On 03.05.2010 21:47, Ben Laenen wrote: > Felix Hartmann wrote: > >> If in OSM we really want to get in more mountainbikers, we have to start >> with unofficial routes. I will think about it for the night, and put up >> a wiki page tomorrow, put some notices on this on the big forums >> (hopefully they will get ~5000 pageviews, put them in my feedburner >> newsletter (1200 recipients) and as of next Friday render unofficial >> routes. >> >> Once we have more than 500 unofficial routes (I'ld say this takes no >> more than 14 days), I will take out official routes form my maps, except >> if they are labelled with additional information to make sure they are >> not a trekking bike route labelled as mtb route. >> > Here's the thing: we just do not map unofficial routes. Only the ones that are > signposted. There are enough sites where you can submit your route > suggestions, and there's no reason why this should be in the OSM database. > > Greetings > Ben > Well there is a big reason to do so. You cannot import such routes and map then onto existing streets. Also no such sites feature a tagging interface that is accessible with the tracks. They will not help autorouting at all. The data therefore has to be in OSM to be used (a parallel database would be stupid, because due to the small amount of data would IMHO cause more traffic and data growth than doing it directly in OSM).
We did not yet do so. But we also map other unofficial unphysical things like boundaries (which are in no way public domain in Austria or Germany, you are allowed to have information where you are, but not where the boundary is running). We also map skiroutes, and they are usually not signposted, and only randomly officialy noted. We have keys for grooming status of skipistes, and if you look in OSM there is loads of other info that is not physical or where there is good reason to not include it. However the big strength of OSM is that we do have all this data, and with time and crosschecking data, also other user classes can make good use of it. One nice example is that we don't map whether a street is inside a city or not. We do however map source:maxspeed:CountryCode=local/urban. With this information we can indirectly find out if a street is inside or outside of city boundaries. Over time with some smartness you can make up for many missing keys, but this is not enough to exclude others. In future there will be a strong request for traffic information (oh yes, TMC is nothing better at all than unofficial routes, it is run by private companies and adding TMC serves no open data request at all - though I am sure people could argues pros here for pages too). Therefore I simply don't accept the point that we "don't" do something (as long as implementing it hurts noone). So having unofficial routes would have enough reason, and the only contra you bring is we don't do it because others do. Come on, at least try to be creative and give valid reasons why it should not be inside the OSM database. We don't do is is none. And that there are other websites for routes is even more lame. There are also other mapping data providers, but still we decided to go out and map. _______________________________________________ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
