[OSM-newbies] Small streams under minor tarmac roads

[Kjeldgaard Morten]

On 14/11/2009, at 18.21, James Ewen wrote:

> On Sat, Nov 14, 2009 at 5:34 AM, Kjeldgaard Morten <mok at bioxray.dk>  
> wrote:
>
>> You might disagree, but you are also wrong. OSM is a database, not a
>> map. It is very important to get features tagged correctly from the
>> start. If you don't do it from the beginning, someone else will have
>> to come back, notice the error and correct what you've done. That's a
>> complete waste of your time, so why participate in the OSM at all?
>
> In this vein then, why are we tagging the roads incorrectly in North
> America? In Canada we do not have a "Motorway" designation, yet there
> are many thousands of miles of "Freeway", or "Limited Access Highway"
> tagged incorrectly. There's no tag for business frontage roads, those
> are mostly tagged as service, but service also is what we have to use
> for alleys, a totally different type and class of roadway.

You are getting carried far out along a tangent here. My remarks were  
not meant to be universally applicable to everything in- and outside  
OSM; doing so can make anything meaningless. My remarks are addressing  
the specific discussion about tunnels vs. culverts.

> OSM is about group participation. Each participant brings what he/she
> can to the table, and helps out to the best of their ability/desires.
> This is a volunteer organization, and as with any volunteer
> organization, you gratefully accept the assistance you get. You can
> coach and mentor those who are contributing to enhance their skills,
> and increase the value of the work they bring to the project, and you
> can politely ask those who damage or destroy information to leave. You
> can not demand things of volunteers, it just doesn't work that way.

I agree completely. However, if those volunteers just do wtf they want  
regardless of what the community says, it's not participation.

>>> don't create "accurate" tags for everything. It's better to use
>>> approximations than nothing. Otherwise mapping for OSM will be
>>> reserved to a very limited amount of experts, surely very proud  
>>> about
>>> themselves.
>>
>> What's the point of mocking experts, rather than listening to them?
>
> I don't think Pieren was mocking the experts... but rather merely
> pointing out that we all don't need to be experts to be able to add
> some value to the OSM project. What's the point of telling volunteers
> to not participate if they aren't going to do everything perfectly?

Well, saying that experts are "very  proud of themselves" is mocking  
as far as I'm concerned. It implies that what the experts are doing  
and saying is worthless except to themselves. Furthermore, Andy kindly  
pointed out that he's an engineer working with underground  
infrastructure. In other words, Andy knows what he's talking about.   
Such expertise is extremely valuable, but still Piernen mockingly   
callied himself "Tunnel and underground infrastructure amateur". Quite  
pointless and impertinent.

The fact that OSM can attrackt experts, professionals and researchers  
is quite impressive;  we should be proud of that and pay respect when  
offered advice.

-- Morten