I hate to step into this flamefest, but: Having traveled around the US, I've been really glad the tiger data is there. Often it seems like there have not been a lot of edits, and it's way better than nothing.
I heard about OSM long ago, and I think noticed the map was blank in mass, and found it too daunting. I had gathered trail tracks and was going to make my own maps starting around 1999 (with differential even), but never got around to it. I re-found-out about OSM last winter, and have been editing when I have time - my town is now in pretty good shape, including trails in conservations lands. So all in all I'm very appreciative of the imports having happened (thanks Dave, Chris, and I'm sure others.) Regardless, TIGER data has been imported, and the only question is the way forwward. The thing that seems missing is an organized approach for replacing mass imported data with better mass imported data. I view this as similar to a revision control system. Logically, the tiger/massgis/canvec/whatever data lives on a 'vendor branch', like in CVS. (I realize the osm db has no such concept.) When there is new tiger data, one can say: For every way in the old import, if it hasn't been touched, then replace it with the way in the new import. The hard part is defining "hasn't been touched" usefully - someone adding a side road could perhaps still be merged automatically, with the side road contacting the replacement way at about the same place. This is the equivalent of when cvs can automerge changes to a file in different lines and decide that this is ok. We need this for vector data... (I know, ENOCODE...) It might also be possible to get local consensus. People are naturally and rightly highly reluctant to damage human-done work. But if you can gather the people, look at what might be, and say "yes, on balance that's way better, let's do it and then pick up the pieces", it's reasonable to go ahead - even if it would be rude without talking to people. Of course, that assumes that people who mapped will answer messages and discuss briefly, but that seems only fair.
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