[Talk-us] tiff, dwg and nad83

[Gregory Arenius]

Hi,

"Imported data turns down potential new mappers."

I really disagree with this statement.  I think the mappers would be turned
off if we didn't import it when available.  "So you have all 250,000
address points for the city but instead of using them you'd rather us go
collect all of them a second time?!?"  Nobody is going to do that.  Same
with building outlines.  It might be true for some data but I think its a
largely inaccurate statement.

There have also been some really well done imports such as the MassGIS one
in MA.  Not using that data isn't going to get us any further than using
it.  It makes our data much more useful, so it gets used, which brings in
more contributors which....

Maybe it would be different if there were no open data to import at all,
then people would be more motivated to gather it so it would exist.
However, if it does exist, weather or not we use it, that motivation is no
longer there.

I also think that in the US if government agencies are updating their data
that we can use that we should look at that as part of the community.
They're producing free data and so are we....I just wish they could use our
data they way we use theirs.

-Greg
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