[Imports] Best practices for address imports

Sun Nov 24 20:54:06 UTC 2013

I want to address one of your comments separately from the others:

>   * What is the OSM community and who does it really support since it
>     does seem to be highly selective in who it gives the import hall
>     pass to?

I think if you really want to be constructive about this in the future,
you need to get over your own failed import. I can sense that you're
still grumbling about the fierce central command which is unfairly
highly selective about who their friends are, and that you're still in
battle mode trying to find fault with, and improve, the system, or
others. Bury that hatchet now or you'll find it extremely hard to
acquire a balanced and sober view.

I believe I stated at the beginning of my email that I have been following
the most recent import request coming through in the past several weeks. My
opinion is based on what I am observing in those threads. I know it's
easier to say that I am taking this all personally but I assure you that is
not the case. I think I have tried to be very constructive here in many
ways.

P.S. My import is failed. Part of my data is still there and I am still
determining if the OSM community is the right place for my local community
mapping involvement as well as trying to pay attention and learn from the
mailing lists and watching the guidelines for clearer instructions. I
consider much of what has come from my import experience here to be a
success. If I didn't want to make this a better community, I could walk
away just share a negative experience with everyone. Instead, I'd rather
make an effort to welcome more people to your community and hopefully be
welcomed here as well.

-------------------------------------
Carol Kraemer
North River Geographic Systems, Inc
http://www.northrivergeographic.com
404.431.0125 cakraemer at northrivergeographic.com

On Sun, Nov 24, 2013 at 3:40 PM, Frederik Ramm <frederik at remote.org> wrote:

> Carol,
>
>    maybe we're suffering from a trans-atlantic word defintion problem
> here. When I say "community" I always, exclusively, mean the OSM
> community - not "the community of people living in one house block or
> one village or city quarter or town" or anything else.
>
> Everyone can of course be (or become) part of the (OSM) community. But
> in terms like "community import" we're never meaning to say "an import
> done by some community of people" but "an import done by the OSM
> community".
>
> Maybe that was clear already, I wasn't sure.
>
> >   * How OSM defines a local community? Opinions have been thrown out by
> >     individuals but this needs to be defined by the community and
> >     clearly stated.
>
> This is very difficult to define and clearly state. I think that it
> might be possible to find a "guideline" but it is likely that in the end
> someone will have to make a call.
>
> >   * What does OSM define as a legitimate OSM community member? Opinions
> >     have been thrown out by individuals but this needs to be defined by
> >     the community and clearly stated.
>
> This is also difficult, although when talking about who should be
> involved in imports we could simply say that you need so and so much
> time with OSM and so and so many 1000 manual edits before you can
> participate in an import, without telling those that don't meet the
> criteria that they are "not legitimate community members".
>
> >   * If local community mappers (GIS, OSM, etc...) make a decision to add
> >     data to their map
>
> Compare to what I said above - only the local OSM mappers can make a
> decision to add data to OSM. Members of other local communities who are
> not OSM community members might add data to "their" map at liberty, but
> "their" map is not the OSM map.
>
> You don't have a claim to OSM just because you live in a place or do GIS
> in a place - you can only have a claim to OSM if you participate in OSM.
>
> >     how much influence does OSM really want to have
> >     on what is considered correct use of OSM for that local community
>
> We had that discussion a lot in the past. To a certain degree, I think
> the project should allow local people to shoot themselves in the foot,
> make mistakes, learn from them, etc., however if a local group somewhere
> makes a decision that is considered harmful and where others elsewhere
> have already experienced the negative consequences, I think the locals
> should at least be able to demonstrate why their case is going to be
> different.
>
> I think it also makes a difference just how local the group is and how
> much data we're talking about - remember that we don't yet have local
> databases. If a local group were setting up their own OSM-cloned
> database of course they could do whatever they wanted. In the distant
> future, we might indeed get there - OSM as a cluster of linked local
> databases where local people make their own decisions.
>
> Btw. this also works the other way round - not only "how much can OSM as
> a global project dictate to a national/local OSM community" but also (we
> had that too) "how much can the OSM community in one country dictate to
> regional groups in that country" (e.g. countries with culturally
> disjunct areas where people would like to make their own decisions).
>
> >   * What is the OSM community and who does it really support since it
> >     does seem to be highly selective in who it gives the import hall
> >     pass to?
>
> I think if you really want to be constructive about this in the future,
> you need to get over your own failed import. I can sense that you're
> still grumbling about the fierce central command which is unfairly
> highly selective about who their friends are, and that you're still in
> battle mode trying to find fault with, and improve, the system, or
> others. Bury that hatchet now or you'll find it extremely hard to
> acquire a balanced and sober view.
>
> >     if the OSM admins determine
> >     that imports should not be done by anyone, then say so. It will save
> >     us all a lot of "heartache and rejection."
>
> I think that imports are mostly undesirable but at the same time
> inevitable. Much like a country can't win a "war on drugs", the OSM
> admins could never win a "war on imports" even if they declared it. Just
> as drugs can be good but aren't in the wrong hands, so are imports. What
> we need to do is make it clear to people that a life without imports is
> possible, but if they decide to do imports nonetheless, at least make
> sure they're not ruining it for themselves and everyone around.
>
> >   * Providing examples of the kind of data sets that would be considered
> >     as valuable additions to the main map and which would not be
> >     considered appropriate for the main map.
>
> I think a much bigger and more rewarding issue would be to demonstrate
> clearly to people that data doesn't have to be in OSM in order to be
> used/useful.
>
> What we currently have is someone playing with OSM, finding out how
> great and easy it is to have access to pre-rendered tiles and Overpass
> API database requests and easy planet file downloads and whatnot. Then
> they find that their county lacks building outlines. Then they find the
> building shape file on their county's GIS web site. And the first thing
> they ask is: HOW DO I GET THIS INTO OSM? - When indeed all they want is
> a convenient slippy map that shows OSM data plus the county GIS building
> outlines (or so).
>
> And currently they're right - dumping anything into OSM is often an easy
> way to make it accessible in the form you want to access it. If we
> managed to work on that front - to provide easy tools for people to e.g.
> throw a shape file onto OSM and make both visible together without
> importing - then the whole import question would lose much of its urgency.
>
> Bye
> Frederik
>
> --
> Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/imports/attachments/20131124/c8519d73/attachment-0001.html>