[Talk-ca] Nova Scotia imports, and boundary=land_area

[OSM Volunteer stevea]

On Nov 1, 2018, at 1:53 PM, John Whelan <jwhelan0112 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Are you confusing the availability of Open Data with an import?

No, I am not.

> Most imports need plans

No, ALL imports need plans.

> but just because Open Data is available does not mean the license is compatible nor that it will be imported.

I'm simply getting ahead of a curve and some, uh, let's say "could have gone better" experiences, here.  Yet, try as I may to get a wider OSM community in Canada to share their intentions (by publishing the particular status of a city's license status on a wiki, for example) most of what I see is "pure deep freeze."  OK, you are Canadian, maybe that was a poor choice of words.  I see "very little forward momentum" in clear, wide communication of either intention or actual progress.  Sure, I understand (as Alessandro said "sometimes things don't 'hatch right'") yet there is nothing wrong with the occasional step backwards, so long as it is accompanied by a couple (or even three) steps forwards.

> My feeling is the wiki page lists open data and indicates if the license is compatible.

If you mean https://wiki.osm.org/wiki/WikiProject_Canada/Building_Canada_2020/building_OD_tables those haven't been TOUCHED (by me, no less) in almost nine months.  Is "your feeling" the actual truth?  I have no idea.  I might suggest you double-check, and have another OSM volunteer double-check YOUR work.  This is what I do in our wiki (about the status of data in our map) and yes, you can do so, too.

> We do not need a plan for every potential source only those that someone is planing to import.

No, but it does need to be ODbL-compatible and if it even has a whiff of an Import, (as much of this does, but there is so much "stovepiping" of data going on in our "OPEN" project — it's our first name) that I can't really tell.

I honestly don't like to sound so belligerent, yet I see the same sort of secretive, "where the heck did this come from" sorts of paths being gone down again.  So, I feel compelled to say something.  Believe me, I struggle to remain polite here.

OSM deserves high-quality data, vetted widely, shareable by more than some bureaucrats in a federal office for their own purposes, with members of the public wittingly or unwittingly are "pulled into a crowdsourcing effort" (or something that seems like one, but actually isn't).

PLENTY of people are watching, as we are an OPEN data project, yet I continue to see people who do not act like it.  John, you've done a pretty good job of sharing history, future intended directions, hopefulness that the data that eventually make it into OSM can and will be widely used/shared/enjoyed by many, yet what I see is a largely opaque process.  OPEN it up!

Thank you,
SteveA
California