http://forum.manifold.net/forum/t91596.9
OK, it's a very small sample set but I think he does have some valid concerns.
OpenStreetMap
http://forum.manifold.net/forum/t91596.9
OK, it's a very small sample set but I think he does have some valid concerns.
Discussion
Comment from drlizau on 3 December 2009 at 09:19
In fact a sample of one. (S)he reminds me of certain people within my own profession who believe they are the fount of all wisdom, because they are "specialists" while generalists like myself consider them to know "more and more, about less and less". (S)he needs some consumer input, to provide a broader view of life.
Comment from Gregory Williams on 3 December 2009 at 09:36
I think that they also need a better understanding of Chaos and order can actually arise from a chaotic system.
Comment from acrosscanadatrails on 3 December 2009 at 09:43
Perhaps showing walkingpapers.org and asking the 'professional' to help make it look better :)
... here's what i did. I'm sure a professional can do something better.
Pointing out the negatives is certainly much easier than taking time to learn what all is possible.
Apparently, even as the OSM tools get better, there is still that learning curve that people need to go through to fully understand the foreign concept of 'sharing data'
Comment from Richard on 3 December 2009 at 09:47
Avid Manifold users are well known for being, shall we say, a little unbalanced. Look through the archives at spatiallyadjusted.com for more.
Comment from davetoo on 3 December 2009 at 14:36
I'm still reading the paper proposed as a rebuttal, at this link: http://www.geog.ucsb.edu/~good/papers/457.pdf Only partway through, but a good read.
Comment from robert on 3 December 2009 at 22:25
Thanks for the link. It gave me a good giggle.
Perhaps he should look at that example of the wonders of Professional Mapping that is TIGER before he makes blanket statements about "QA" of "Pro" vs. "Amateur" mapping.
Comment from Unusual User Name on 4 December 2009 at 03:24
OSM will never be all things to all people.
A properly prepared cartographic map is a thing of beauty, brimming with useful detail and information(and usually quite a few years out of date). OSM is quite a way off matching the output, but can win on currency.
However, most people never go within coo-ee of cartographic output, they just use street directories, and ones that are many years old at that.
Hell, Google Maps is really popular, and it's often bloody awful.
OSM is pretty respectable, and improving all the time.
The real strength of OSM is not the Mapnik rendered map, with a slow and not clever search function (but improving - Nominatim is a step up), but having data that you can get your hands on and obtain it easily, and it's fulfilling that function better all the time.
I'm impressed at the improvement in my local area over just one year. Waiting a couple more years is quicker than trying to get data out of government, which will probably have problems with it anyway.