[Talk-us] Another day, another bad import

[Kai Krueger]

Hi,

Imports have gotten quite a bad reputation in the community as being more of
a harm than a help.

Partly this is for "ideological" reasons, opposing any form of import, but a
good deal is also due to the fact that many imports are less than ideal on
the technical execution side.

We need to try and ensure that imports are of the highest possible standard,
so that they do result in a net benefit to the map.

So to all people importing data may I remind you to ensure that you at least
stick to the general import guidlines
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Import/Guidelines 

Of the points listed there, I find particularly important (and often
ignored):

1) Discuss your imports with the community. Let people check some sample
data to allow to detect problems before damage is done to the map.
2) Document your imports on the wiki. Particularly make sure the import is
listen in the import catalogue
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Import/Catalogue
3) Use a separate account for imports. It can make dealing with things like
statistics, licensing problems or other large scale problems much easier if
imports use separate user accounts from people normal mapping.

It might also be worth watching Emilie Laffray's talk at SotM 2010 about the
french effort of importing landcover data and all the steps they took to
ensure the acceptance of the import and its quality and the lessons learnt.

http://vimeo.com/14789967

Kai
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