On 27 April 2010 08:31, Benoit Boissinot <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> I'm curious to see the difference with us, can you point to an example?

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmbills/089/amend/pbc0890704m.1319-1325.html

The Bills (in draft) are available in a line-numbered documents (also
in html - but I am told it might be possible to get xml versions). The
English language form of the diff is sufficiently stylised and simple
that it should be possible to parse it and then cause it to operate on
the draft to generate a changed version. A useful tool.

> It is usually easier for EU, for example it wasn't hard to extract
> this: http://www.laquadrature.net/wiki/Rapport_Gallo_Amendments
> (Even if the amendments are in .doc format, the template they use adds
> additional xml which is not displayed but is captured when
> copy/pasting or using conversion tools)
> Instead of describing the diff in legalese, they directly show a
> context diff, in my opinion that's easier to deal with.

You could be right.

What would be really nice is something that allowed one to view the
dif in the context of the original legislation, so that one can
understand what difference it makes in context.

>
> I don't think this kind of diff are used elsewhere, in older
> institution. At least here, in France we have the formulaic diffs (and
> scanned non-ocr-ed amendments for the commission reading...).

Ah, that is the main problem I think. Scanned documents put a layer if
difficulty in the way that discourages any further progress.

>
> I guess it depend on the ratio IT people/editor in the parliamentary
> services... if they already do most of the stuff by hand and have the
> staff for it, it might be hard to change, they don't have many
> incentive to provide it themselves.

Yes. Its been very very difficult to make headway on this. They don't
really see the point I think (though to campaign groups its completely
obvious).

> (i.e. in France I can see it happen in one of the chamber, where they
> have a big internal IT staff, but on the other where they outsource
> everything, less so).

It would be great if some legislature did this right, then we could
point at it when arguing with the others. Estonia?

>
> cheers,
>
> Benoit (regardscitoyens.org member / laquadrature.net contributor)

Nice to encounter a La Quadrature member here.

-- 
Francis Davey

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