[Talk-ca] cleaning up after the GeoBase import

[Richard Weait]

Dear All,

I'm surprised by the panic and outrage I'm hearing in this thread.  

I'm not aware of anybody creating an OSM-CA branch of tagging that is
incompatible with "community standards".  The conversations I've been
involved in have been aimed at making the very best interpretation of
the GeoBase (etc) data in terms of OSM tagging.  Like including
attribution, the conversion tool used, the source uuid and using an
import_id.  Those are all best practises.  

Keep an eye on those community standards by the way, we keep improving
them which means they keep changing.  Remember nodes, segments and ways?
Then nodes and ways?  Then nodes, ways and relations?  it's a moving
target.  Remember the TIGER import?  No RoadMatcher there so user
contributions were all removed then TIGER dropped in.  Things change.
Be part of the change.  

Some of you like ways that extend many intersections because "that's the
way I map", please remember that others may like shorter ways.  Nobody
is forcing you to change your habits.  

Some of you fear that short ways will look bad on mapnik/osmarender.
Remember that the default tiles must be a general purpose rendering.  By
that very nature some things will look better and some worse.  And some
things just will not be rendered on a general purpose map at all.  And
this is where OSM really shines, YOU CAN MAKE IT DO WHAT YOU WANT ON
YOUR MAP!  

Let's look into the renderers in more detail.  There may already be an
option to render street names only once per n-distance with identically
named ways.  This is already happening with the shield symbolizer in
Mapnik.  Also remember that the renderers are improving over time too.
We've added push and shove, halos, name along line, inhibit when too
long... and dozens (hundreds?) of other improvements in the renderers.  

But to suggest that the Thing To Do is to combine GeoBase ways, because
you like it that way?  Surely there are more-productive things that you
can do?  Add turn restrictions, block addressing, building outlines, or
points of interest perhaps?

And to delete the GeoBase nids/uuids?  Why?  Because you don't know what
you would do with them?  That sounds like vandalism to me.  

Relax.  Join in the upload project, or sit back and watch the fun.  Play
with the renderers to make things look that way you want them to look,
or write a really great route planning and coffee-brewing tool.  But
don't panic.  

OpenStreetMap
It's fun.  It's free.  You can help.

Best regards,
Richard