I wrote about my feelings that all government agencies should have a forms API like the Department of Labor (DOL), and I wanted to separately showcase their FAQ API, and say same thing--ALL government agencies should have a frequently asked question (FAQ) API. Think about the websites and mobile applications that would benefit from ALL government agencies at the federal, state, and local level having frequently asked questions available in this way--it would be huge.
In a perfect world, like any good API provider, government agencies should also use their FAQ API to run their website(s), mobile, and internal systems--this way the results are always fresh, up to date, and answering the relevant questions (hopefully). I get folks in government questioning the opening up of sensitive information via APIs, but making FAQs available in a machine readable way, via the web, just makes sense in a digital world.
Like the forms API, I will be looking across other government agencies for any FAQ APIs. I will be crafting an OpenAPI Spec for the DOL FAQ API (man that is a lot of acronyms). I will take any other FAQ APIs that I find and consider any additional parameters, and definitions I might want to include in a common FAQ API definition for government agencies. This is another area that should have not just a common open API and underlying schemas defined, but also a wealth of server and client side code--so any government agency can immediately put it to work in any environment.
