[OSM-talk] Import guidelines & OSMF/DWG governance

[Frederik Ramm]

Marc,

On 18.09.2012 21:53, Marc Sibert wrote:
> I thing the point is not why my account was blocked, but why someone
> have the right to block an account and whatfor ?

I think that we need import guidelines, and we need people who can block 
those who don't follow the guidelines, otherwise having guidelines 
doesn't make sense.

Many reasons have been given in support of the "separate account" rule 
in the guidelines already. But let me add one more thing:

Others have said that you are a respected and well known mapper in 
France. If that's true, then I think that you should lead by example. 
Even if you feel that in your particular case you don't need a separate 
account - create one anyway, because others will follow your example, 
and if the message you send to new mappers in France is "don't bother 
about those silly policies" then we'll have people violating *other* 
aspects of the policy - even those you would agree with! - in no time.

Just like a professional pilot with thousands of flying hours' 
experience will still execute all procedures "by the book" instead of 
taking shortcuts that his experience would allow him to, a long-time 
respected mapper should also play by the book and be a good example to 
others.

> In fact DWG people just don't like imports and are jalous of the
> "opendata" wind in France. Your anoying !

The amount of open geodata in the world is several orders of magnitude 
more than what we have in OSM. Decisions need to be made about which 
parts of that are worth importing; import everything and OSM comes to a 
grinding halt.

DWG does not have an "imports are bad" policy but if it were for me, 
personally, I would require from every importer an analysis about how 
the import does not only make the *map* better, but also makes the 
*community* better. Imports to help the community would be acceptable; 
imports "instead of" community would not.

Today, France has 50% more data in OSM than Germany. I am not jealous of 
that. I would be jealous if France had 50% more mappers and I sincerely 
hope that the French community can find ways to engage more people to 
help. But for all its data glory, the number of people who have made 
more than 100 edits this year in France is about 3000, and the same 
number in Germany is about 6000. This means - very roughly of course - 
that the average French OSMer must keep three times as much data current 
as the average German mapper. And you can't do that with imports forever 
- there comes a time when you'll have to switch to "maintenance mode".

Bye
Frederik

-- 
Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"