[OSM-talk] Yahoo updates aerial imagery

[Jonathan Bennett]

Robert (Jamie) Munro wrote:
> I note that near where I live, someone has traced the edge of the high
> resolution imagery and tagged it:

> Do people agree with this example? If so I'll add it to Oxford and any
> others I come across.

I'd disagree, and even go so far as to say tagging things like this is 
dangerous:

* It's not geodata -- it doesn't represent any physical or 
administrative feature of the area in question, so it shouldn't go in 
the database

* It will go out of date relatively quickly

* It's of limited use anyway -- what are you going to do with this info? 
Areas covered by high-res images still need surveying for street names, 
restrictions, amenities, and so on. If you're tracing images, you can 
see where the high-res section ends without needing a Way to show you.

* Depending on how large the high-res area is, it can mean mappers 
having to download a way which is much, much larger than the area 
they're editing: Someone has put in such a way for the London area, 
which ends in the Guildford area, so I often end up downloading a 
281-node way  which is 40 miles across when making changes to a single 
square-mile section of map.

This kind of administrivia doesn't belong in the map database itself.

Jono