[Imports] edit import guideline wiki page

Jason Remillard remillard.jason at gmail.com
Thu Nov 7 14:54:48 UTC 2013


Hi Andy,

We are getting a bit off topic here. The goal of the modifications is
to clarify the actual policy.

On Thu, Nov 7, 2013 at 4:27 AM, Andy Allan <gravitystorm at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6 November 2013 23:56, Daniel O'Connor <daniel.oconnor at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I understand the problem we are trying to solve is preventing harmful
>> imports, so the map data is of high quality.
>
> Indeed
>
>> I think it's fair to say
>> everyone on this list is here to help and uplift a user to the point they
>> can import
>
> Well, this is where I disagree. My belief is that we're still
> approaching this from the wrong angle, and in fact with our "import
> guidelines" and "imports" mailing list, we're pre-supposing that
> "importing"[1] is the correct answer to the given problem.
>
> So taking a step back, I believe the given problem is "I have an
> external dataset, and I want to use it to improve OpenStreetMap". But
> usually that rapidly becomes "I have an external dataset, and I want
> to copy that information into the OpenStreetMap database" when there
> are, in fact, many other possible approaches.
>

Just to make sure we don't get carried away with this. As far as I
know we have only "diverted" two data sources in the US. The tiger
2012 road layer imaging layer, and the Mass parcel data imaging layer.
In both cases the we are attempting to correct older imports that we
currently don't have the technical means of directly correcting. We
are stuck with tracing over the newer data.

Diverting potential importers is not really a strong trend, in
practice it is a minor issue compared to everything else we struggle
with on imports.

Jason.



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