[Talk-ca] broken forests in eastern Canada

Antoine Beaupré anarcat at orangeseeds.org
Tue Aug 30 03:12:16 UTC 2016


On 2016-08-25 10:13:25, Gordon Dewis wrote:
> Alan is right. I've brought in a few tiles worth of forests from Canvec in
> the area you're talking about, but they were non-trivial to deal with
> compared to most other features. I kept running into limits in the tools I
> was using at the time and I haven't returned to them since.

Yeah, that's what I figured.... I hope my comment didn't come across as
criticizing the work that was done importing that data into OSM - I know
how challenging and frustrating that work can be.

But I must admit it seems a little rough to have those patches up
there. I don't mind the "seams" between the CANVEC imported blocks,
which don't seem to show up on the main map anymore anyways. But
the *missing* blocks are really problematic and confusing. And they show
up not only all the way up north and in weird places, but in critical
areas. for example, here's a blank spot right north of Canada's capital:

http://osm.org/go/cIhYCSU-?m=

It seems a whole area was just not imported up there... oops! This shows
up here and there in seemingly random places.

I wonder if it wouldn't be better to remove parts of the CANVEC import
until we can figure out how to better import them in the future, if, of
course, we have a documented way of restoring the state of affairs we
have now... As was mentionned elsewhere, it seems to me that the data
that is there now somewhat makes it more difficult to go forward and
hides more important data (like park boundaries).

I believe it would be more important to map out park boundaries than
actual forest limits which, quite unfortunately, change in pretty
dramatic ways in Québec, due to massive logging that has been happening
for decades.

As for "landuse" conflicts between forests and lakes: I have just spent
a few days up north in an isolated region, and I can tell you our mental
boundaries of what is a "lake" and what is "forest" get a whole new
meaning when you portage through a mud path. :p

Heck, beavers are always hard at work messing up any work we do up
there. Same for humans that blow up their dams. Those human/animal wars
can turn a river into a lake in a season and vice-versa.

It's a mess out there, but we could stick with the basics and have
general, well defined boundaries in place... I understand that people
focus on the city, but it would be great to have a more appealing global
map as well, and it seems to me just dropping the forests at this point
would be a bold move, but it would bring a much better consistency and
look to the map.

I have to say the work that has happened over the years on OSM is just
mind-boggling. I remember doing mapping work almost a decade ago and OSM
just looked like a geeky project without much future, since *everything*
had to be done from scratch. Heck, I was mapping major highways in my
city back then[1], thinking that this would never take off the
ground. Next thing I knew, some random stranger on the internet drew
*everything else* in the neighborhood and the city started taking shape
before my eyes.

[1]: https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/428304

How far away we have come so that I can complain about ugly squares up
north and be taken seriously: thanks everyone for contributing. :)

And thanks for the feedback!

A.

-- 
Uncompromising war resistance and refusal to do military service under
any circumstances.
                       - Albert Einstein



More information about the Talk-ca mailing list