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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">I agree with the pro-import comments
and say go for it. After re-reading your original post, I feel you
are very well suited to the task and are obviously very
contentious about the process. Don't let one strong negative
comment get you down. OSM needs people like you to help make the
map better and lay the groundwork for others to build on. And I am
strongly for importing high quality data sets that have
potentially thousands of man hours invested in them.<br>
<br>
A relatively small number of people contribute a lot to OSM and a
lot of people contribute a little, which adds up to a lot. As the
map gets better over time, it sparks people to contribute small
but important contributions to OSM. You will also no doubt spark
interest from more active contributors who will notice that
there's major quality improvements in your area and pitch in to
help - potentially a lot. For example, in sections of Florida
where I map, I've seen people come out of nowhere and start
contributing tens or hundreds of changesets to an area they know
well once the map is looking fairly decent and they feel its
something worth contributing to, instead of a blank slate. Mappers
may live in the area of they may be visitors to the area. Either
way, once the map starts gaining more usefulness in your area, it
will attract people with local knowledge who want to contribute.<br>
<br>
Brian<br>
<br>
On 3/14/2016 11:57 PM, Tod Fitch wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote
cite="mid:354BAC21-3645-448B-BDDF-F17AD6A86299@fitchdesign.com"
type="cite">
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Ditto to Mike’s comments.
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">I’ve been dealing with the clean up of bad imports,
usually TIGER but others too, where ever I map so I think I
understand where people like Frederick are coming from.</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">But I also see the reality in the U.S. of huge
geographical areas with very few OSM mappers. An all volunteer
map will always be years behind other offerings here unless we
allow and even encourage carefully importing high quality data.</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">The U.S. might be unique in that there are vast
quantities of excellent geographical data that are public
domain. Unfortunately there is also a vast quantity of public
domain map data of, shall we say, lesser quality. Had the
original U.S. highway import data come from the USGS rather than
the census bureau, people probably would have a very different
opinion about imports.</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">At least the experience with bad imports has shown
there can be issues. And there is now a lot better understanding
of how the data and import procedures need to be vetted. So we
are in a better place to do imports and we should not shy away
from importing high quality data when the stars line up (good
data, appropriate copyright, competent OSM mappers available,
documented and tested work flows, etc.).</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">Tod</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
<div>
<blockquote type="cite" class="">
<div class="">On Mar 14, 2016, at 8:36 PM, Mike Thompson
<<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:miketho16@gmail.com" class="">miketho16@gmail.com</a>>
wrote:</div>
<br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
<div class="">
<div dir="ltr" class="">I support the careful import of
high quality data whose license is compatible with OSM.
Those appears to be one of those cases. I believe the
existence of high quality data will aid in the
recruitment of new mappers and will encourage high
quality contributions from those mappers. It is much
easier, and less daunting, to add additional detail
from an on-the-ground survey to some high quality data
than it is to start from scratch. People also like to be
associated with successful projects, and the more high
quality data we have the more successful we will be in
the eyes of potential new mappers.
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">Mike<br class="">
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br class="">
<div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Mar 14, 2016 at 8:46
PM, Kevin Kenny <span dir="ltr" class=""><<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:kkenny2@nycap.rr.com" target="_blank"
class=""><a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:kkenny2@nycap.rr.com">kkenny2@nycap.rr.com</a></a>></span>
wrote:<br class="">
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">Since
I received only a total of three comments about this
idea, one strongly negative (from Frederik Ramm) and
two only lukewarm in support, I'm forced to conclude
that this proposal has no chance of gaining a broad
community support. Consider it withdrawn.<br
class="">
<br class="">
I find myself somewhat frustrated about the question
of how to recruit mappers when it appears that the
map has such a paucity of data that it will never
become useful solely through the effort of volunteer
mappers. I can demonstrate the map at <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://kbk.is-a-geek.net/catskills/test3.html"
rel="noreferrer" target="_blank" class=""><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://kbk.is-a-geek.net/catskills/test3.html">http://kbk.is-a-geek.net/catskills/test3.html</a></a>,
and state that OSM is one of many data sources that
go into it, but when people go to <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://openstreetmap.org/" rel="noreferrer"
target="_blank" class="">openstreetmap.org</a> and
look at it, my experience is that they lose the
connection entirely between the data that OSM has
and the map that OSM enables. The huge blank area is
too intimidating for my friends, it appears!<br
class="">
<br class="">
The fact that we apparently cannot use data that are
not our own in presenting our public face, together
with the fact that we do not wish to import data for
which OSM will not become the authoritative source,
leaves us with an impoverished public appearance
outside the cities where streets are sparse. Perhaps
this is outside OSM's ambit. It is, after all, Open
STREET Map. It seems to leave, however, very limited
pathways for citizen mappers to build on what the
government has done. Few mappers can manage to
produce such a map under their own steam, and I
certainly don't have the bandwidth - either personal
or network - to support that map as a public
resource out of a solo project.<br class="">
<br class="">
I'm really at a loss where to go from here.<br
class="">
<br class="">
Kevin Kenny<br class="">
<br class="">
On 02/28/2016 11:42 PM, Kevin Kenny wrote:<br
class="">
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
Oops: Just realized I originally sent this reply
privately: meant to send to the list.<br class="">
<br class="">
On 02/27/2016 05:18 PM, Frederik Ramm wrote:<br
class="">
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0
0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc
solid;padding-left:1ex">
An import is great if it enables a community to
go further, or forms the<br class="">
basis of solid work in the future. An import is
great if it is one<br class="">
ingredient that makes OSM the best map of the
region. But it sounds to<br class="">
me as if your proposed import is hardly more
than a small time saver for<br class="">
people who want to make maps of the Adirondack -
they *could* go to the<br class="">
original source at any time, and the likelihood
of OSM hydrography being<br class="">
*better* than the official data is very low.<br
class="">
<br class="">
In my view, a good import is a catalyst for
future OSM data improvement.<br class="">
But you seem to say quite clearly that such is
unlikely to happen with<br class="">
the data you are planning to import. Your main
point is that it'll look<br class="">
better on the map, which for me isn't good
enough.<br class="">
<br class="">
Can you point to areas where your import would
encourage mappers,<br class="">
including yourself, to add more knowledge and
surveyed data to OSM?<br class="">
</blockquote>
My personal interest is mostly from the standpoint
of improving OSM as a resource for hikers - and
recruiting citizen mappers to the task. Available
databases of hiking trail alignments are pretty
poor. The USGS maps, once stellar, have not been
updated since the first Bush administration, and
keeping them up to date is no longer in the USGS's
charter. They have neither the mission nor the
funding to map hiking trails, shelters, campsites,
privies, viewpoints, and similar amenities.
Mapping them falls on the shoulders of private
companies such as National Geographic, and they
are happy to sell us maps - even ones in
electronic format if we are extremely fortunate -
of obsolete data of the most popular areas. The
less popular areas are entirely neglected. If
trail data are to be collected, it will have to be
citizen mappers that do it, and OSM is an obvious
repository for it. And none of that data is what I
propose to import.<br class="">
<br class="">
Why, then, should I import what I don't plan to
improve substantially? When I've tried to recruit
my contacts in the hiking community to mapping for
OSM, when they see the state of the tiles at <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://openstreetmap.org/"
rel="noreferrer" target="_blank" class="">openstreetmap.org</a>,
they are put off immediately. "Why should I
bother?" they say, "there's nothing there!"
Particularly before the import of lakes and ponds
was done - an import to which your argument
equally applies - this entire area simply appeared
entirely featureless, with no hope of using OSM to
produce a map that could be helpful for anyone.<br
class="">
<br class="">
When, on the other hand, I show them <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://kbk.is-a-geek.net/catskills/test3.html?la=44.1232&lo=-73.9804&z=15"
rel="noreferrer" target="_blank" class=""><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://kbk.is-a-geek.net/catskills/test3.html?la=44.1232&lo=-73.9804&z=15">https://kbk.is-a-geek.net/catskills/test3.html?la=44.1232&lo=-73.9804&z=15</a></a>
, they see a map that's already useful for
navigating the region, although deeply flawed in
many ways. I can point out that trails shown in
magenta with their names in UPPER CASE are from a
State data set that is digitized at an
inappropriately large scale (and for that reason
alone, even before license concerns, I wouldn't
propose importing it). I can point out that a good
many of the trail shelters, privies, parking
areas, register kiosks, viewpoints and similar
amenities are missing. I can tell hikers that they
can improve OSM by capturing that information. I
can point out that if enough of us do it as a
community, we'll have up-to-date maps that we can
maintain as a community.<br class="">
<br class="">
The approach has worked for me. For instance, I
was able to persuade a contact who was hiking the
route shown with the overlay in <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://kbk.is-a-geek.net/catskills/test3.html?la=44.1232&lo=-73.9804&z=15"
rel="noreferrer" target="_blank" class=""><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://kbk.is-a-geek.net/catskills/test3.html?la=44.1232&lo=-73.9804&z=15">https://kbk.is-a-geek.net/catskills/test3.html?la=44.1232&lo=-73.9804&z=15</a></a>
to capture GPS data and contribute it. (The
uploads show my ID because I handled conflating
it, simplifying the tracks, vetting alignment
against orthophotos, and similar administrative
tasks.)<br class="">
<br class="">
OSM is really the only place where the data about
trails and associated amenities can be assembled
properly, as far as I can tell. The government
agencies in the US have not had the funding or
authority to collate those data in over twenty
years. Web sites like <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://alltrails.com/" rel="noreferrer"
target="_blank" class="">alltrails.com</a> are
great for sharing your experience with a single
route, but don't really make any effort at all to
assemble a map. And the companies like National
Geographic and DeLorme are more than happy to sell
our own data back to us at a premium price, burden
it with usage restrictions, and make it available
in formats that we cannot annotate and improve.<br
class="">
<br class="">
I don't have a good way to address your argument
that data whose authoritiative source is not OSM
should not be imported<br class="">
into OSM - and frankly, I mostly agree with it. I
tend to believe that the underlying problem is not
what we choose to import or not to import, but
what we show to newcomers. I believe that the maps
we present to the public would be improved if they
included (at least optionally) layers derived from
government data sources that we taxpayers have the
right to use. You can see in the maps that I've
presented that I'm also using (and do NOT propose
to import) National Land Cover Database, National
Elevation Dataset, USFWS National Wetlands
Inventory, and layers from the GIS departments of
several states. I'm also using National
Hydrographic Dataset - which has been imported
with some degree of success in regions other than
mine. All of these data sources fall in your hated
category of "stuff that OSM mappers can't readily
maintain, for which some other source will likely
be more authoritiative."<br class="">
<br class="">
Without these external layers, what we present in
the tiles is so sparse in some areas that I, at
least, find it nearly impossible to explain the
value of OSM.<br class="">
<br class="">
I chose the idea of pursuing an import because I
haven't very much hope of convincing anyone that
our public face might include non-OSM data
sources. At least there is precedent for importing
government data into OSM; there is none for
non-OSM-derived layers on our tiles.<br class="">
<br class="">
About the best argument that I can make about the
specific data is that the import should be "mostly
harmless", because physiography in a wilderness
area is so slow to change. With the exception that
settlements, roads, railroads, farms and mines
have been reclaimed by nature, bridges have
fallen, and trails have been built and abandoned,
a topographic map of the region from 1916 would be
nearly as useful as one from 2016. This is an area
where "Man is a visitor who does not remain."<br
class="">
<br class="">
<span class="HOEnZb"><font class=""
color="#888888">
</font></span></blockquote>
<span class="HOEnZb"><font class="" color="#888888">
<br class="">
<br class="">
-- <br class="">
73 de ke9tv/2, Kevin<br class="">
<br class="">
<br class="">
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class="">
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class="">
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class="">
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