[OSM-talk] Zero tolerance on imports

[Richard Fairhurst]

This is getting crazy.

Exhibit 1:
http://twitter.com/#!/maproomblog/status/39053538692698112

"Whoever imported CanVec in Aylmer, Quebec obliterated hours of work and 
introduced hundreds of errors. #osm #openstreetmap #whybother"

Once again, some keyboard jockey has decided that his l337 import skills 
are better than the knowledge and hours of work by a local mapper. The 
offender appears to be user 'sammuell' by the look of it - 
http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/sammuell - though he hasn't posted 
anything about his activities on the user page, the wiki, or indeed 
anywhere.

This is killing OSM. We are not here to provide a free API to government 
geodata that can be obtained trivially elsewhere. OSM is all about 
"added value"; by deleting genuine surveyed data in favour of mindless 
duplication of other, poorer quality datasets, we are _destroying_ value.

 From what I can tell (talk-ca postings etc.) 'sammuell' is a fairly 
inexperienced OSMer who presumably thinks "this is how things are done". 
It isn't. How do we stop this impression taking hold? How do we explain 
that imports are _not_ welcome except as a last resort, and if you do 
them, you _must_ follow a very, very rigorous set of guidelines?

cheers
Richard