[Imports] [Talk-us] MassGIS building conversion

[Robert Coup]

Hi Paul,

On Tue, Dec 11, 2012 at 1:04 PM, Paul Norman <penorman at mac.com> wrote:

>
> Any update strategy has to
> be able to handle the case where objects are created in OSM without the IDs
> or the IDs get broken in OSM because they can't be verified. Because
> anything you do has to handle the case of no IDs, what's the point of them?
>

As a strawman "some houses don't have addresses, therefore the postal
service shouldn't use them anywhere"

Because it makes it easier? Faster? Less reviews? Easier to query/link data
with external systems?

In New Zealand every road has a SUFI (govt-speak for an ID) - which is used
in roading, statistical, electoral, addressing, local govt, and a bunch of
other places. Makes sense for OSM to include that key where we can, since
it's linkable to other datasets/services.


> Lots of people include IDs because they think they might be useful but very
> seldom are they actually used.
>

Agreed - if there's no update strategy and the ID is not
enforced/mandated/used/published by the source organisation, then they're
definitely pointless.

Rob :)
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