[Imports] How good can an import be?

[McGuire, Matthew]

From: Katie Filbert [mailto:filbertk at gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, April 06, 2011 10:10 AM
>http://osm.org/go/ZZcc60T6
>Is this crap??? Are my efforts crap?

I think that section of DC looks as good as anything I've seen in Germany. And we all know that Germany is freakin' OSM. But of course, I haven't visited Germany or that area of DC.


From: Katie Filbert [mailto:filbertk at gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, April 06, 2011 10:10 AM
To: Andy Allan
Cc: imports at openstreetmap.org
Subject: Re: [Imports] How good can an import be?

On Wed, Apr 6, 2011 at 4:07 AM, Andy Allan <gravitystorm at gmail.com<mailto:gravitystorm at gmail.com>> wrote:
On Tue, Apr 5, 2011 at 12:55 PM, Mike N <niceman at att.net<mailto: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<mailto:filbertk at gmail.com>
@filbertkm
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