[OSM-talk] Why place matters, slides from Vanessa Lawrence talk

[Andy Robinson (blackadder)]

Martin Trautmann wrote:
>Sent: 11 January 2008 1:23 PM
>To: talk at openstreetmap.org
>Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] Why place matters, slides from Vanessa Lawrence
>talk
>
>In-Reply-To:
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>BxJAAABAAAACtW5g9OngPRZB3DHNbBhrxAQAAAAA=@googlemail.com>
>
>On 2008-01-11 12:49, Andy Robinson (blackadder) wrote:
>> I've been surprised just how much extra data can be added
>> just by taking a little time over each street and I've found a few
>features
>> that really should have been on the map already, despite being less than
>> half a mile from my home.
>>
>> I'm not suggesting for one minute that the verification task is easy or
>> quick, but it is necessary.
>
>Is OSM that far that we need verification and quality ensurance?
>
>We are still far from completeness, which might be a primary goal.
>
>I checked two of the major federal states in Germany by now, comparing the
>data with other street lists (maps, addresses etc.)
>
>http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/North_Rhine-Westphalia
>http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/Baden-W%C3%BCrttemberg
>
>As long as we got less than 50 % of the most important street names (and
>Germany is about 10 %) I do not mind yet that much about verification.

Ah, but some areas are more than 90% "complete" or in some cases 110%
depending upon the amount of the map you look at and do a like for like
comparison. My local area is probably at the 95+% stage (when compared with
typical street level maps) so verification is a logical next step. At other
times of course I'm mapping locations which have much less than 50% coverage
at this time.

OSM will never have a unified level of coverage but then most of the
competition doesn't either, just look at the Caribbean islands in the
different map engines and you will see that coverage is totally hit and miss
there too. Many other bigger examples if you look around the world.

>
>Don't get me wrong: verification is important. But I feel that precision,
>vandalism (version management) or licensing are equal and secondary goals.
>OSM may have a major strength just as a good wiki when it offers a
>reasonable base, while it may be much more up to date than man other
>sources.
>

Agreed these are important areas too. Each to his own and his own
capabilities. All of it needs doing at some time or other.

>Is there any comparison about the amount of data within current commercial
>systems, compared to OSM?
>

Making comparisons is a rather fruitless exercise because it's extremely
difficult to know how good the data is between providers. It might look like
a good map but is it really? The comments made recently regarding China and
the AND data there are an eye-opener.

>- Martin
>
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Cheers

Andy