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| GeoCommunity Mailing List |
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| Subject: | [gislist] TOOL or Science Re: topic change |
| Date: |
01/11/2007 05:10:00 PM |
| From: |
DickBoyd .. aol.com |
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In a message dated 1/11/2007 2:01:35 P.M. Pacific Standard Time,
dslamb@acewater.com writes:
Perhaps the
broader issue is that some folks are tired of getting tool questions,
Tool questions are good, but specific software questions might best be
answered by customer service of the providing company, in my opinion. Direct
questions to the company can result in better quality control and better education
on the specific tool.
If there are a lot of questions on a data set or a lot of questions on a
specific procedure, the supplier can develop a solution. If one person asks the
questions there are maybe five others that have asked the same question and
developed five different "solutions". And yet another ten that asked the
question to themselves and decided it wasn't worth the effort to pursue further.
And still another twenty with the same question waiting for someone else to ask
for a solution. Asking a specific tool question at a general discussion,
such as gislists/geocomm cuts the company out of the reporting loop.
Perhaps the moderator can invite the companies to monitor this list. If a
specific question comes up, the company can provide a link or contact the
individual directly. Does this violate some type of non-commercial policy? Perhaps
the software developers could post from time to time with the most popular
questions?
A weakness that I see in the way people ask questions is that the company
FAQs are not all that clear on what topic is covered. A cursory search of FAQs
results in no hits. So the question is submitted, in different words, and a
new thread is started where a topic already exists.
I don't know if quality would be considered in the "science" or tool
category. How do you handle centerline connectivity problems? If the original code
contained "snap to" instructions, the depiction shows as being connected. If
the break was at a county line or intersection of roads, the snap to may have
gotten lost somewhere in the data massaging. If you are using GIS for routing
purposes, how do you check that the roads are really connected, not
connected, or have some limit to use, such as grade, seasonal flooding, load limit,
etc?
Many are users of the Census Bureau's TIGER data sets. TIGER has numerous
breaks in roads. Not a big problem for a census taker, as they are most likely
local and are hired for knowing the roads. But what of an ambulance service
that hires drivers from out of the area? Do the Emergency Service Offices proof
their data sets for application?
There are other continuity problems. If fire departments have inspection
duties and there are "holidays" in the data, how will they be detected? Or will
there be areas that don't get inspected?
OMB A-16 is neither tool or science. OMB A-16 is more policy, politics and
law. Is there a place for OMB A-16 and the National Map on this site? Or is
there a place for how each state handles GIS policy?
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