[Talk-us] Legislative districts, Land-use zoning, etc.

[Richard Welty]

On 10/21/15 2:19 AM, Frederik Ramm wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On 10/21/2015 04:46 AM, Ray Kiddy wrote:
>> To me, OSM is a tool which is ideal for relating various information
>> layers across a multi-dimensional substrate. This substrate is a
>> two-dimensional geography, which is defined geographically. To me, it
>> seems perfect for things like borders.
> OSM is first and foremost a community of people curating a data set.
> This process works best with data that is verifiable on the ground,
> because if two community members disagree over something, the dispute
> can be resolved by simply looking at the place. Also, the mapper
> (surveyor) is the ultimate authority in OSM; we map what *is*, not what
> some government says should be.
>
> We do have a few items that go against these principles, most notably
> borders. They are not easily verifiable, and they are items where the
> authority lies elsewhere - where OSM can only ever be a copy of some
> master data being defined by a government, instead of being the
> authoritative source. OSM is certainly not "perfect" for collecting and
> curating such information; this is a fact and not a matter of personal
> opinion. Having these borders in OSM is already a compromise where the
> usefulness (high) has been weighed against the suitability of OSM as a
> medium (low).
>
i agree with Frederik here, and would argue that most border information
is misplaced in OSM; it should ideally be in another parallel database
(possibly using the OSM stack, possibly in shapefiles or geojson files)
where it can be used in mashups and/or overlays. we don't need to try
and put everything into the one database.

richard

-- 
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