[Talk-us] Imports

[Russ Nelson]

Ian Dees writes:
 > All actions have consequences. Did importing TIGER hamper the OSM community
 > building in the US or did poor advocacy? Maybe it was the existing vast,
 > free data ecosystem? Maybe it was simply the sheer size of the country?

You are asking a question that the opponents of imports don't need to
ask, because imports are bad a priori.

I'd like to see them run an experiment. Fork the database, take every
untouched TIGER way out of OSM, and then try to build a user community
around this new database free of icky, stinky bad imported data. If
imports are harmful to the community, then removing them should cause
the community to bloom and blossom.

Or, with less sarcasm, it was not my observation that having the TIGER
data in the U.S. dissuaded anyone from contributing to OSM.

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