Talk:Import/Guidelines
Discuss Import/Guidelines
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Declaration of consent
If people who are grabbing data and running imports are following these instructions properly (Import/Guidelines#Make sure data license is ok) then we won't have a problem, but we should perhaps formalise the process a little more, so that the Foundation has something in writing from people who have supposedly agreed to give us their data. Something along the lines of wikipedia's 'Declaration of consent' form
-- Harry Wood 16:09, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
- Some interesting examples of this already on the wiki: Category:Authorisation_of_Use -- Harry Wood 02:15, 9 May 2011 (BST)
Are imports bad?
The first wording seems to me a bit too negative and more expressing personal taste. So I've rewritten it in a hopefully more neutral way, keeping the original idea "community and publicity is fundamental", and hoping not to rebuff potential collaborators. We should reach a consensus on this point before more editing of this section on the main page.
Many imports have been done and there is no reason to belittle those contributions. For instance the Coastline import is great and quite complementary to mapping parties (anyone wants to walk along the cliffs of the whole country to replace the coastline import? - just kidding). I think it is fine if people work on importing data if it is their preferred way of contributing. And some of them will get addicted and become regular, outdoor mappers!
Of course not everything should be imported. Importing is a community work too that can foster collaboration. Jrouquie 15:46, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
- Are imports bad? Actually there is some evidence to suggest that the answer to that is "yes". I don't think they are always bad, but clearly they are not as obviously good as a lot people seem to think they are.
- When you say "And some of them will get addicted and become regular, outdoor mappers" your thinking is all back-to-front. We're talking about somebody who has the audacity to be running scripts plonking lots of data into OpenStreetMap. I expect this person to have a full and complete understanding of how the OpenStreetMap community works, how we build maps (the community way), what kind of accuracy we work towards, and what kind of work would be involved within editing software to fix up data after an import. As far as I'm concerned, anyone who is not an addicted regular outdoor mapper is absolutely not welcome to run import scripts, and this page should make that clear.
- Don't get me wrong. Clearly somebody who comes along with great technical skills can contribute a lot to the project, and obviously we shouldn't turn them away. But running import scripts... that requires a good understanding of more than just how to use our API. If the text of this page puts somebody off running import scripts, then maybe we didn't want them doing it anyway.
- -- Harry Wood 15:10, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
source tag
I dislike the recommendation of adding a source= tag at each node of a way during imports. This adds a lot of overhead to the data. I would find it better to recommend uploading imports with a separate user account dedicated to that import. The source of any given data would still be clearly identifiable, the resulting data in OSM would be smaller. source= tags on ways are reasonable and appreciated.
User:Bass 20:45, 20 September 2009
reviewed tag
I'd like to suggest that all bulk import data (maybe not nodes...) have a reviewed=no tag, possibly prefixed with the source, and have JOSM and Potlatch display these differently (as with tiger:reviewed=no). It's impossible for the uploader to review all the data they are uploading and inevitably there is erroneous or outdated data. I find this functionality (with TIGER data) very useful because I can quickly identify regions which need attention and focus on those. -Oleklorenc 21:31, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
- I don't find it useful. In fact I fix up quite a lot of TIGER data and don't bother changing/deleting the reviewed tag, thus making it less useful for everyone else. Why do I do this? Because a lot of TIGER fix-up is mind-numbingly tedious, but can be done quite quickly. The last thing I would want to do is add several extra clicks to the process (deleting tags) for every element I work on. In the case of TIGER it seems like just another waste of database space. When creating the TIGER Edited Map Matt found it much more useful to just look at when the data was last edited.
- Mind you other people feel differently about it, and I guess other types of import are different too. We have a review tag on the NaPTAN/Import (just UK bus stops) which seems more reasonable for example. Even then though, I'd hate to think new users might be put off editing by the perception that there are complicated review processes to be followed. If a bus stop is in the wrong place, move it to the right place. That's it! You've made a useful contribution!
- -- Harry Wood 11:32, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
- I agree that we don't want to have a complicated review process for editing data, but I don't find selecting a few ways I've edited and deleting the reviewed tag that tedious. And, of course, those who don't want to bother with it don't.
- Maybe it's just me and my OCD, but I actually enjoy reviewing TIGER data against GPS tracks and aerial imagery and removing the yellow border. I feel that the real value of the reviewed=no tag is identifying data that was not drawn by someone with specific knowledge about the data they were creating (I don't mean to put down the GIS departments that created the data...), be it GPS tacks, imagery, etc., but an unreviewed bulk import. When I look for the next area of the map to work on, I assume data without the yellow border as being consciously created by someone with some amount of accuracy and focus my attention on areas with lots of yellow borders.
- The reason for bring this topic up on the talk page is to get a sense of how different people feel about and use the reviewed tag. But the "This page has been accessed 62 times" at the bottom of this page makes me feel that this won't get much exposure... -Oleklorenc 23:23, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
