open-civic-data.json

{
	category : "", // Required Single category from (http://opencivicdata.com/#categories-wg)
	properties : {} // Required Common bin for domain specific properties from from (http://opencivicdata.com/#properties-wg)
	meta : { // Optional: Simple Dublin Core Metadata Element Set
		title : "",
		creator : "",
		subject : "",
		description : "",
		publisher : "",
		contributor : "",
		date : "",
		type : "",
		format : "",
		identifier : "",
		source : "",
		language : "",
		relation : "",
		coverage : "",
		rights : ""
	}
	geometry : {} // Optional Geojson location feature (http://geojson.org/geojson-spec.html)
}

+1 for the meta property, as long as it is simply an optional list of DublinCore metadata. If something doesn't fit into the metadata list then it can have it's own OpenCivicData property. Building on DublinCore is a good idea though

So we should use an option metadata property that expects these properties http://www.dublincore.org/documents/dces/ ? I like the idea of building on dublicore, but I'm concerned that we encourage something that is too specific. For example, the dublincore does not support an entity with a time range.

The beauty of the dublin core is that it's a widely accepted simple metadata spec. I think in terms of interoperability it's good to build on top of it. It can be extended and tailored to your application, e.g. just add time-range to the list if that suits your data (the meta properties are the 15 simple elements). I also think optional is important, it shouldn't stop anybody from sharing data.

a time range is data, dublincore is for metadata

data should belong in properties, metadata should belong in meta

ok, I'm clearly too GIS biased... http://www.fgdc.gov/metadata/csdgm-new/09.html