[talk-au] Getting is right

[Brett Russell]

Hi

I have been looking at few commercial mapping products closely and it is interesting to see the errors. 

1. Wrong names used.

2. Peaks in the wrong place. 

3. Tracks that cross lakes. 

4. Tracks that start and end in the middle of no where. 

5.  Tracks massively out of date or just plain wrong. 

6.  Zoom levels not optimized for intended use.  By that walking tracks or cycle routes disappear way too quickly as you zoom out. 

7.  Claimed level of detail simply not there. 

By comparison with OSM is nearly always missing data but hey that is for me to fix if it annoys me. 

My only concern is some "evil" mapper will use the efforts and then attempt a legal war of attrition to make life hard.  Have not seen a sign of this yet.  

But I am curious that using the List in Tassie to check names is wrong?  It is a Government service and one that actually "forces " name changes such as the removable of possessive names and even names it does not like.  Russell Fallls for example was not correct but it subsequently decreed to be.  The government surveyor stuffed that up many years ago. 

The List is the official bible for place names and surely checking OSM against it can not be so wrong.  Sure downloading chunks is a different story.  

OSM will eventually be a worry to commercial mappers so care is needed but the only way to get the names of geographic freatures is this source as signs just do not exist.   Local knowledge actually comes from maps at some point in the past. 

Cheers
Brett