[Geodata] Ok, I'm here . . . (Tiger stuff.)

[Christopher Schmidt]

On Tue, Jun 24, 2008 at 12:11:32AM -0700, Mikel Maron, OSM wrote:
> OSM in the US was kickstarted with TIGER import from 06. Now it's
> being improved and enhanced directly by OSM contributors, and through
> import of other data sources. For instance, check out the wind farms
> and power grid.
> 
> http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=37.716&lon=-121.61707&zoom=15&layers=B00FT
> 
> Essentially, we've branched from TIGER, and I wouldn't expect or
> necessarily want any automated imports .. it would overwrite the good
> work of OSM users, with frankly, poorer quality data. 

I think there is a general consensus that 07 is better in some places
than 06, and Dave Hansen, who managed the TIGER update, seemed
relatively confident in the ability to update the existing data (iff the
data hadn't been manually updated in the meantime), or at least the
ability to look into it.

There are going to be huge areas of the country that simply don't have
any mappers in them, but may have updated TIGER information: I think
that taking the position that "OSM Mappers will simply make it better in
every way than TIGER" is a bit egocentric. Certainly, there are many
cases where this is the case -- anywhere where there are active mappers
-- but there are still less than 20,000 OSM contributors worlwide still,
I think, and there are nearly 4000000 square miles in the US -- 200
square miles per contributor, even if they were all in the US, is a lot
of land to cover accurately. (Some mappers have covered much more, I'm
sure, but the long tail says that most mappers will cover much less.)

My .00002 cents (damn USD).

Regards,
-- 
Christopher Schmidt
Web Developer