On 03/28/2011 01:16 PM, Ian Dees wrote:
On Mon, Mar 28, 2011 at 3:01 PM, Michael Leibowitz
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Here is a popular perspective from the OSM community, "If
parcel data
can't be measured, confirmed or improved by OSM editors, why
import
it?" Use it as an overlay somewhere, somehow.
What makes postal codes different?
In my mind only a few (major) things:
- If I remember correctly, in the UK postcode data were (are?) not
free (in any sense of the word), so someone decided to start trying to
collect that data. I think it was one of OSM's first "project of the
unit-of-time"? Either way, it was a good thing to get the community
together and give an example of what free and open data mean.
That's true of the UK. Postal code (zip code) data is also in the US
map. It's generally free in the US.
- Post codes are vastly different in size than parcel data. Parcel
data is (usually) property boundaries on the order of <2 acres. These
are small, 4-node polygons that have little use other than a county's
tax collection and property owner's dispute resolution. The tons of
nodes and ways make editing difficult, don't necessarily line up with
building boundaries (buildings frequently cross a parcel boundary),
and don't necessarily contain addressing information.
I disagree with your assessment of utility. It is helpful to know the
bounds of an address, which a parcel often gives. That's why many maps
include it. You do raise a valid point of buildings often not being
exactly within a tax lot. I'm curious how other mapping providers solve
this problem or if it is effectively a non-problem.
- Most importantly, OSM mappers can not make the data any better. By
their very definition, any changes to the imported parcel data make
them invalid and useless. If OSM participants can't improve the data
then it should not be in the OSM database.
Are importers not OSM participants?
Cheers
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