[OSM-talk] Is *just* tracing useful?

[Gerald A]

Hi,

On 9/6/07, Dave Stubbs <osm.list at randomjunk.co.uk> wrote:
>
>
> Now my question is this: is this tracing actually useful?


I can't comment on London's tracing, but local to me, it's been incredibly
helpful.

>From my mapping perspective:
>  - it makes it much harder to see what needs doing


I partly agree. It's hard to get a hardcopy which shows which streets are
mapped and which aren't. Osmrender 5 has started to address some of this. I
wish there was a way to print the potlatch screens, they clearly show
(black) what is named and (grey) what needs to be named.

 - entering the data takes longer because I have to fix all the oneway
> streets, and the ways that don't follow the roads, the ways that aren't
> roads, and all the bits that were missed anyway... it's much quicker to
> generate from scratch correctly


Well, in a perfect world we'd know how to map correctly from day one, and
lots of the still outstanding issues would be decided. But the world isn't
perfect, and neither is the map.

I'm a relative newbie, but some of this is the fault of the tools, at this
point. The way that potlatch
does one way streets sucks, and it's not easy to figure out. (This isn't a
swipte at potlatch, btw -
it's a marvelous and evolving tool, and it's improving all the time. One
ways will eventually be done
"right", but now it's very difficult to do them).

In other words, I'd rather people didn't do it! In fact, I'd love it if
> anyone tracing off of the imagery had to sign a legally binding declaration
> saying they'd actually been to the place first ;-)
> But maybe it fills some purpose I'm not aware of?


It scratches someones itch.
And, if it's doing that, please please please, KEEP doing it.
Whoever traced out streets near me, Thank you thank you.

Did it complicate my life, by making me learn more about OSM so I could fix
some things, and are there things I'm still figuring out, because of this?
Definately.
But it lets me scratch my itch, which is labelling streets, rather then
having to fiddle with drawing them. And it's let me learn more then if I was
just drawing streets from scratch, which I've done plenty of.

I'm also interested about the people doing this... are you all just
> incredibly bored, or is there a goal here?


 I thought the goal was to map the planet.
Every little bit counts, IMHO.

Gerald
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