Re: [talk-au] Tracing items.
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: And if someone enjoys tracing roads or some other feature exclusively are we to tell them to go away because it's not our idea of the best way to spend their time on OSM? Missed the point of my suggestion totally didn't you. I am not saying don't do it just that if you want to improve the whole map in osm then here are some things that will help to do that. Good grief. Can we please all calm down? Really there is no need for such aggressive emails here. OSM is somewhat like a wiki. In a wiki people will contribute in different ways, basically scratching their own itch. I did most of the inner north Canberra suburbs with GPS. When the yahoo imagery became available I was able to compare the two. Yahoo was fine enough for positional accuracy, certainly within the error margin of an average consumer GPS in stream mode. We had a baby. At that point my ability to find time to ride or drive around getting GPS traces vanished. But I felt I could still contribute, using Yahoo imagery. I traced quite a bit of inner Canberra from Yahoo. I am confident that the georeference of the imagery around here is fine, and I am familiar enough with the areas traced that I doubt I made any more errors than gps mapping would make. I am also confident that my tracing has produced better *shape* in the roads than most mapping in OSM, some of which looks a bit like join-the-dots. And thats the thing. I liked tracing, and I liked getting the circles and curves of older Canberra to be just right. Yahoo was a great way to do it, and I think arguably much better than GPS, for shape. Yahoo imagery is a little out of date sometimes, where roads have been realigned, but I live here, and drive through these areas, and I doubt I have traced any errors. Overall, I got to scratch my itch. Then I found some of my local co-mappers writing negative emails and diary entries, somewhat like the opening of this thread, containing similar statements about Yahoo, and others frankly I don't understand, to the effect that it all has to be re-done anyway. I *think* that was because those areas needed to be visited again to get names and other features. The time consuming phase of doing really nice shape didn't need to be done again, but that wasn't *their* itch, so they I guess they didn't value that. Their itch was having many names and many features. So while I think I understand and value the contributions of my local fellow mappers, who have done a fantastic job of collecting other parts of Canberra, and of filling in many more feature types and names than I would ever have been bothered to do, I don't feel like my own contribution was valued. My enthusiasm dried up and I don't invest time in OSM now. I think Darrin made a perfectly fair point: Let those who want to contribute in their own way do it. Unless people do things that are substantively damaging to OSM, then whatever they want to contribute should be valued. Otherwise contributors are just driven away by those who think they understand everything and that their view is the only valid one. I think that not understanding that someone elses motivation or itch, is different from your own, is missing the point. cheers Andrew. ___ Talk-au mailing list Talk-au@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk-au
Re: [talk-au] Tracing items.
On Fri, Jun 6, 2008 at 11:34 PM, Andrew Loughhead [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Good grief. Can we please all calm down? Really there is no need for such aggressive emails here. Aggressive? You have obviously never witnessed the mortal combat of a real flame war. This is nothing - just a bunch of pussies tugging at a ball of string... I have been on lists where there have been threats of legal action and people have been excommunicated and banned for life! :) And thats the thing. I liked tracing, and I liked getting the circles and curves of older Canberra to be just right. Yahoo was a great way to do it, and I think arguably much better than GPS, for shape. Yahoo imagery is a little out of date sometimes, where roads have been realigned, but I live here, and drive through these areas, and I doubt I have traced any errors. Overall, I got to scratch my itch. At the foundation of this is the core of what OSM is - it is an Open Street *Map*. And maps are not reality; they are a functional representation. If we think we are building a community GIS then we totally are using the wrong tool set. For a street map it does not really matter that that every wrinkle is accurate and precise down to the finest resolution (the mere fact we fatten streets to accommodate their names ensures perpetual inaccuracy); only that the representation is meaningful. The extreme of this is the London Underground map - totally inaccurate spatially, but absolutely meaningful (I never get bored on the Underground because I spend the whole time reflecting on the transcendent zen-like reality, yet unreality, of this map). I lurk (also in inner north Canberra) on OSM not just because I like the visualization of spatial relationships, but because I find the sociology of a community building something fascinating (in the same way I am mesmerized by Wikipedia, not by its content and its coverage, but by the fact it exists at all and seems to work). If I want a pretty, well rendered, well registered and authoritative local map I use things like ACT Locate and ACTMAPi which are built on a grunty GIS; but I I want to feel good, I delve onto OSM. And the feeling good has nothing to do with the quality, coverage and presentation of the map, but with the fact that it exists at all and seems to work. An interesting about community information management projects, and I am involved in and contribute to a number, is that they never go exactly in the direction you want them to, but with a bit of effort you can sometimes influence the direction in which they are pointed. This is pretty confronting for control freaks, but fascinating to part of and witness in action... :) jim _ Jim Croft [EMAIL PROTECTED] I don't know why we are here, but I'm pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves. - Ludwig Wittgenstein, philosopher (1889-1951) ___ Talk-au mailing list Talk-au@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk-au
