On Sun, 15 Apr 2012, Andrew Allison wrote:
From what I see there are some conflicting arguments here.
I think the question posed in the subject 'good or bad' is the wrong one. Is
there a way we can have our cake and eat it too? Can we get most of the
benefits from all of your below arguments?
What conclusions can the Canadian community learn from our import experience
during the past 3 years?.
We have tried 95% automated bulk imports (ie the road imports I did in
Alberta and Ontario)
We have had mappers import an entire Canvec tile at once via JOSM
We have had mappers import a feature at a time in a single canvec (or
and other sources) tile
I remain unconvinced that the regions in Canada that have had imports have
had their local mapper communities harmed by these imports. I don't see the
regions (in Canada) that have had fewer imports or delayed imports having
better local community development than places (in Canada) that have had
extensive importing.
I also feel that not of all data sources are equal. Even within Canvec some
layers are excellent (ie roads and lakes in most of the country) while
others are often so out of date it isn't worth the time to import (ie
buildings in much of Southern Ontario)
When I was doing license replacement for roads I found it easier/faster to
just trace over the GeoBase WMS layer(I don't consider that 'importing').
When I had to replace some lakes I found copy/pasting the features from the
Canvec .OSM files produced a much better result (importing?).
Steve
1 Building a community of mappers to add features to the map. Ideally
local.
2 Canada is a huge country. I doubt that there are that many people
willing to commit to mapping every nook. I'm sure the amount of No
Trespassing signs itself would prevent it.
3 OSM is promoting itself as a "competitor" to google.
4 I would suspect most mappers are not aware of the license change
coming and the resulting impact.
Given the size of Canada, and the few mappers we have. I my self could
not and probably would not have never walked / driven on every road,
trail, river, lake forest etc without some else doing an import first
which I myself used a base to improve OSM.
I don't see any possible way to have a map without an import to use as
a base.
To counter my own points, Yes, you will find some people who see a
great white spot as a challenge. But looking at the changes made locally
I would think most people would rather tweak an existing road or park.
Andrew
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