[OSM-talk] Suggestion more complete mapping verifactiion

Adam McLeod adam at adammcleod.com
Tue Sep 18 14:43:45 BST 2007


Comment Below

----- Original Message ----- 
Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] Suggestion more complete mapping verifactiion 
From: "John Baker" >;rovastar at gmail.com> 
Date: Mon, September 17, 2007 20:55 





 

 
I am confused why you think having a complete list street names is *not* imperative for a basic map.
 
What would a layman want from a map. Do you not think it containing the all the street in a given town is useful? How useful is a map with an unknown number of missing streets?
 
I would use OSM for looking up address and finding my way around London if I was confident in it. But as I know from the small amount of streets I checked there are missing roads then I will continue to use multimap, streetmap, etc instead. 
 
I don't understand how an absolutely complete map is necessary.  To me a map becomes useful once it has my starting point, destination, and a route between the two are present.  I don't live anywhere near London, UK, but it sounds like the road you give as an example as missing is a road that doesn't go to many places.  If there are little dead-end side streets and cul-de-sac's that are missing, that only affects people who are trying to get to an address on those streets.  The end user should be able to quickly see if their intended destination is present.  If it is, and there is a route to it, then the map is complete enough for them to use.  If the destination is missing, then they need to find a different map source to use.  (It would be helpful if they could add the data once they have made the trip, or have someway to indicate that there is missing data at their destination so someone else local can add it.)
 
As the map grows, so will its utility, but it is still useful today.  There have already been reports on this mailing list of people who have used OSM to get to a new destination.
 
Best Regards,
 
Adam
 
 
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