Q:

Requesting Town Data

This is a question in regard to requesting town/city GIS data that is hosted on a private server.
For example, one of the towns I am working with, Mattapoisett MA USA, has its GIS data hosted with the group at www.peoplegis.com. I have used state data before which is easily accessible on the Massachusetts government repository however is not very up to date. The town data is more up to date and thus the interest in tapping that resource.
That being said, does anyone have any experience requesting data like this from towns/cities where the GIS systems they use are private and only accessible to the public via GIS web maps?
Is going to the town hall asking the assesor my best bet? Thought I would reach out to the community first and see what anyone has to say. Any input would be awesome, good or bad haha!

A:

If the data is accessible from a web service there is probably a contact info. You could try to contact it explaining who you are and why you need the data.
if there is no contact info you probably should try to find a directory of the local administration and directly contact the data manager (or the people managing the data whatever their title are)
If the data you request are not sensible/private/including personal information/ect... there is no reason they wouldn't share (but they don't have to, it really depend if they are willing to help or not and if they feel they have the time to do so)

