[Talk-us] Remapping tips

[andrzej zaborowski]

On 7 February 2012 00:27, Nathan Edgars II <neroute2 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/6/2012 6:19 PM, John F. Eldredge wrote:
>>
>> So, you are implying that nothing further can be done after April 1st?  If
>> the remapping can't be completed by then, OSM is doomed?  I agree that you
>> are being overly pessimistic.
>>
> Any remapping after April Fools will not be able to use tags added by good
> users to ungood objects. Any loss will be on the hands of the OSMF.

Why not?  They'll be in the history same as they are now.  Right now
you also have to check the edits history to be able to use them.  In
fact it'd be very difficult to decide a tag is CT-clean even today.
It's also an at least questionable practice when you remove an object
and then immediately re-add it (with the assumption you're not using
any of the information your brain registered when you selected the
object -- even that of it being a map feature).  In any clean-room
process I know, where the goal is to obtain a copy not tainted by
patents or copyright, the two actions must be performed by different
people.

The other ironic thing is the armchair remote re-mapping from imagery
by those who complain about armchair mapping (but then happily join a
baseball field challenge) and the amount of effort put into making an
area green on a red & green colored map.  We've seen that go wrong
with the dupe-nodes map.

I also want to point out that there is a false perception that OSM
will gain anything if everything becomes CT-clean before the potential
switchover.  The time you spend re-mapping things is the time you
don't spend mapping new places.  The net gain is the same in case of
the switchover happening as planned and only assuming that (unlikely)
the cost of remapping is the same as that of mapping one of the many
blank spots from scratch.  In every other scenario OSM as a whole
loses if you spend your time re-mapping instead of adding new data.

The whole change process is harmful to the project in many other ways
too.  I know Martijn van Exel and Michael Collinson have issued
personal appeals for people to help remapping but I think those are
based on false assumptions and my personal appeal is that you spend
the time between now and April 1 mapping one of the so many blank
spots in OSM or otherwise adding new verbatim information.  Re-mapping
may help LWG show that the change has been less harmful than it really
was, but it doesn't enrich the "commons" of free data available
whichever way you look at it.

Cheers