[Imports] How good can an import be?

[Andy Allan]

On Tue, Apr 5, 2011 at 12:55 PM, Mike N <niceman at att.net> wrote:

>> 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
>
>   Are you claiming that nearly everything people have surveyed in the US is
> crap?

Err, no - I'm claiming that nearly everything in the US has not been
mapped by our volunteers. I've got no problems with any of our mapping
efforts!

>  TIGER didn't include buildings - are you making fun of buildings traced
> from aerials?

Err, no, I'm pointing out things like

http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=38.887398&lon=-76.92722&zoom=18&layers=M

If you think that's bad, have a look at the details:

http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/way/55412995

Hasn't been touched in an entire year. And 49 nodes for a rectangle?
And even worse, check out

http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/way/55412994

Great - a complete duplicate. And have a look around at the other
buildings - a broken import, a nightmare to fix, and impossible to
imaging anyone making such a hash of it by attempting to map things
the OSM way. And here I remember the excitement about importing DC
building outlines, people twittering about it and congratulating each
other - it makes me despair that such poor standards are acceptable
and zero effort goes into fixing the mistakes. I mean, it was me who
first started the discussion on fixing tiger county boundaries, years
after the import. It was me who lead the first effort to connect the
east and west coasts of america (and the second, and the third),
again, years after the import. I don't want to be the guy organising
"wikiproject $IMPORT fixup" for ever more.

Cheers,
Andy