[OSM-dev] ESRI article sent by a friend

[Mike N.]

>> 1. It's not ignored if users have to stumble over duplicate data when
>> editing and either reconcile (which should have been done by the
>> importing person) or ignore it.
>
> Editor, software, issue. A good editor selectively filters out
> information, so that the user doesn't get an information overload (or
> worse: breaks other data)

  I think that editor and rendering toolchain developers should spend their 
time on more useful features, etc, rather than trying to exclude some 
arbitrary data set - which, as time goes on and more people touch the data 
becomes harder and harder to filter out.  And you're asking thousands of 
other OSM contributors to construct their own filter set in order to begin 
editing without being overwhelmed.   If the filters are predefined and the 
data is never shown for editing or rendering, why have it?

>> 2. If the import uses existing tags (as did my example), it _does_ get
>> rendered.
>
> It is pretty trivial not to render anything from a specific user. That
> we currently don't do such thing doesn't mean we can't.

  Referring to the same example as Alan used - there is no argument for 
poorly geo-located imports.   The most frequent end result was companies 
plopped in the middle of roads,  in some cases miles from actual locations; 
companies that hadn't existed for years.   Outdated and wrong data won't 
correct itself as it ages.