[Imports] How good can an import be?

[Katie Filbert]

On Wed, Apr 6, 2011 at 4:07 AM, Andy Allan <gravitystorm at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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?
>

The building imports are not complete yet, going in small bit by bit now.
Those are some of the first ones (by wonderchook), but since then are taking
a very slow and deliberate approach and carefully checking things as we go.
I haven't yet had a chance to go through the initial imports to check but
will soon.

This (another neighborhood) is what I've been working on, with very
extensive ground survey + import of buildings, school polygons, etc.

http://osm.org/go/ZZcc60T6

Is this crap??? Are my efforts crap? Is there any reason to stay involved
with OSM?

Meanwhile, in Maryland, we've been tracing buildings and it's a very slow
process but can have good results too. I wouldn't be happy at all to be
tracing DC buildings, duplicating efforts that have been done before (by the
DC gov... actually this is a project I worked as part of my job during
university, so literally would be doing it twice! no thanks!)

I'm happy to have the buildings to help move us along, plus the addresses
have come in handy for field surveys. Not tracing DC buildings also frees
time to do field survey of other cool stuff, like public art or whatnot.

Cheers,
Katie



> 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
>
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-- 
Katie Filbert
filbertk at gmail.com
@filbertkm
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