[OSM-talk] Countries that have NOT had any imports?

[Katie Filbert]

On Wed, Sep 29, 2010 at 6:47 PM, Frederik Ramm <frederik at remote.org> wrote:

> Hi,
>
>
> Kai Krueger wrote:
>
>> Yes, more or less. Given that some people seem to be strongly arguing that
>> the use of third party data is "crap", "mindless" and "harmful",
>>
>
> ... among them myself, as you probably have noticed ...
>
>
>  I would like to get a feel for how "bad" the situation is and where there
>> are still "happy, undisturbed" communities left
>>
>
> Well there will certainly be lots of places with NO imports and also NO
> community but I don't think that would disprove the theory ;)
>
> Why not do it the other way round - identify places with a vibrant OSM
> community, then see if they've had any major imports. I might be stating the
> obvious but OSM community is certainly vibrant in most places in Germany,
> and imports have certainly played a negligible role in the data we have.
>
> Bye
> Frederik
>
> PS: I don't think the US is going to be a wasteland in terms of OSM
> community forever. I just think that without the TIGER import they'd have
> less data but much more community today. Then again I'm happy to admit that
> at the time the import was done, I thought it was a splendid idea, along
> with most others in the project probably - so it would be totally unfair to
> blame anyone who worked hard on getting that import done.
>
>
When I signed up for an OSM account (in 2007), I had thought that a GPS was
necessary to contribute.  I didn't have one and didn't really get heavily
involved until I got one sometime early last year.

Since I got a GPS and started contributing, I realize there is plenty to do
without a GPS, such as trace imagery & use walking papers... I could have
gotten started much sooner and don't use my GPS that much at all. :/
Without the TIGER imports, I think GPS would be more necessary (although we
could trace roads from imagery).  I think with TIGER, the barrier to entry
to get started mapping is lower and it's easier to do without a GPS, and
easier to build a community.  Trying to trace or collect GPS tracks for all
the roads across a vast country like the US is a bit daunting, even for an
experience GIS person such as myself. So, happy to have TIGER as a base to
work from.

Why I think OSM is slower to take off in the US is that our population is
spread out more and only in some major cities do we have critical mass of
people who might be interested in this sort of project.  (We have the same
issues with forming Wikipedia meetup groups and doing community activities
-- meetups groups are mainly active on the east & west coast in major
cities: NYC, DC, Boston, Portland, San Francisco)  It will be a challenge to
fill in and build a communities of mappers in the middle of the country, but
OSM has some mappers spread out and now a chapter to help organize
activities around the US.  Things look promising.

-Katie


>
> --
> Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"
>
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-- 
Katie Filbert
filbertk at gmail.com
@filbertkm
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