[Imports] how do i get a mapper to engage with the community over mass imports?

[Christoph Hormann]

On Friday 24 April 2015, Glen Barnes wrote:
>
> I’m not sure where all this came from. We (including you) were
> instrumental in setting up the LINZ2OSM process years ago in NZ. We
> discussed and came up with tagging schemes and received agreement on
> the process on the nzopengis group which is where all of the
> discussions take place. This import/merge is business as usual as far
> as I am concerned.

I don't have an opinion on this particular subject (i.e. aukland 
buildings) but the way you manage the import with the linz2osm tool 
seem to make it difficult for the normal mechanisms of imports in OSM 
with advise and verification of the process by the larger international 
OSM community to work.

The tagging rules for example are fairly difficult to access within your 
tool and the list on the wiki:

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/LINZ_attribute_matching

looks very incomplete.

To give an example: Canal polygons seem to be imported with 
waterway=canal:

http://www.openstreetmap.org/way/230078171
http://linz2osm.openstreetmap.org.nz/data_dict/layer/canal_poly/tagging/

which is wrong (that tag is for the center line).  I don't want to warm 
up old stuff that is long done but if this import is still largely in 
progress it might be a good idea to re-evaluate the initial decisions 
made based on practical expecience and how mapping practice in OSM has 
changed meanwhile.

I would extend this to a general remark - all imports that run for more 
than a year should IMO have yearly evaluations with update of the 
documentation and a progress report and new RFC here on the mailing 
list.

-- 
Christoph Hormann
http://www.imagico.de/