There has been some discussion about the potential of conflicts between the OSM map and when we do any updates concerning the modification of some of the attributes assigned to the OSM way. But, to me, there is no need to consider the potential of an edit war between OSM mappers and scripts used to import or update data from external sources.
With the initial import of the GeoBase data there is going to be a great deal of work by individuals in fine tuning the import to resolve conflicts and tune attributes to better reflect reality. Also part of the initial import will be assign the appropriate GeoBase NID to the ways within OSM. Once that is complete we have done the majority of the work for any updates coming from GeoBase. When we get an update from GeoBase and want to import that update into OSM our update scripts should first check for all ways with an NID and eliminate them from the update unless the GeoBase update has changed them for some reason, such as created a new intersection or shortened the road. This will eliminate the majority of the ways within the area. What we are not going to worry about are ways that have been modified by individual users within OSM. So if a user adjusts the way slightly or changes some of the attributes for that way we are going to leave it alone as long as it has an NID. An update will only worry about the ways within OSM that do not have an NID and those that GeoBase says have changed in some way as well as new streets within the GeoBase update. These will have to go through a system very similar to the initial import and, if matched to a new road within GeoBase, will receive an NID as a result. If we want to add new data, such as street names and/or addresses, we are going to look at all of the NIDs and add new attributes as determined from the GeoBase data based on the NID that is already there. Basically if a roadway has an NID then from that point on the attributes will only be modified by individual OSM users and not from a script. So when James Ewen mentions that according to GeoBase, and our conversion scripts, Highway 2 by Edmonton has a Trunk status but someone has marked it as a Motorway within OSM then with an update from GeoBase the update script would look for the NID tag and, if present, ignore the discrepancy in the type of roadway and not change it. This should, at least after the initial import, eliminate most cases of an editing war between the users within OSM and the update scripts. This would also reduce the possibility of additional attributes, such as the speed limit and the number of lanes, being lost as well. Richard Degelder _______________________________________________ Talk-ca mailing list [email protected] http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-ca
