08.03.2018 10:28, Frederik Ramm пишет:
Ilya,
as imports go, yours tend to be the best-planned and I appreciate that
you do respect our processes even in the face of adversity. I would
encourage you to also make them the best-documented ;)
Thanks Frederik, I'll try making a good wiki page for these. Though I'm
inclined to make a single page for every POI import done with OSM
Conflator, since only tags and dataset providers differ for these, and
algorithms are mostly the same.
You say that "we get updates monthly" and later that it is "impossible
to check each object ... afterwards each month up to eternity". Does
that mean that you are not planning a one-off import, but a continuous
data synchronisation process between the NavAds data set and OSM? If
that is the case, it should be said clearly and mandates a closer look.
Yes, I am receving a json file with ~300k features every month from
NavAds. This import was made from the March dataset, I also have one
from February. After a successful first import, I plan to update the
data with new information. That's why the import sets "ref:navads" tags,
for easier future conflation.
I would like to understand more about the different parties in this game
and their interests. I assume that the fuel station chains pay someone
(Navads?) to publicize their information, and Navads in turn pays
someone (you? your employer?) to get this information into OSM. I'm not
sure, you say "I got my hands on this data set" which sounds a bit like
you're doing this in a hobby capacity but later you say "we".
Last year, MAPS.ME has signed some kind of a agreement with NavAds and
some other SEO companies, stating that we will help them with getting
their data on OpenStreetMap. You have seen the Shell stations import and
a couple imports by Brandify (Walmarts and Retro Fitness gyms) in US,
that were the result of this collaboration.
No money switched hands here. We — as in MAPS.ME — are doing this
because it makes the map that we use richer and more useful to people,
especially tourists. SEO companies do that because they are paid for it
by companies.
Finally, you could say I am doing this as a hobby. Because this is not
directly related to the improvement of the application, nor this in any
way advertises MAPS.ME. It distracts me from work I need to be doing,
that have deadlines. I just said that I could help in the past, and I am
spending my time on this because I myself believe OSM should have the
most up-to-date information on POIs. Craftmapping helps with that, but
mappers are not everywhere, and most doesn't bother themselves with
stopping at every fuel station and noting their opening hours.
<...> Paying brands will be
fully covered even in areas with no mapping activity, smaller
independent stations and non-paying brands will only be covered in areas
where a mapper happened to add them >
Now you may reply "but nobody is keeping anyone from adding a small
independent fuel station" and you are right; but in letting the major
brands directly manage their representation on OSM you are getting one
step closer to making OSM unwelcoming for independent contributions
("it's no use adding this single shop here, all the retail data in OSM
is managed by the big brands anyway").
I understand what you are getting at. I am also bothered that not all
the fuel station owners know about companies like NavAds and use their
services. That is not big money, so the issue is in visibility. They can
use something like OnOsm or OSMyBiz for free, remembering to update the
data. Or they can pay a small fee for companies like Brandify to put
them on many maps, not limited to OSM. In any case they should be
interested in that and looking for such opportunities. If they don't,
they do not consider not being on maps an issue. Which makes the issue
not theirs, but yours: you allow only 0% or 100% mapping coverage.
I am also concerned about diversity. In other places we make big words
about how it is important to attract people from all walks of life, all
nationalities, all genders to OSM because we believe that this will make
the map better. But those words ring hollow if at the same time, with an
import like this, we're essentially replacing the voice of several
thousand mappers who have last edited a fuel station, by the voice of
one commercial data provider because we believe that their data is
somehow better.
Wait, no. We are not replacing anything. The import adds new POI and
adds or updates a few secondary tags. It does not prevent anybody from
adding more fuel stations, or changing these already mapped. And there
is not a single data provider. We in MAPS.ME talked to four, and as a
member of DWG you know about a dozen more, who want to add businesses on
our map (which paid for being added to maps), but do not know the way. I
see that the reaction is mostly "scare them away from OSM" and not "show
them the correct way to manage the data here", which is what I am trying
to do.
What is diversity for, then, when in the end we will
always assume that commercial data is better?
Better than what? Commercial data is better than no data. Please do keep
in mind that commercial data = data that is provided by business owners.
Can you trust them to know where their venues are located and when do
they open?
Is diversity just for
mapping the parts of OSM that are of no interest to business, and for
everything else we won't hesitate to let our imperfect data made by all
these imperfect people from all walks of life, be overridden by the
shiny corporate data set?
Don't you think this is too much? To repeat my answer from the last
SotM, if you think a hundred thousand points from a commercial provider
can override and even replace a work by even a single mapper, then OSM
has failed. To me this is thinking very low of mappers.
A million fuel stations would not override the work of mappers. On the
contrary, these would validate and improve on that work. Take one worry
off them, that a in year their mapping would go obsolete and they would
need to do it again. Unlike highways and buildings, POI change often,
and seeing that some of my work is looked after would make me glad.
Or is adding tags and looking for data by a commercial entity different
from the same done by a local mapper? If so, how far it goes — if a
business owner of 10 shops does it, is it good or bad? 1000 shops? A
special employee whose job is to keep the map updated? An outside
company that is provided with a list and knows all the mapping APIs?
Where do you draw the line?
Again, not something that would block this particular import, but
something to keep in mind. This import is one small step on the road
towards an explicitly non-diverse, corporate-managed OSM and we have to
be very careful about just how far we're prepared to go down that road
in return for nice data. Because after the fuel stations there will come
the restaurant chains, and then the hotel data sets, the retail chains,
and we might well look back at this import in ten year's time and say:
This is where the gentrification began in OSM.
Yes, fuel stations are just 1/5 of the full dataset I get from this
single company. I believe that we can have millions, even tens of
millions of corporate-managed points of interest if we want it. The
question is, why do we oppose having the data in batches, in favour of
mapping every business one by one by ourselves? Does it make our map
prettier, or more useful, or does adding points from external sources
diminish work of local mappers in some way?
Ilya
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