Hi.
Why we discuss the goodness or badness of imports here with the argument
of a complete map?
Of course that argument is a good one - but if we look towards the
future there will be a time - partly that's already in the present,
where an area is mapped already with high detail by mappers not active
any more.
A new mapper, I believe, will not distinct between a (relatively good)
import and years of manpower of ground-survey-mapping done in the
previous two decades etc.
We see a growing complexity in many tagging schemes, use of more and
more sophisticated relations to model facts, and the discussion is only
about "ban imports".
I agree, that imports should not lead to automatic or semi-automatic
deletion of mappers work.
I agree that imports have to be done carefully and with inclusion of the
local community/s.
But I think, we need mechanism to generally cope with the "problem" of
existing data.
We should put more effort in developing mechanisms to check, proofe and
control existing data - not caring about import or "simply old" data.
And finally we should work on reduction of the fear to make things
wrong, as I think, that fear is growing with growing complexity of
existant data.
Banning import is a easy mantra to push out today as it avoids the
bigger problem - but in future we will have the same problem with a bad
connotation: in future the existent "old" mappers are human parts of the
community, whose data probably has to be deleted whereas today we speak
about technical data and single importers.
These importers are often people who want to discuss and work on their
imports.
We should take this as a chance, not as an affront.
regards
Peter
Am 21.02.2011 01:03, schrieb Felix Hartmann:
On 21.02.2011 00:47, Daniel Sabo wrote:
On Feb 20, 2011, at 3:16 PM, Felix Hartmann wrote:
Couldn't agree more to it. Imports kill community and scare novices
away.
...
Most important things for OSM are good aerial photos coupled with
large community. Worst are imports. The United States are so bad, I
don't think OSM will ever become important there. The biggest thing
to remember is that "creating" something is much more fun than
correcting it. Imports make OSM a chore and no fun.
As a former novice I completely disagree with you here. If the TIGER
import hadn't happened I would have had zero interest in OSM, a vast
empty map is not very inspiring.
But really, no one here has hard data, whenever we say "it destroys
the community" or "it helps the community" we're just throwing
anecdotes at each other. What we need are better tools to build a
community like Serge and Kevin are talking about, a dozen of us
arguing on a mailing list about what 360k people "really want" isn't
going to accomplish much.
- Daniel
Well we have no hard data, but evidence. Basically no users and
editors in the US but loads in Europe. And loads of countries without
imports flourishing as communities start to grow (like Slovakia, Czech
Republic, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Denmark) but less involvement
in countries with imports. A vast empty map is no fun, but neither is
a complete map. The worst is a seemingly complete map, with crap data
(like plan.at data in Austria, that was in general off by around
20-100m).
Just show me some neighboring countries where the one with imports
some time ago (minimum 1 year) are doing better than neighboring
countries/regions where no imports took place.
I think imports are good for stuff we cannot easily record ourselves
(like borders) - but no good for stuff we can get ourselves.
And if you see tracing from aerial imagery as a chore, you're making a
mistake. I think we should wait till local people do it. That way it
gets better quality and is not much work for anyone. We should not
strive to be complete, but offer more or different data than
commercial map providers, because that's where we are good at.
Striving to get a map with best use for carnavigation will not happen
- our structure and means are really inferior here. Getting speciality
maps noone can compete with large communities.
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