[Talk-us] Importing CobbLinc Public Transit Routes from Government Data

[Sam Whited]

I'm not sure what I said that gave the impression that I was trying to
go ahead and do this import anyways, and I put that comment there so
that someone wouldn't upload the file since it obviously isn't ready and
is just a raw data dump.

There was no need to take this tone with someone who specifically
emailed the list to make sure that I didn't make any mistakes or do
something that wouldn't work or would create more work for others.

—Sam

On Thu, Feb 9, 2023, at 04:24, stevea wrote:
> Dear Sam:  On a spectrum, there is a gentle and kind method by which
> I could ASK you not to do this import and there is a blunt and rude
> method by which I could TELL you not to do this import.  I will
> refrain from the latter, and based on what I see here, I will simply
> advise that you not do this import.  Mike has kindly pointed out our
> Import Guidelines as well as that the license being used is likely
> not compatible with OSM’s license (ODbL), yet that does not dissuade
> you (and it should, yet you say “you could give credit just to be
> safe.” Mmmm, that’s above the qualifications of even the most
> experienced OSM Contributors:  are you an attorney?)  Meanwhile, you
> have not answered Mike, despite your linking to ten mebibytes of XML
> with thousands of nodes, which quite literally at the top of the file
> — well, Line 8 of the file — says “DO NOT UPLOAD TO OSM.”  Have you
> even looked at these data in any sense?  Mike asks a very important
> question:  how are you going to align these data (data are plural)
> with existing OSM data, in the guise of ways which make up the route
> relations you purport to want to upload?  You obviously cannot upload
> the data directly (as thousands of nodes) and you have not answered
> Mike’s (quite legitimate) question about discovering the existing OSM
> data “ways” that must become members of your route relations.  This
> is known as “conflation with existing data” and simply must be
> answered for every import.
>
> Licensing issues aside, no Import Guidelines written aside, not even
> demonstrable knowledge of what relations are aside (in a relational
> database, where relations ARE the data structures of the very route
> relations you propose to import!), you have the community responding
> to you in no uncertain terms that you are not ready to do this import.
> I mean this gently and quite kindly.
>
> Because I prefer people be gentle and kind with me, I’ll do the same
> with you:  please, don’t attempt this import (yet).  Gain some
> practice entering route relations as an OSM Contributor (volunteer) so
> that you may become familiar with this particular kind of data
> structure within OSM.  Do so one at a time, as well as "many at a
> time," perhaps as related groups of them.  Learn how these affects
> routers, renderers and other downstream use cases in OSM.  Document
> these in, say, a statewide or countywide wiki where it might make
> sense to build these into a table or otherwise reference them in the
> context of similar entities in your region.  (These could be road
> routes, bicycle routes, railway routes…there are quite a number of
> different types of route relations, each having both similarities to
> each other in structure and differences in how they affect particular
> renderers or routers).  Then, read our Import Guidelines and fully
> "drink in" what an undertaking it can be to import data into our
> project:  it can seem daunting for a relative novice, but it is not so
> steep a hill that it cannot be climbed.  But if you don’t know what a
> route relation is, you have no business importing a bunch of them into
> OSM, period.  And that’s as blunt as I’ll get.
>
> I don’t wish to dissuade you from participating in OSM, really, I want
> to be encouraging.  But it appears you wish to “bite off more than you
> can chew.”  I don’t know if your experience with OSM is crawling or
> walking, but I can tell it is not the sort of running or even flying
> that it takes to successfully get community buy-in for a data Import.
> Please, gain some experience (especially with route relations, which
> are at least an “intermediate” topic beyond rank novice) and perhaps
> you can “work up” to doing an import.  But do be advised that you can
> try to do too much too early (before you are ready) and that’s how
> this appears to me.  There’s nothing wrong with being ambitious, but
> you do need to be able to walk before you can run.
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-- 
Sam Whited