[Talk-us] Systematic problem with GNIS import and elevation tags

[Paul Johnson]

I just noticed while researching node 357412228 that it has the
following properties (mostly) imported from GNIS:

Node id=357412228 lat=36.0747997 lon=-95.9005176 (projected:
x=-95.9005176, y=36.0747997); Data set: 4B68BE0E; User: [id:92286
name:Paul Johnson]; ChangeSet id: 6CCAA4; Timestamp:
2011-01-30T02:34:15Z, Version: 4
  tags:
    "gnis:created"="08/01/1994"
    "gnis:county_id"="143"
    "name"="KCMA-FM (Broken Arrow)"
    "FIXME"="This tower exists, but it's not KCMA."
    "gnis:feature_id"="1102236"
    "gnis:state_id"="40"
    "man_made"="tower"
    "ele"="261"

I added the FIXME, but otherwise it is as it was imported from GNIS.  Of
concern:  The ele= tag is described in
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:ele as being metric value,
however, this was obviously imported as Imperial, and incorrectly at
that (FCC has elevation of 264.3 feet).  Clearly 261m isn't the correct
elevation, but it is numerically closer to it's foot value.  I'm
wondering if the person who imported GNIS originally has plans to change
ele values that match their GNIS values by
(current ele) * 0.3048 = (corrected ele), and if not, how we should
handle this as a community.

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