This is from Total Baseball - I believe it also applies to the Lahman database
and, by likely therefore applies to BDB:


       BATTERS FACING PITCHER Unavailable before 1903 in the National
       League. The 1903 and 1908 data was not published and has been
reconstructed.

       BFP was unavailable for the American League of 1901-1907. Excepting the NL
of 1876-1888 and the AA of 1882 and 1884-1887, for which John Tattersall
calculated BFP from box scores, earlier years in both leagues have had their BFP
constructed from available data in this manner:

subtract league base hits from league at-bats, divide by league innings pitched,
multiply by the pitcher's innings, and add his hits allowed, walks, hit by
pitch, and sacrifice hits, if available.

THANKS,
KJOK

--- In baseball-databank@yahoogroups.com, David Carter <terpsfan101@...> wrote:
>
> Clem,
>
> I spent alot of time cleaning up the BFP data earlier this year. I worked from
multiple sources (Spalding/Reach Guides, Newspapers, and Palmer's Data) and
estimated BFP when it wasn't available. The BFP/IP for any player/season is well
within an acceptable range. Like I said, I spent about a month going over the
BFP data and deciding what sources to use. Check out my custom Baseball Databank
Database that I made available earlier this year:
>
> http://www.mediafire.com/?newmuztnwww
>
> --- On Thu, 10/7/10, Clem Comly <ccomly@...> wrote:
>
> From: Clem Comly <ccomly@...>
> Subject: [baseball-databank] BFP issues
> To: baseball-databank@yahoogroups.com
> Date: Thursday, October 7, 2010, 8:29 AM
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>  
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>  I was using the data from last spring
> to look at BFP/IP.  Doing this I found a few impossible BFP numbers and a
> few inconsistencies with Retrosheet/Palmer data where the latter's data looks
> better.  I don't have the Retro data en masse,  just was manually
> looking up the best and worst BFP/IP seasons per BDB on the Retro
> site.
>  
>  I had figured out post-1900 leaders but when I checked against
> Retrosheet the BFPs
> did not match so I didn't show
> them
>                      
>
:                                       
> BDB
> Retro
>
                                        \
                      
> BFP  BFP
> 3.64  Dickson, Walt     
> 1914  PIT  FL    935  1035
> 3.65  Willett,
> Ed           1913 
> DET  AL   883 
> 1002
> ==============================
> 5.08  Vangilder, Elam 
> 1927  SLA  AL  1031  931
>  
> When I extended my search to 19th century, lowest
> BFP/IP were:
>  BFP/IP best and worst season (minimum 150 IP)
>  2.36 Healy,
> Egyptian    1891 Balt AA
>  2.79 Madden,
> Kid       1891 Balt AA
>  3.18 McMahon,
> Sadie  1891 Balt AA
>
>
> 1891 is even uglier than I thought.
> 1891 Baltimore AA only had 7
> pitchers--2 were below 10 games pitched with
> 20-60 IP: those 2 had BFPs of
> 0.
> Of the other 5, 4 have BFP/IP below 3.  The last, Sadie McMahon had
> 1601 BFP
> in 503 IP with 493 hits and 149 walks.
>
> 1891 NL has 2 teams
> with 0 BFP.  If you subtract those teams IPs from league
> totals the
> other 6 have about 7300 IP and 6400 BFP!
>
>
> Clem
> Comly
>

Does anyone know if a statistical database exists for the KBO, ideally
in a format similar to the CSV files for Major League Baseball in the
Baseball Databank?

Or perhaps in some format where I could use something like Excel to
massage the data as needed...

Thanks!

Clay

Hello,

This email message is a notification to let you know that
a file has been uploaded to the Files area of the baseball-databank
group.

   File        : /International Data/KBO_1982_2009.zip
   Uploaded by : kjokbaseball <kjokbaseball@...>
   Description : KBO Historical Database

You can access this file at the URL:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/baseball-databank/files/International%20Data/KBO_1\
982_2009.zip

To learn more about file sharing for your group, please visit:
http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/groups/original/members/web/index.html
Regards,

kjokbaseball <kjokbaseball@...>

Hello,

This email message is a notification to let you know that
a file has been uploaded to the Files area of the baseball-databank
group.

   File        : /International Data/2009_1982-kbo.xlsx
   Uploaded by : kjokbaseball <kjokbaseball@...>
   Description : KBO Historical Database Excel Version

You can access this file at the URL:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/baseball-databank/files/International%20Data/2009_\
1982-kbo.xlsx

To learn more about file sharing for your group, please visit:
http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/groups/original/members/web/index.html
Regards,

kjokbaseball <kjokbaseball@...>

Newly discovered player Chubby snyder

--- In baseball-databank@yahoogroups.com, "Tangotiger" <tom@...> wrote:
>
> Sean,
>
> In appearances table:
> 1914,"BUF","FL","",1,1,,1,1,0,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,,,
>
> Record is missing the player ID.
>
> Tom
>

The question is now how to ensure the transition to a new ownership group
so that the public continues to have access to a quality database.

I put up a thread on my blog (start at post #5):
http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/future_baseball_databank\
_updates/

And SABR came up as a possible alternative.  Please read that thread.  In
responding to FX, I said this:

"If the issue was just to provide an annual update (say the 2011 season
data), then dozens of people here can do that in a matter of minutes, by
using the latest BDB build plus using Retrosheet.

There are two main areas that SABR provides a huge benefit, and that is
the bio data and minor league data.  Another strong area is that there is
a (presumably) dedicated machine [note: as in a well-oiled process] in
place to ensure continued viability.

What is unclear to me from your post, and perhaps you can elaborate, is
what is this “community of interest”, and does this guarantee that the
public will have unfettered access to the data?  And if not, what
limitations are imposed on the public? "

Here are the questions that you have to answer for yourselves:
1. Do I really care about getting all the non-Retrosheet (basically
pre-1950) data corrected in the future? (i.e., some new guy in 1914 was
just found; some guy's birth year was changed from 1888 to 1890, etc)

2. Do I care at all about getting minor league data?

3. Do I care about having one place that I know will be around for the
next 5 years?

If the answer is "no" to all of these, then it seems that the members here
are happy to just wing it year-by-year, as some fine folks will simply
supply the annual  updates, without caring much about prior seasons.

If the answer is "yes" to any of these, then it becomes a question of a
more dedicated organization (like SABR) to control the data.

What is it that  you guys want?

Tom

---------------------------------------------
The Book--Playing The Percentages In Baseball
http://www.InsideTheBook.com

Sorry I'm late to the conversation. I have many thoughts on this, but foremost
is to express my desire to keep an open source database of baseball stats
available to all who want it. That goal is at odds with the folks who are
commercial stat providers, and I suspect that's why Palmer (and now Foreman)
aren't active proponents.  That's part of the reason why it's been hard to
garner much support for the Databank effort, both because a free database costs
them licensing opportunities, but also because it creates competitors.  That's
an entirely reasonable view, just not one that helps the idea of an open source
database.

I've always thought SABR was a natural home for such a project since an open
source database fosters new research, but have always meet with resistance to
that idea. How could SABR help the databank project? By providing access to and
allowing integration of its datasets... such as the biographical data.  The
databank doesnt need SABR's help with infrastructure support or storage space.

The fact is that the databank project can survive without Foreman's support. 
99% of the work of maintaining it since the mid-1990s has been done by three or
four people, and there's no reason that model couldn't continue.  Mechanisms
already exist for folks who want to integrate outside datasets -- Retrosheet,
F/X, etc.  I think the core audience for this database is not interested in
those things.

Regards,
Sean Lahman

I had a plan to one day build a transformable online database that we could all
share. I was thinking wikipedia but a database. Transformable because we could
add different datasets and relate them to existing datasets with ease. Expand
data to include pitch by pitch data through the season. My hopes were, if I
built the foundation, that everyone would contribute to the administration of
the data, just like wikipedia. There is a lot of more interesting data out there
on top of what BDB has provided that I'd love for us to share, specifically
contract and team transactional data.

I think if we build a central database that we can share we can eliminate
duplicate efforts. We can focus on the analysis and tool development instead of
the administration of the data.

If this is something people are interested in please let me know and I can move
forward with it. I'd hate to develop something like this and not have it used.

Paul


--- In baseball-databank@yahoogroups.com, "Tangotiger" <tom@...> wrote:
>
> The question is now how to ensure the transition to a new ownership group
> so that the public continues to have access to a quality database.
>
> I put up a thread on my blog (start at post #5):
>
http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/future_baseball_databank\
_updates/
>
> And SABR came up as a possible alternative.  Please read that thread.  In
> responding to FX, I said this:
>
> "If the issue was just to provide an annual update (say the 2011 season
> data), then dozens of people here can do that in a matter of minutes, by
> using the latest BDB build plus using Retrosheet.
>
> There are two main areas that SABR provides a huge benefit, and that is
> the bio data and minor league data.  Another strong area is that there is
> a (presumably) dedicated machine [note: as in a well-oiled process] in
> place to ensure continued viability.
>
> What is unclear to me from your post, and perhaps you can elaborate, is
> what is this "community of interest", and does this guarantee that the
> public will have unfettered access to the data?  And if not, what
> limitations are imposed on the public? "
>
> Here are the questions that you have to answer for yourselves:
> 1. Do I really care about getting all the non-Retrosheet (basically
> pre-1950) data corrected in the future? (i.e., some new guy in 1914 was
> just found; some guy's birth year was changed from 1888 to 1890, etc)
>
> 2. Do I care at all about getting minor league data?
>
> 3. Do I care about having one place that I know will be around for the
> next 5 years?
>
> If the answer is "no" to all of these, then it seems that the members here
> are happy to just wing it year-by-year, as some fine folks will simply
> supply the annual  updates, without caring much about prior seasons.
>
> If the answer is "yes" to any of these, then it becomes a question of a
> more dedicated organization (like SABR) to control the data.
>
> What is it that  you guys want?
>
> Tom
>
> ---------------------------------------------
> The Book--Playing The Percentages In Baseball
> http://www.InsideTheBook.com
>

 

I had a plan to one day build a transformable online database that we could all share. I was thinking wikipedia but a database. Transformable because we could add different datasets and relate them to existing datasets with ease. Expand data to include pitch by pitch data through the season. My hopes were, if I built the foundation, that everyone would contribute to the administration of the data, just like wikipedia. There is a lot of more interesting data out there on top of what BDB has provided that I'd love for us to share, specifically contract and team transactional data.

I think if we build a central database that we can share we can eliminate duplicate efforts. We can focus on the analysis and tool development instead of the administration of the data.

If this is something people are interested in please let me know and I can move forward with it. I'd hate to develop something like this and not have it used.

Paul

--- In baseball-databank@yahoogroups.com, "Tangotiger" <tom@...> wrote:
>
> The question is now how to ensure the transition to a new ownership group
> so that the public continues to have access to a quality database.
>
> I put up a thread on my blog (start at post #5):
> http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/future_baseball_databank_updates/
>
> And SABR came up as a possible alternative. Please read that thread. In
> responding to FX, I said this:
>
> "If the issue was just to provide an annual update (say the 2011 season
> data), then dozens of people here can do that in a matter of minutes, by
> using the latest BDB build plus using Retrosheet.
>
> There are two main areas that SABR provides a huge benefit, and that is
> the bio data and minor league data. Another strong area is that there is
> a (presumably) dedicated machine [note: as in a well-oiled process] in
> place to ensure continued viability.
>
> What is unclear to me from your post, and perhaps you can elaborate, is
> what is this "community of interest", and does this guarantee that the
> public will have unfettered access to the data? And if not, what
> limitations are imposed on the public? "
>
> Here are the questions that you have to answer for yourselves:
> 1. Do I really care about getting all the non-Retrosheet (basically
> pre-1950) data corrected in the future? (i.e., some new guy in 1914 was
> just found; some guy's birth year was changed from 1888 to 1890, etc)
>
> 2. Do I care at all about getting minor league data?
>
> 3. Do I care about having one place that I know will be around for the
> next 5 years?
>
> If the answer is "no" to all of these, then it seems that the members here
> are happy to just wing it year-by-year, as some fine folks will simply
> supply the annual updates, without caring much about prior seasons.
>
> If the answer is "yes" to any of these, then it becomes a question of a
> more dedicated organization (like SABR) to control the data.
>
> What is it that you guys want?
>
> Tom
>
> ---------------------------------------------
> The Book--Playing The Percentages In Baseball
> http://www.InsideTheBook.com
>

On 30 Mar 2011, at 19:50 , Sean Forman wrote:

> What I hope will happen is that SABR and Palmer/Gillette will make a
non-commercial open sourced version of the major league and bio data (which I
currently license from them for use on B-R (I don't use core bdb data on b-r. I
maintain it separately)) available to the general public.  I will gladly pay my
fee to them and gladly point the hobbyist or enthusiast to the full data they
can use for free.
>
> I have been trying to put this bug in their ear for many years now.  I'm only
a lowly SABR member and have no pull beyond my bully pulpit and relationship as
a customer of theirs.
>
> My personal view (and the view of probably anyone who knows anything about
this) is that the Palmer DB is the gold standard for the encyclopedia numbers
and the SABR bio committee is the gold standard for bio.  I would urge Palmer
and SABR to make the db open source for non-commercial use, and provide a way
for the community to create new datasets with this as a platform instead of
continually having to stamp out LF-CF-RF discrepancies or update death dates.


I'm not sure how widely it's known, but for several years now I have been
serving as SABR's "dataczar, with remit to manage all the various datasets SABR
has or licenses.

My personal position on the matter matches Sean F.'s. SABR ought to be releasing
datasets under, e.g., a Creative Commons license, and ought to be providing
resources to maintain datasets for the benefit of the community as a whole.

In addition to sharing Sean's assessment about the quality of the SABR
demographics and the Palmer/Gillette MLB statistics, a further argument for SABR
being involved is logistical. I already maintain the equivalent of basically all
of baseball-databank's data - plus significantly more - on a day-to-day basis,
as part of a regularized workflow, with tools I've developed over several years
of experience.  To output the data in the format of baseball-databank or
similar, would take maybe two hours to write and test the queries as a one-off. 
In other words, the ongoing cost of me managing this data would be essentially
zero.

Where I have been able to, SABR has already started making datasets available
under a CC license, for instance, as part of the Baseball ID Working Group.

The only thing stopping me from volunteering to take on providing the
baseball-databank under the same terms straightaway is that the MLB statistics,
which are no doubt the core of the dataset, aren't currently mine to release.  I
firmly support Open Source and Open Data principles.  It is worth remembering
that one of those underlying principles is respect for copyright and licensing
terms.

I am actively working to try to make what Sean F. is proposing a reality.  Those
of you in the group who are SABR members, I encourage you to write your Board
members and tell them the same. :)  The baseball community really needs to be
spending its time on doing analysis and discovering new information -- not the
grunge work of putting together clean datasets.

Ted

Gang,

I have been rather quiet in this community for a long time for personal
reasons, but this issue is something I feel very strongly about. Plus this
thread is full of throw-back names, so I had to chime in :-)

Over the years, I have been involved in a number of efforts, and witnessed
several more where grass roots labor built up some store of data or a
product of value, and then that data or project got rerouted to something
commercial and/or closed to the public. Two obvious examples that come to
mind are CDDB (a store of compact disc information) and ICS (Internet
Chess Server). I don't want that to happen to this data, and I don't think
it has to.

One of the reasons for the success of this databank is its resilience. The
data source has had multiple shepherds over the years, but once it went
public, it hasn't looked back. Strides towards more inclusive formats have
been the norm, and each of us can currently download the entire dataset to
munge to our heart's content. Each new shepherd (usually named Sean) added
a layer of support for the data, and it fleshed out over time to what it
is today.

There's absolutely further work that could be done with the data. Each
spring, grand plans and ideas are raised and some take fruit while others
die off. That's fine and good and natural. But it all comes back to the
data being available to all of us.

A disclaimer is necessary. I am not a fan of SABR, primarily because of
the way it has handled its data. The SABR I am familiar with (five plus
years ago when I was a member) had closed committees with NDA's, datasets
only viewable record by record on the web, and the exact opposite of the
spirit this group has had.

True, that was a long while ago. The fact that SABR has a "data czar" with
the approach that Ted has goes a long way. They have done some great work
releasing data sets. But still, with the history there, I can't help but
feel like handing over the proverbial keys to the data, including the
ability to determine licensing back to us, is a scary step in the wrong
direction. "We" own this data now. I can download the data set and munge
away. None of us can say for sure that we will be able to do that in two
years if we give that away. If we take that risk, the gain must be
overwhelmingly worth it. I personally don't see it.

I understand this may be a bit of a doom-and-gloom view of where we're
going, but as I mentioned, my viewpoint is one of someone who has seen
their contributions to CDDB turn write-only. The impact here would be
worse, because of the reporting and research use for the data we have
collected over the years.

Regards,
Derek


On Wed, 30 Mar 2011, Theodore Turocy wrote:

>
> On 30 Mar 2011, at 19:50 , Sean Forman wrote:
>
>> What I hope will happen is that SABR and Palmer/Gillette will make a
non-commercial open sourced version of the major league and bio data (which I
currently license from them for use on B-R (I don't use core bdb data on b-r. I
maintain it separately)) available to the general public.  I will gladly pay my
fee to them and gladly point the hobbyist or enthusiast to the full data they
can use for free.
>>
>> I have been trying to put this bug in their ear for many years now.  I'm only
a lowly SABR member and have no pull beyond my bully pulpit and relationship as
a customer of theirs.
>>
>> My personal view (and the view of probably anyone who knows anything about
this) is that the Palmer DB is the gold standard for the encyclopedia numbers
and the SABR bio committee is the gold standard for bio.  I would urge Palmer
and SABR to make the db open source for non-commercial use, and provide a way
for the community to create new datasets with this as a platform instead of
continually having to stamp out LF-CF-RF discrepancies or update death dates.
>
>
> I'm not sure how widely it's known, but for several years now I have been
serving as SABR's "dataczar, with remit to manage all the various datasets SABR
has or licenses.
>
> My personal position on the matter matches Sean F.'s. SABR ought to be
releasing datasets under, e.g., a Creative Commons license, and ought to be
providing resources to maintain datasets for the benefit of the community as a
whole.
>
> In addition to sharing Sean's assessment about the quality of the SABR
demographics and the Palmer/Gillette MLB statistics, a further argument for SABR
being involved is logistical. I already maintain the equivalent of basically all
of baseball-databank's data - plus significantly more - on a day-to-day basis,
as part of a regularized workflow, with tools I've developed over several years
of experience.  To output the data in the format of baseball-databank or
similar, would take maybe two hours to write and test the queries as a one-off. 
In other words, the ongoing cost of me managing this data would be essentially
zero.
>
> Where I have been able to, SABR has already started making datasets available
under a CC license, for instance, as part of the Baseball ID Working Group.
>
> The only thing stopping me from volunteering to take on providing the
baseball-databank under the same terms straightaway is that the MLB statistics,
which are no doubt the core of the dataset, aren't currently mine to release.  I
firmly support Open Source and Open Data principles.  It is worth remembering
that one of those underlying principles is respect for copyright and licensing
terms.
>
> I am actively working to try to make what Sean F. is proposing a reality. 
Those of you in the group who are SABR members, I encourage you to write your
Board members and tell them the same. :)  The baseball community really needs to
be spending its time on doing analysis and discovering new information -- not
the grunge work of putting together clean datasets.
>
> Ted
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> http://www.baseball-databank.org/Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>

On 30 Mar 2011, at 23:21 , Derek Adair wrote:

>
>
> True, that was a long while ago. The fact that SABR has a "data czar" with
> the approach that Ted has goes a long way. They have done some great work
> releasing data sets. But still, with the history there, I can't help but
> feel like handing over the proverbial keys to the data, including the
> ability to determine licensing back to us, is a scary step in the wrong
> direction.

To move the discussion forward: How would having the data licensed under a
Creative Commons license not address this concern -- remembering that licenses
cannot be retroactively changed.

TLT

FX,

Well, it's obviously not my call to forgive SABR. The good thing is you
can go ahead and release those BDB-like products anyway (at least to my
understanding; I-Am-Not-a-Lawyer). There are multiple ways to do what you
said successfully, and there are a number of ways you can botch it. There
are a half-dozen variants of the creative commons license, and there are
varying kinds of "products" you could provide back. There's also the open
question of whether this data would be hosted just for SABR members, or
for everyone. I am honestly hoping for your efforts here to be successful,
but that's in your organization's hands.

For what it's worth (not much), I would recommend you not get too hung up
on meeting the needs of those missing dba skills, and stick with making
the data available as the first pass. Zipped csv/xls file storage is much
less expensive and much quicker to market than an ambitious contract
project.

My advice to the current crop of databank contributors is to be open about
contributing but guarded about risk. If something does go wrong, and the
new maintainer takes it closed, being able to roll back and only do a year
of updates, vs. catch up from this point in time is critical. I'd like to
avoid a fork, but we owe it to current and future consumers of the data to
ensure the set is available to the masses.

Regards,
Derek

P.S. On the note re: NDA's, the committee in question was the Negro
Leagues committee. In order to access their data, you were asked to sign
an NDA because they were working on a book at the time. I can't remember
exact dates, but it could have been earlier than your board service.

On Wed, 30 Mar 2011, F. X. Flinn wrote:

> Derek, I never heard of any committee having any kind of NDA agreement, and
> I've been on the board since July 2001. The lack of accessibility of the
> data was a problem we first tried to address by contracting with XMLTeam to
> build out a system that would make the data truly useful to a larger
> audience without dba skills, but that didn't work out. Meanwhile bbref had
> become the defacto place to go, so we felt less compelled to compete with
> them or with BDB.
>
> Bottom line is that SABR could start producing BDB type products tied to a
> creative commons license in fairly short order, and it's definitely
> something we have in the hopper once the dust settles on the new move, new
> staff, new website that's all rolling out as this discussion takes place. If
> we just went ahead and did that, would all be forgiven?
>
> FXF
>
> On Wed, Mar 30, 2011 at 6:21 PM, Derek Adair <dadair@...> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> Gang,
>>
>> I have been rather quiet in this community for a long time for personal
>> reasons, but this issue is something I feel very strongly about. Plus this
>> thread is full of throw-back names, so I had to chime in :-)
>>
>> Over the years, I have been involved in a number of efforts, and witnessed
>> several more where grass roots labor built up some store of data or a
>> product of value, and then that data or project got rerouted to something
>> commercial and/or closed to the public. Two obvious examples that come to
>> mind are CDDB (a store of compact disc information) and ICS (Internet
>> Chess Server). I don't want that to happen to this data, and I don't think
>> it has to.
>>
>> One of the reasons for the success of this databank is its resilience. The
>> data source has had multiple shepherds over the years, but once it went
>> public, it hasn't looked back. Strides towards more inclusive formats have
>> been the norm, and each of us can currently download the entire dataset to
>> munge to our heart's content. Each new shepherd (usually named Sean) added
>> a layer of support for the data, and it fleshed out over time to what it
>> is today.
>>
>> There's absolutely further work that could be done with the data. Each
>> spring, grand plans and ideas are raised and some take fruit while others
>> die off. That's fine and good and natural. But it all comes back to the
>> data being available to all of us.
>>
>> A disclaimer is necessary. I am not a fan of SABR, primarily because of
>> the way it has handled its data. The SABR I am familiar with (five plus
>> years ago when I was a member) had closed committees with NDA's, datasets
>> only viewable record by record on the web, and the exact opposite of the
>> spirit this group has had.
>>
>> True, that was a long while ago. The fact that SABR has a "data czar" with
>> the approach that Ted has goes a long way. They have done some great work
>> releasing data sets. But still, with the history there, I can't help but
>> feel like handing over the proverbial keys to the data, including the
>> ability to determine licensing back to us, is a scary step in the wrong
>> direction. "We" own this data now. I can download the data set and munge
>> away. None of us can say for sure that we will be able to do that in two
>> years if we give that away. If we take that risk, the gain must be
>> overwhelmingly worth it. I personally don't see it.
>>
>> I understand this may be a bit of a doom-and-gloom view of where we're
>> going, but as I mentioned, my viewpoint is one of someone who has seen
>> their contributions to CDDB turn write-only. The impact here would be
>> worse, because of the reporting and research use for the data we have
>> collected over the years.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Derek
>>
>>
>> On Wed, 30 Mar 2011, Theodore Turocy wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> On 30 Mar 2011, at 19:50 , Sean Forman wrote:
>>>
>>>> What I hope will happen is that SABR and Palmer/Gillette will make a
>> non-commercial open sourced version of the major league and bio data (which
>> I currently license from them for use on B-R (I don't use core bdb data on
>> b-r. I maintain it separately)) available to the general public. I will
>> gladly pay my fee to them and gladly point the hobbyist or enthusiast to the
>> full data they can use for free.
>>>>
>>>> I have been trying to put this bug in their ear for many years now. I'm
>> only a lowly SABR member and have no pull beyond my bully pulpit and
>> relationship as a customer of theirs.
>>>>
>>>> My personal view (and the view of probably anyone who knows anything
>> about this) is that the Palmer DB is the gold standard for the encyclopedia
>> numbers and the SABR bio committee is the gold standard for bio. I would
>> urge Palmer and SABR to make the db open source for non-commercial use, and
>> provide a way for the community to create new datasets with this as a
>> platform instead of continually having to stamp out LF-CF-RF discrepancies
>> or update death dates.
>>>
>>>
>>> I'm not sure how widely it's known, but for several years now I have been
>> serving as SABR's "dataczar, with remit to manage all the various datasets
>> SABR has or licenses.
>>>
>>> My personal position on the matter matches Sean F.'s. SABR ought to be
>> releasing datasets under, e.g., a Creative Commons license, and ought to be
>> providing resources to maintain datasets for the benefit of the community as
>> a whole.
>>>
>>> In addition to sharing Sean's assessment about the quality of the SABR
>> demographics and the Palmer/Gillette MLB statistics, a further argument for
>> SABR being involved is logistical. I already maintain the equivalent of
>> basically all of baseball-databank's data - plus significantly more - on a
>> day-to-day basis, as part of a regularized workflow, with tools I've
>> developed over several years of experience. To output the data in the format
>> of baseball-databank or similar, would take maybe two hours to write and
>> test the queries as a one-off. In other words, the ongoing cost of me
>> managing this data would be essentially zero.
>>>
>>> Where I have been able to, SABR has already started making datasets
>> available under a CC license, for instance, as part of the Baseball ID
>> Working Group.
>>>
>>> The only thing stopping me from volunteering to take on providing the
>> baseball-databank under the same terms straightaway is that the MLB
>> statistics, which are no doubt the core of the dataset, aren't currently
>> mine to release. I firmly support Open Source and Open Data principles. It
>> is worth remembering that one of those underlying principles is respect for
>> copyright and licensing terms.
>>>
>>> I am actively working to try to make what Sean F. is proposing a reality.
>> Those of you in the group who are SABR members, I encourage you to write
>> your Board members and tell them the same. :) The baseball community really
>> needs to be spending its time on doing analysis and discovering new
>> information -- not the grunge work of putting together clean datasets.
>>>
>>> Ted
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ------------------------------------
>>>
>>> http://www.baseball-databank.org/Yahoo! Groups Links
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
> --
> F. X. Flinn
> FXFlinn@gmail | 802-369-0069
>