On Thursday 19 June 2014, Frederik Ramm wrote: > > "Ultimately, map data is pretty much fact and whether it exists or > not is a binary statement. [...]
This is IMO what mapping should aim at, as outlined by the verifiability rule - practical mapping and actual data is however often quite far away from this goal. More importantly though i think the most significant way to take influence for a mapper is through selection of what to map and what not. Since there is neither a policy nor a mechanism to enforce completeness of mapping and it is unrealistic to create such what is mapped and what is not represents a huge element of subjectivity and possibly bias in the data even if all the data itself is strictly factual and verifiable. Imagine for example someone mapping all the buildings in a town but deliberately leaving one building unmapped. It is much more likely then this building stays missing from the database than if the buildings had not been mapped systematically but over time by community efforts. And there is nothing factually wrong with such mappping, it is just incomplete. But even without deliberate attempts to influence the mapping like this it seems clear to me that paid mapping will focus on different things than normal community mapping. Kind of 'where the money is' vs. 'where the people and their interests are'. If suddenly half of the mapping in OSM would be paid mapping you can be certain that the thematic and regional focus of OSM would change - and again without any non-factual or non-verifiable elements in the data itself. Getting back to the comparison with Wikipedia i think there are a number of important differences to keep in mind when comparing these two. - In contrast to the data in Wikipedia the OSM data is normally not viewed directly, it is used in maps and other services which provide an additional layer of abstraction and interpretation and due to the diversity of map styles and services available the possibilities for someone editing OSM data to take influence in some form are much more indirect than in case of Wikipedia. - One of the major mechanisms leading to bias in Wikipedia is the removal of data. You can only effectively push a certain POV if you can actually remove information unfavourable to it. For OSM this would mean simple additions of new data by paid mappers would probably be less critical than deletions and modifications like changing tags. -- Christoph Hormann http://www.imagico.de/ _______________________________________________ talk mailing list [email protected] https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
