[Talk-ca] Fwd: Re : Clean up progress and last push

[Richard Weait]

On Sat, Mar 31, 2012 at 1:42 PM, Ian Bruseker <ian.bruseker at gmail.com> wrote:
> (and then stupid Gmail didn't send it to the list.  Sorry, Pierre, meant for
> this to go there, not just to you)
[ ... ]
> Greetings. I have pretty much the same question.  I've had "do some OSM
> mapping" in the back of my mind for nearly 2 years, and only in the last few
> days have I actually got around to mapping some businesses and stuff, and
> fixing some unconnected ways, just in the area a few kilometres around my
> house.  Based on that Geofabrik map, there are some things near me labeled
> in red.  What do you want me to do?  Just delete them and remake them?  (I
> feel bad deleting someone else's work, but if that's the deal, that's what
> I'll do).

Welcome!  Nice to have you here and thinking about mapping.

1) Normally, we improve upon existing work, rather than deleting then
starting fresh.
2) The license upgrade is a special case and we want to be thorough in
removing that data for which we have no permission to keep.

The combination of the two items above mean that we have objects which
have been edited by multiple users over time.  Now, some may have
declined or not responded and others may have agreed, and some from
each group may have had a part in editing the same specific object.
So there are edge cases.

The overwhelming majority of objects that I've been cleaning are
relatively simple.  "Remove them and start fresh from our permitted
sources" and there is little to no loss to the OSM data.

In other cases, I was motivated to improve the data greatly.  One
example: a few shops in an area in Kitchener Ontario were not-agreed.
I deleted them, then surveyed the area in person (that's the best kind
of data to add to OSM).  So I was able to add a few dozen shops,
including the five or six I deleted from the non-responder.

So, no need to be shy.  Welcome to the community.  Have fun mapping
your neighbourhood.  And questions are always welcome.