[Talk-us] Fwd: [OSM-dev] Licence redaction ready to begin

[Frederik Ramm]

Kevin,

On 07/11/12 16:20, Kevin Kenny wrote:
> The data checks in JOSM and Potlatch2 are fine in that they all
> indeed highlight potential problems.

As RichardF has pointed out, Potlatch2 sorely lacks any kind of data 
check. With the exception of unconnected road ends flashing aggressively.

> But the sum total of them
> is just overwhelming. Right now, it feels as if I need to rectify
> every problem in any object that I've downloaded, to silence
> all the complaints from the tools.

One has to to take them as nagging-but-wanting-to-help tools rather than 
as commanders. Sometimes it says "road without name" and I go "oops, 
right, forgot that"; sometimes I go "shut the f&%$ up, if I knew the 
name I'd have entered it!".

I think doing something half-good and letting others (or the future 
self) fix it is perfectly all right.

With one exception: It is not all right to import crap hoping that 
others will somehow make it non-crap. The bar for imports is much, much 
higher than the bar for human edits.

> This becomes even worse if someone is working on, say, a piece
> of the NHD import. There seems to be the expectation that if
> I'm importing a sub-basin, I'll go out and visit every place
> where a road and a stream meet, to get the levels right and
> either mark the road as a bridge or the stream as a culvert.

That's because someone has imported crap and is now relying on you to 
make it non-crap. They shouldn't have done that. But if I were in your 
situation I'd ignore all the warnings.

It might not be a bad idea to have the validator run once data has been 
downloaded, and then when you upload, only have it show *new* problems 
caused by you. I'll float the idea on josm-dev.

> I know I've been advised in the past, "just do it. People complain,
> but they don't revert good data."  Is that still sound advice?

I must say that I have rarely seen real people complain about things 
like you mention - crossing ways etc.; it's just the validator that does 
that. People will complain about other things.

Bye
Frederik

-- 
Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"