[Imports] A few questions about importing U.S. NHD data for Subbasin 01080105 import (White River in VT)

[Andy Allan]

On 23 February 2012 04:27, probiscus <probiscus12+osm_imports at gmail.com> wrote:

> My primary concern is importing the data in a format which will be easiest
> to work with even for new OpenStreetMappers. I don't want to import any more
> tags than are necessary, as I have worked with some imported data that in my
> opinion have too many tags with incomprehensible data (tiger:separated,
> tiger:upload_uuid, tiger:tlid, etc for TIGER and probably better examples in
> MassGIS imports around Boston). I tend to believe that these extra tags
> simply confuse or slow down the mapping process for users and may even have
> a negative affect on the OSM community. I hope the result follows K.I.S.S.
> as much as possible.

Great! I wholeheartedly agree with this approach.

> - My upload test plan is to upload to one of the dev servers and see if it
> works.

You're fast becoming a hero in my eyes!

> I think I can then wait for and watch the watershed appear on the dev
> map.

Ah, no, that won't work. There's no tile rendering hooked up to any of
the dev APIs. Still, it allows other people to check out the results
in potlatch / JOSM very easily.

> What is the utility of these IDs once the
> data is in OSM? Would it be better to just not import ComIDs to begin with?

I'd say almost zero utility, following your logic. I don't think it's
worth importing these.

> Anyway, sorry I can be verbose!

Please, don't apologise. OSM would be in a much healthier state - both
data and community wise - if everyone who was running an import was
following your lead.

Cheers,
Andy