[Imports] How good can an import be?

[Andy Allan]

On Mon, Apr 4, 2011 at 11:26 PM, Tyler Ritchie <tyler.ritchie at gmail.com> wrote:
>> OpenStreetMap should be left to people on the ground holding gps units.
>
> Really? I see this sentiment often and it's baffling.
> If anything OpenStreetMap shouldn't have even allowed on the ground edits in
> areas with good unencumbered data before the basics were imported (TIGER and
> NHD in the US).

I nearly fell off my chair laughing when you implied that TIGER and
NHD were good datasets. Sometimes I wonder if one of the problems OSM
is facing in the US is the relative paucity of examples where OSM
volunteers have mapped to higher standards - instead you have endless
amounts of poor, basic TIGER data with broken buildings and other
imports, and that influences expectations of OSM map data quality - to
the point where they are so low that things like TIGER are considered
an adequate end result. And then the downward spiral of "we don't need
mappers, just look at the datasets we already have, they'll do"
becomes self-reinforcing.

> It would take decades to get any sort of a meaningful map in the US without
> the TIGER import.

That's a defeatist attitude and not borne out by experiences elsewhere
in the world.

> Sure, the high population density areas will get mapped
> well and quickly, but not the low density areas.

As opposed to what happened after the TIGER import, where high
population density areas haven't seen the same level of mapping
activity/quality that we'd hoped for?

I'm not arguing against using external datasets to help make the map,
but the imports that are a direct substitute of things that are
otherwise easily mappable seem to cause the most problems. Lots of
people expect that they will somehow "kickstart" the next stages, but
they seem so far to be a displacement activity more than any genuine
help.

Cheers,
Andy