[Talk-ca] Users in Ottawa and Geobase

[James Ewen]

On Thu, Oct 29, 2009 at 8:24 AM, Gerald A <geraldablists at gmail.com> wrote:

> I think Sam was hinting at "wholesale deletion and replacement", rather then
> "editing permission".

That's the problem, hinting at an idea is not an accurate statement.
Sam (and others) have made a number of generic statements, when they
are talking about specific situations.

This leads to issues where people take these generic statements, and
interpret them to mean that one can not make changes to the OSM map.
We need to ensure that people coming into the project understand why
certain statements are made, and why these decisions are part of the
OSM unofficial policy.

> Correcting wrong roads is definitely encourages, but the OP suggested simply
> blowing all of Ottawa away because he found some areas of "dubious value".
> My take on Sam's suggestion was that if the OP was sure that it was all bad,
> he should double check with the people that did the work before simply
> blanking the slate.

We're basically all on the same side of the arguement that wholesale
deletion of data to make way for a bulk import is a bad idea, except
for John. There is very little to be gained by this action, but there
is a HUGE potential for a lot of serious negative effects.

> I think you do agree that correction of the data is the way to go, and I
> think that Sam could have been a bit clearer about correction rather then
> delete and replace being the preferred method of tackling this.

Exactly. We need to be very clear when trying to descibe "policy".
Just saying that you are not allowed to edit OSM data after it is
entered is blatantly wrong. As I have described a number of times
already, editing is encouraged, but wholesale deletion and blind bulk
importing is discouraged.

Wiping out Ottawa, and importing GeoBase data will lose thousands of
hours worth of work that is not included in the GeoBase dataset.
Wiping out just the road network and importing GeoBase still leaves as
much work to realign all the rest of the data that was associated
with, or based upon the OSM road network.

James
VE6SRV