[Talk-us] TIGER 2010 Imports

[Serge Wroclawski]

On Wed, Dec 15, 2010 at 11:01 AM, Ian Dees <ian.dees at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Talk-US,
> First of all, can we agree as a group to hold off on importing or applying
> any TIGER 2010 data until we come up with a way to apply changes in a
> uniform and somewhat organized manner?

Preach it brother!

> I really don't want to run into the situation we currently have with NHD
> where everyone is doing the conversion with different tools using different
> sets of mapping files and uploading in different ways. Let's have a
> discussion about how this should be pulled off first.

> Having said that: let's start a thread here about getting the TIGER data
> moving along. What steps can we take to move the shapefiles in to OSM
> format? How can we collaborate on the mapping to OSM tags?

I think we've learned two things from the last few years of imports:

1) Imports are hard to do right

2) Imports with existing data on the same area are nearly impossible

3) It only takes a few minutes to import, and years (or longer) to
clean up a bad import

4) Imports' impact on the community is controversial.

I know I've talked with you personally about this problem and we've
floated a few idea, but here are some thoughts:

* Bing Imagry has been Good

Imports are bad, but imagry is good.

I think that's because people feel they're a part of the process when
they trace or correct tracing through imagery. We should try to create
a process that involves people as much as machines.

* We have a map of reviewed vs unreviewed TIGER data. We should use it.

* Other examples of import comparison tools exist

Let's try to look at other tools like Musical Chairs or the Canadian
Import tool and if not use them directly, see what we can learn.

* We have our own dataset from GPX data

We often forget we have our own datasets in the form of GPX traces.
Let's not forget that.

There's nothing direct or practical here.

What do people think of a phone or IRC meeting, getting everyone on at
the same time?

- Serge