[Talk-us] tiff, dwg and nad83

[Serge Wroclawski]

On Sun, Apr 15, 2012 at 2:37 PM, Charlotte Wolter <techlady at techlady.com> wrote:
> The exchange between Frank Cox and others about importing data is a perfect
> example of an ongoing problem with this list: Many of the discussions and
> "answers" are simply too GIS geeky for the vast majority of us.

Any discussion regarding import of data is going to be technical. The
answer to anyone who find a technical discussion about imports
difficult or overly complex should be a request for them not to do
anything.

> Frank asked for a simple "do x then do y" kind of explanation. Several
> members replied, but no one but Paul Norman tried to give him that kind of
> answer. Unfortunately, Paul's answer contained a lot of GIS technical
> language. Obviously, he's very knowlegeable, but he didn't put the
> explanation at a level where Frank and the rest ofus could understand it.

For the vast majority of editors, this is a non-issue. Frank could be
doing a normal survey and have no trouble at all. But what he brought
was a fairly complex, technical request, and what he got back were a
series of technical answers. He may not have understood them, but they
were at the same complexity as the original question.

> That's why reading the list often is frustrating. There's a lot of talk
> about technical issues and minutiae, but little guidance for those of us who
> just want to map using Potlatch 2, which is most of us.

Let's not mix up this with the original request. The original request
was highly technical.

> What can be done to make Talk-US more useful for the average mapper?

Ask not what OSM can do for you, ask you can do for OSM.

- Serge