[OSM-talk] Suggestion more complete mapping verifactiion

[John Baker]

On 17/09/2007, Steve Coast <steve at asklater.com> wrote:
>
>
> On 17 Sep 2007, at 22:26, John Baker wrote:
>
> | d) If someone posts to say Heddon Street in London W1 is not in the
> database here is a link:
> | http://www.streetmap.co.uk/newmap.srf?
> x=529233&y=180753&z=1&sv=heddon+street&st=1&tl=Heddon+Street,
> +W1&searchp=newsearch.srf&mapp=newmap.srf
> | Is it then OK for someone to walk down Heddon Street with a GPS and
> map this road in OSM?
>
> You have to prove they went down the road and didn't copy it, and it
> wasn't a purposful easter egg!
>
> http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/Copyright_Easter_Eggs
>
So for every road mapped in in OSM you have to prove you went down that road
and the GPS data is good enough proof not enough for you for it to be
valid.  I understand the termonology of Easter Eggs and I have mentioned
them in numoureos email including that one.

> I think in general the project should be looking at linking up with
> more sources for verification. It seems a shame that no-one
> considers this.

Of course it was considered, at least by me, but you weigh that up
against getting nuked from orbit by people with space weapons
(lawyers) like RM.

But we're talking past each other, you haven't really answered my
points about 192, or Dair's about accuracy of 'official' lists, and
you don't want to prove your point by doing it.. so it's all a bit
silly.

I am sorry I didn't realise you were awaiting a reply.

I am unsure what points you want me to answer.

The 192 case

a) it was proven for 192 and there was no case to answer for.
b) I am presuming they correct the information based on RM data? From the
case it was not clear. I am not, or ever have, proposed doing this.
c) we are taking a much smaller subset of the data. No postcodes, building
names, house numbers. Although you might think (and maybe we are) breaking
licensing on this it is a lesser offence.
d) they publish full searchable content online. We publish the content
online that we check by hand and not as much.

I mean I could just type all the streets in the index of a city AtoZ in to
check. Would you be more safe with that?


To be honest Dair mail I didn't even think he understood what I was trying
to do and didn't have time to explain as I have mentioned it before.

I am fully aware that they might not be perfect but what harm will it do
(all legalities aside) if you compare them with the OSM data?

We have an area that we think is completed in OSM and the only way we can
know this is well actually we cannot the only suggestion there was if it has
a load of roads mapped on it we think it might be mapped? That is a carzy
situation to be be in really. A basic benchmark would be to compare it to
*something*.

If we do say central london to an "official" source and there are say 100
roads in the "official" list that do not match up to ours. Potential
omissions, mistakes. Then someone/many people walk the streets and check
these questionable area and in the end we find that 10 of those roads the
"offical" source has "wrong" maybe some are Easter Egss, some simple
mistakes, or a street was recently renamed.

We will update/correct our OSM data and now it is more complete. Do you
agree?

In fact we have better street name data then the "official" source like
Royal Mail or OS. We could even let them know that we think there are
mistakes in their maps.

It doesn't matter if the offical maps are "wrong" but using their data our
can be more complete.

How else do you check?

Even if you believe that the current central London OSM street name data
(and that is all I am concerned with atm) is better than the OS/RM street
index data. It can do no harm (all legalities aside) to check this. OSM can
only improve. Who is going to check those areas again are we simply going to
leave it just to chance? This would give us pointer that an area/street
needs to looked at.

Does this explain more?

BTW looking again on google
http://www.londononline.co.uk/streetindex/
Maybe this would help for london at least.

A "complete" list? Even if it is not acomplete list we can compare it for
roads we may have missed.

Or would you not be happy if I cut and paste all that in a database a with 2
fields - street name and partial postcode. Could I use that info I presume I
could.

Cheers,
John
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