[Geodata] wiki-nature geodata aggregators

[Arnulf Christl]

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Mikel Maron, OSM schrieb:
> Well said Andrew.
> 
> I'll also add that just because a geodata set has a stamp or
> "authority", and some apparent quality assurance process, does not
> mean that the resulting data is any better, or the process any more
> full proof, than the many eyes approach of OSM. 

True. At the same time for some it does make a difference whether an
authority of some kind stamps information or not. OSGeo may well (be)
develop(ed) into a kind of authority because it is not ...

> The "man behind the
> curtain" 

...but values openness and operates with a crowd sourced, transparent
but all the same traceable process. And it is in some ways independent
of the OSM die-hards. Independency is highly valued for stamping things.

> of authoritative geodata is that the processes are actually
> less comprehensive (a certain NMA that shall remain nameless does not
> even track which individual surveyor & cartographer were responsible
> for which bits of data) and often of lower quality. And that's with
> tremendous amount of more money and time than OSM has had!

Beware of such statements, I am pretty unsure whether it is ecologically
viable to move a crowd to map something or have one professional do the
same thing with - well - "professional" efficiency. This is not said to
devalue what OSMembers do nor overestimate what certain unnamed
OSurveyors do.

> Not to say that there's nothing OSM can learn from traditional map
> makers .. we're not that full of ourselves! But certainly there's
> widespread acknowledgement that "they" can learn from "us" as well.
> The efforts that Andrew mentions, to feedback crowdsourced data into
> official sources, are some of the most interesting problems in our
> field right now.
> 
> -Mikel

Well said.

Regards,

> ________________________________ From: Andrew Turner
> <ajturner at gmail.com> To: Martin Spott <Martin.Spott at mgras.net> Cc:
> geodata at lists.osgeo.org Sent: Saturday, July 25, 2009 10:03:41 AM 
> Subject: Re: [Geodata] wiki-nature geodata aggregators
> 
> On Sat, Jul 25, 2009 at 11:57 AM, Martin
> Spott<Martin.Spott at mgras.net> wrote:
>> Jo Walsh wrote:
>> 
>>> "It would be nice" to see a data quality push - not in terms of 
>>> comparison to proprietary sources, but in terms of peer review
>>> and of spreading, well, quality assurance, through the network
>>> back up to original data providers. How to do this without
>>> bureaucratic overhead (or while funding bureaucratic overhead)?
>>> Answers on a postcard...
>> No idea, as the conceptual 'design' behind all these data providers
>>  requires their sources to be "authoritative" in some way - a
>> criteria that is unlikely to be met by any effort which relies
>> primarily on crowdsourcing  :-)
> 
> I disagree. You're seeing OSM and GeoNames powering the data systems 
> of more companies and organizations. They are leveraging scale, 
> development and communities that none of these individual groups
> could begin to enable themselves.
> 
> There have been efforts to incorporate data back into original
> sources - a problem that has social, legal, and technical hurdles.
> Yet the onus can be on the receiving organization to incorporate this
>  potentially very valuable data instead of putting that burden on the
>  larger community itself to attempt to cater to each group.
> 
> What I think we'll see more of are organizations just embracing these
>  projects and data sources as their primary source itself and 
> enhancing. The problem here is the licensing for databases like OSM
> is "viral", so any changes would have to be opened back up - so the
> goal here would be to convince government and other agencies that
> their value doesn't lie in their hoarding the data, but curating and 
> ensuring it's coverage and accuracy in their specific areas of 
> interest. This removes the technical burden of them developing tools 
> (their not tool shops) or pulling together various domains and 
> connecting with regions outside their own area. The added benefit is 
> it engages them directly with the community that also cares in using 
> the data through these aggregation hubs.
> 
> Andrew
> 
>> Cheers, Martin. -- Unix _IS_ user friendly - it's just selective
>> about who its friends are ! 
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> 
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- --
Arnulf Christl
Spatial Systems Architect
WhereGroup www.wheregroup.com

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