At 2010-12-08 04:53, Joseph Reeves wrote:
OpenStreetMap is still a wiki though? So if I find a future travel destination missing from OSM, but covered by Bing, where's the harm in tracing it? In many parts of the world there is no such thing as "local mappers" and even if I did trace a load of crap into the database, anyone else can come along and, providing they've got a better data source than I, fix it.
Exactly. Creating something where there was nothing leaves the map better off. In some cases, you might be creating some features that are no longer there, but I'd expect these to be a minority.
Where people should be careful, IMO, is in moving existing features based on satellite imagery when you do not know the accuracy of the imagery. Even GPS traces, when made in low-accuracy environments, may not be accurate enough to prove the "ground truth", as you will see if you look carefully at your GPS receiver's estimated accuracy while driving around with it inside a car, in mountainous or tall building areas, etc. It takes real work and research to establish reference points that can be used to correctly georeference an image.
We should all map place we know nothing about. Period. If nothing else it may provide a vital spark in developing local interests and efforts. It's a wiki, it doesn't need to be perfect first time.
I, too, believe it is useful to have _something_ present in an area in order to ignite local interest. If someone on an island goes to OSM and sees nothing, they might likely just move on. If, however, they see the land mass and the main road with some other features that may not be correct, they are more likely to get interested in fixing them.
-- Alan Mintz <[email protected]> _______________________________________________ talk mailing list [email protected] http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
