On Sat, Nov 14, 2009 at 6:22 PM, Dave Hansen <d...@sr71.net> wrote: > There are still quite a few squeaky wheels that > like to grumble about TIGER, but I haven't heard a single person say > that it did more harm than good.
It did more harm than good. As someone who has worked with TIGER data repeatedly, on a far larger scale than most people, I will say: It did more harm than good. As someone who spent 8 weeks working to clean up enough roads to make one, solitary, viable connected road across the US, I will say: It did more harm than good. As someone who has actually tried to fix the disastrous double imports, which have remained untouched for over 2 years, I will say: it did more harm than good. And as someone with a detailed knowledge of how OSM works on many different continents and situations, I will say: it did more harm than good. And of anyone in the discussion, let nobody accuse me of not knowing what I'm talking about. I have spent 10 times as much time on TIGER fixup - both in projects and by helping other people - than anything else in openstreetmap over the last 12 months. But here's the worrying point, no matter how much time I spend trying to explain the problems with imports, I'm just a "squeaky wheel" to the pro-import guys. The tiger import has done more than anything else to ensure that OSM in the US will be years and years behind what it could otherwise be. The way to get back up to speed, build communities and build the best map of the world is to move on from the failed approach of imports, and to open your eyes to what is done day in day out in Europe - without making excuses that the US is somehow different. But that won't happen. Despite all evidence to the contrary, many people will continue with the idea that if only there were *enough* imports, OSM in the US will stop being lame and start being awesome. It won't. Every import just makes it take longer and longer and longer to build the community that is needed. It'll get there in the end, but every national-scale import sets back the end result by years. Cheers, Andy _______________________________________________ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk