[Imports] Import guidelines - official or not? was: [Talk-us] parcel data in OSM

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

On 31.12.2012 01:27, Jeff Meyer wrote:
> Can you clarify if the wiki guidelines are the official import policy or
> not?

What exactly do you mean by "official import policy"?

The existing documents have to be viewed in a historic context. There 
used to be a time when imports were so rare (and if they happened, so 
big) that more or less the whole community would usually be involved in 
preparing them (or at least have a chance to be involved). There was no 
need for a policy back then.

When imports became more frequent, and people unfamilar with OSM or 
mapping tried their hands at importing data, they often were a source of 
friction/problems for DWG, and we came up with a couple of guidelines to 
make it less likely that an import becomes a problem.

However, this does not mean that if your import follows these 
guidelines, it will automatically be "good" or "allowed". It can still 
turn out to be problematic, and could be reverted. But at least if you 
follow the guidelines you have proven that you can read and are willing 
to engage with the community which is a good sign.

At the same time, imports that do *not* follow the guidelines will not 
automatically lead to a revert or a blocked account; it is possible to 
ignore the guidelines and still make an import that doesn't cause 
trouble, for example if it is very small and in a barely noticed corner 
of the world.

> Unfortunately, there's no link to the guidelines. Does this page
> constitute the DWG's import guidelines:
> http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Import/Guidelines?

As I said, I'd need to know what exactly you mean by "official"; that 
page has certainly been edited by many people without any "office". 
We've long planned to consolidate a number of documents into a coherent 
set of guidelines (as the wiki bars "it has been proposed to merge..." 
say) but not yet done that.

> Serge is leading an effort to review / improve US import guidelines.

I think the most important bit is to make clear that guidelines are 
there to help you make an import without problems - but following them 
does not give you an automatic right to make an import. It's not a flow 
chart where you tick off boxes and if you ticked the final box you can 
go ahead.

Bye
Frederik

-- 
Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"