[Talk-us] Tiger Data 2007

[Alan Brown]

There's another consideration ... what if a TIGER import is done somewhat carefully, but not quite carefully enough?  So 90% of the areas are made better, and 10% are made worse ?  

If those 10% are located where someone has poured their heart into making a carefully constructed map - you could disillusion some of your most active contributors.  Many would think:  "if a bunch of invalid TIGER roads that need to be deleted reappear in my hometown - why should I be forced to clean it up?  I made it right the first time!"  People enter data into OSM for the sense of accomplishment.  If an import improves the quality of the overall dataset in the short term - but demotivates others to contribute, because their work had been stomped on - in the long term, you may hurt data quality.

I'm not saying don't import new TIGER data - I'm saying, be utterly paranoid when you do.  I don't know how well the first import went - it seems it was necessary for building a base line - but you don't want to de-motivate people who contribute.

-Alan



________________________________
From: Nick Hocking <nick.hocking at gmail.com>
To: talk-us at openstreetmap.org
Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 2008 3:28:03 PM
Subject: Re: [Talk-us] Tiger Data 2007


"I don't see it as "corrupting". It's not mangling the mapper's work in any
way. If they don't like the new overlapping road, then just delete the TIGER
one."
 
Ok - We've hit an impass then.
 
You can't "just hit delete" You have to merge all the duplicated data in order
to make the way/area sane It takes much more effort than to
originally edit in the new road.
 
So you have not just mangled the mappers works you've actually turned it
into negative value content for the OSM dataset.
 
I'll leave you with one more comment that I can assure you I don't mean to
be inflamatory, but I would understand if you take it so.
 
There can only be two winners from a bulk upload of Tiger data....
Tele Atlas and Navteq. 

Nick
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