[OSM-talk] Proposal for import guidelines

[Jochen Topf]

I think there is a misunderstandig here. You seem to suggest that according to
those new guidelines you are supposed to import the data with one account and
then in a second step fix things with the normal account. This is not the case.
It has been a long-standing policy that (whether you do normal edits or any
kind of import) you are supposed to always leave the map in a good state.

In fact it is the biggest problem with imports that people do the import but
don't integrate the data with whats already there. The French community has
been doing that right all along.

Jochen

On Tue, Sep 25, 2012 at 11:36:51PM +0200, Eric Marsden wrote:
> Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2012 23:36:51 +0200
> From: Eric Marsden <eric.marsden at free.fr>
> To: talk at openstreetmap.org
> Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] Proposal for import guidelines
> 
> Thank you for making this constructive proposal. My feeling is that it
> would constitute a positive change to the current DWG import guidelines,
> which are greatly lacking in subtlety. 
> 
> Allow me to point out, and illustrate with the French cadastre case, a
> problem posed by the wish strictly to separate the "import" component of
> a bulk edit (corrected/checked building geometries) from the
> "integration" component (resolving conflicts with existing building
> geometries and their tags, improving highway geometries using the high
> resolution cadastre information, etc.). Under the current (French)
> community guidelines for integrating this data, these two steps are
> combined in a single changeset. Separating them would lead to a
> situation where, during the period between these two changesets, the
> database is in an inconsistent state (overlapping buildings, highways
> passing through buildings, etc.).
> 
> Whilst this temporary inconsistency in the data is not as severe as it
> would be in a software development project, for instance (the dreaded
> FTBFS), it is rather dirty and could lead to false alerts in error
> checking software.
> 
> Whether this data consistency problem is more or less significant than
> the improved tracability of data source copyright that is afforded by
> the proposed import/integration separation is debatable. In my view, the
> costs of the proposed change outweigh its benefits (at least as far as
> the French cadastre situation is concerned -- other bulk edits/imports
> will likely have different tradeoffs). 
> 
> -- 
> Eric Marsden
> 
> 
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-- 
Jochen Topf  jochen at remote.org  http://www.remote.org/jochen/  +49-721-388298