Hi all, I have been reading most of the exchange about the different approaches. My take on it is that the entire discussion is missing something that is in my view much more important than the quality of the data at the moment of important: I am much more worried about imports for a completely different reason, and that is data maintenance. Even if data were 100% correct at the moment of import, they deteriorate over time. If the data are imported directly into the main database, you have no choice than to maintain them manually from then on, and you need to have sufficient poeple on the ground to spot changes in the data set, including the imported data. If the external data were not imported, but kept in a separate external-data layer, the situation could be different, because you would have the option to refresh the external data form time to time. But this is not the data model of OSM.
And in that respect there are most likely differences between countries. I can see this difference between Italy and Germany: Germany has many more mappers per map feature than Italy has. That is why there are less imports (I suppose) in Germany in the first place, and that explains why they are generally much less import-inclined than the Italian mappers. But Germany could deal better with the data maintenance thanks to more mappers in the field. In Italy we have many imports, but the imported data is generally of poor quality, we simply do not have the manpower. Formulated another way: the quantity of imported data in an area should take into account how much maintenance manpower is available for that area. Where there are less active mappers, don't be tempted to compensate by by more imports, simply keep the map simpler. I should point out, that I have no idea what the relative mapper per feature ratios are in he US compared with Germany. Volker (Padova, Italy)
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