I just wanted to post here to ask if people think this would be worthwhile? I’ve found some other R users who have written blog posts about it, here, here, here, and an R package that does crime maps and a really cool shiny app.
There has been some great work done here, but I think that the R package I am proposing would be an improvement on what is currently available, as there has not been much activity on developing the R package (rCrimemap), and the API would provide broader functionality.
I have some more thoughts and questions, but I guess first it would be good to get an opinion on whether this would be a good package to develop, and if it would fit in with rOpenSci more broadly?
I don’t really have an opinion about the usefulness of the package generally, as this isn’t my area. But let me take this opportunity to ask: What is the status of rOpenGov? (@jlehtoma, @antagomir, @thosjleeper, @sckott?). Is it accepting contributions? rOpenSci currently hosts a couple of packages along these lines but I think of it as a bit of scope creep.
rOpenGov has several packages that are actively developed and maintained, but the community is much smaller and the infrastructure not as developed as with rOpenSci. Having said that, contributions are welcome! A good places to start would be to have a look at rOpenGov blog and GitHub organization.
Thank you so much for your responses, really appreciate it!
In terms of the scientific applications of this package, I don’t have one specifically in mind, but I think this would be of benefit to social science researchers, health policy, and public health, and it could be combined with other existing datasets.
My motivation for writing this packages was that I needed a real-world dataset with longitude and latitude to test out a maximum coverage optimisation model package I’m making, copertura (which I think I’m going to rename maxcovr), as I (unfortunately) cannot share the data I am using. I saw that there was this really great API for the police data, and it seemed like a good opportunity.
I’m convinced that this package is a good idea, and whilst I really want the package to benefit from the rich infrastructure and community in rOpenSci, I understand that this package might be better off under another group such as rOpenGov.
Would it be appropriate for me to still ask questions about this package development if it is not part of rOpenSci?