Proposed changes to the ACS Summary File format

This seems like something we could adapt to fairly readily. 

I'd like to make a plea for structured metadata which is published in something other than a variety of XLSX files.  Things that application builders need to know which is maybe taken for granted in data analysis use cases.

• table name
• table universe
• column name
• data type (int/float, or possibly count/median/etc)
• parent/child relationships between columns (e.g. these children should sum to this parent)
• geographies which are categorically excluded from a given table (basically Appendix B from this page on Data Suppression)
• the character encoding used for text (only applies to geoheaders and metadata, but it's important)

and some things which would be really nice to have

• table new or changed since last release
• clearer articulation of data suppressed on a per-geography level, currently just represented by blank values
• which ACS question(s) are the source of the data for a given table
• something which helps map when a table universe is a proper subset of another table, like table/column (I know not all universes are so straightforward)
• A better explanation of the prefix part of geoheaders, specifically the "M4/M5" geographic variant used for CBSAs and CSAs, which map to specific delineation vintages, but not in a way which is made clear to data users.

Sorry if this is just hijacking the thread...

This seems like something we could adapt to fairly readily. 

I'd like to make a plea for structured metadata which is published in something other than a variety of XLSX files.  Things that application builders need to know which is maybe taken for granted in data analysis use cases.

• table name
• table universe
• column name
• data type (int/float, or possibly count/median/etc)
• parent/child relationships between columns (e.g. these children should sum to this parent)
• geographies which are categorically excluded from a given table (basically Appendix B from this page on Data Suppression)
• the character encoding used for text (only applies to geoheaders and metadata, but it's important)

and some things which would be really nice to have

• table new or changed since last release
• clearer articulation of data suppressed on a per-geography level, currently just represented by blank values
• which ACS question(s) are the source of the data for a given table
• something which helps map when a table universe is a proper subset of another table, like table/column (I know not all universes are so straightforward)
• A better explanation of the prefix part of geoheaders, specifically the "M4/M5" geographic variant used for CBSAs and CSAs, which map to specific delineation vintages, but not in a way which is made clear to data users.

Sorry if this is just hijacking the thread...

I think it is hijacking the thread, since the changes to the format of the data files won't affect the metadata files, but I like a lot of these ideas, and I think they'd be very much worth discussing in a separate thread.