On 04/04/2011 10:56 AM, Ian Dees wrote:
On Mon, Apr 4, 2011 at 12:41 PM, Michael Leibowitz
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
If one were to make a one-time import, not only would they
probably stomp on a lot of entries already existing, the data
would become wrong eventually. However, a continual import has
value. Although survey is good, the GIS department's opinion of
address is the canonical source. Likewise for other data sources.
Ah, this last sentence here is where our problems come from.
It's intended to be a blanket statement. I don't actually mean that
import source trump manual survey. However, there are types of data
that are not readily observable by survey and have a canonical source.
What is the purpose of a (Street)map that is Open if all we do is
import the "correct" data? The Europeans (who are oddly silent in this
debate *nudge Fredrick* :) ) will tell you that they don't want the
project to be reduced to a bunch of human conflict resolvers. They've
generated oodles of data that in many cases is *much* better than the
"correct" data provided by municipalities -- all without major imports.
I would posit that in the US, imports have been important. However,
they have had problems as you pointed out previously. Couldn't it be
the case that imports can be better prosecuted with better tools such
that their utility goes up and their source of problems goes down? I
think that's really what I'd like to see.
Because of this, they will tell you that continual import has no
value. In fact, they'll say that continual import has *negative* value
because it actually pushes mappers away. Why would anyone sign up to a
project where, after they nudge the previously-imported address point
for their house over a few meters, it is accidentally blasted away by
an import?
It should never be that user generated content is blasted away for no
reason. It is reasonable for expect that in such a case, there would be
careful resolution of such a conflict. In some cases, the import source
is wrong (Tiger, for example). In some cases, the user generated survey
data is wrong (it does happen).
Yes, in the US there are *tons* of existing datasets that are
maintained by municipalities, but we still need to figure out the best
way to use that data. For now we need to take it on a case by case
basis because of imports that don't quite get the process right (like
the one that started this thread) and because of imports that don't
add valuable data to the OSM dataset.
While I think parcel data has merit, I'm in no way defending the way
this import was conducted and think you raise all valid and true points.
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