[Wikimedia-l] TomTom does a Britannica

[Anthony]

On Tue, May 29, 2012 at 10:56 AM, Tom Morris <tom at tommorris.org> wrote:
> On 29 May 2012 15:28, Anthony <wikimail at inbox.org> wrote:
>> And I don't foresee OSM ever being able to catch up.  Google is very
>> much a moving target.  While OSM is working on catching up on
>> geolocation (address to lat/lon) information, Google is micromapping
>> to the level of detail needed to program a self-driving auto.
>>
>
> OpenStreetMap is working on whatever the contributors want. ;-)

Whereas Google is working on whatever the users want.  :-)

That said, even this is somewhat problematic.  There is somewhat of a
tension in OSM between micromappers and non-micromappers.  Not quite
as bad as in Wikipedia between "inclusionists" and "deletionists" -
for the most part OSM mappers aren't going to outright delete
additional information.  But there have been disputes over, for
example, whether or not it is okay to include short turning lanes in
the lane count.

On Tue, May 29, 2012 at 10:48 AM, Strainu <strainu10 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2012/5/29 Anthony <wikimail at inbox.org>:
>>> ...if you wanna go this way, I wonder if you "go to en.wikipedia.org
>>> and just use it" if you want to plant tomatoes in your garden. I know
>>> I wouldn't.
>>
>> I wouldn't use Britannica either.  The context of the article is GPS
>> navigation for automobiles.
>
> I'm sorry, I don't quite get it. When you said that Wikipedia was
> usable in the real world, I assumed you meant that you can use
> Wikipedia as an encyclopedia for reference in different aspects of
> daily life. Now you're saying that you can somehow use Wikipedia for
> GPS navigation for automobiles?

Nope.  I am challenging the following assertion (put in SAT jargon):
OSM:tomtom::Wikipedia:Britannica (that is, "OSM is to tomtom as
Wikipedia is to Britannica).

In the case of Wikipedia:Britannica, they are compared based on their
usefulness as encyclopedia articles, not on their usefulness as how-to
books.

In the case of OSM:tomtom, in the context of the tomtom article, they
are being compared based on the their usefulness for GPS navigation
for automobiles.