[OSM-talk] is OSM a fake map.

[stevea]

OSM is not a "fake map."  OSM is a crowdsourced map, pretty good in many places, even excellent in others.  Does it have errors?  Yes, as do all maps.  Do these errors diminish and does the map improve over time?  For the most part, yes, unlike many maps.

If you don't like OSM or find it doesn't suit your purposes, you do have the option of not using it.  If you find errors in the map and you are able to correct them, the people in this project certainly appreciate that, so please feel free to do so if you find yourself so inclined.

If you wish to criticize the map without being constructive about it, you may not find many helpful or sympathetic people here, as unconstructive criticism is not especially helpful.  It is not the case that "all mappers are tracing."  Some do, yes, but others "walk, bike, ride a train, trace-via-GPS" and enter these data into OSM, certainly in places where there is tree cover that prevents aerial / satellite imagery from displaying what is underneath it that might be interesting and correct to map.  This enters "better" data (than tracing something which may be wrong, or when tree cover frustrates that kind of source data from yielding any helpful data to enter).

So, I'm at least one person who DOES say that OSM isn't a fake map, and those are only some of the reasons why.  There are plenty of other reasons and plenty of other people who agree with me.

SteveA
California