On 10/21/15 2:19 AM, Frederik Ramm wrote: > Hi, > > On 10/21/2015 04:46 AM, Ray Kiddy wrote: >> To me, OSM is a tool which is ideal for relating various information >> layers across a multi-dimensional substrate. This substrate is a >> two-dimensional geography, which is defined geographically. To me, it >> seems perfect for things like borders. > OSM is first and foremost a community of people curating a data set. > This process works best with data that is verifiable on the ground, > because if two community members disagree over something, the dispute > can be resolved by simply looking at the place. Also, the mapper > (surveyor) is the ultimate authority in OSM; we map what *is*, not what > some government says should be. > > We do have a few items that go against these principles, most notably > borders. They are not easily verifiable, and they are items where the > authority lies elsewhere - where OSM can only ever be a copy of some > master data being defined by a government, instead of being the > authoritative source. OSM is certainly not "perfect" for collecting and > curating such information; this is a fact and not a matter of personal > opinion. Having these borders in OSM is already a compromise where the > usefulness (high) has been weighed against the suitability of OSM as a > medium (low). > i agree with Frederik here, and would argue that most border information is misplaced in OSM; it should ideally be in another parallel database (possibly using the OSM stack, possibly in shapefiles or geojson files) where it can be used in mashups and/or overlays. we don't need to try and put everything into the one database.
richard -- rwe...@averillpark.net Averill Park Networking - GIS & IT Consulting OpenStreetMap - PostgreSQL - Linux Java - Web Applications - Search
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