<html><head></head><body><div class="ydpe07a1963yahoo-style-wrap" style="font-family:verdana, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:13px;"><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">Hi Bert,</div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">Note that I am the original author of the Highway Tag Africa wiki page (not HOT) and that many volunteers contributed to enhance it <a href="https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Highway_Tag_Africa" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Highway_Tag_Africa</a>. And we prefer prior consultation before this wiki page is edited for revisions.<br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">At the beginning of this thread, Dave (aka <span>dfjkman</span>) described quite well the reality of the highway system in Africa.<br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">While I coordinated the OSM North Mali response in 2013, I observed similar problems with seasonal flooding of large territories including villages and roads, plus the quality of highways in such context. Since then, many have approved the philosophy of this wiki page where we classify based on the economic and social role of the highway and not the appearance.</div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">About the quality of building mapping, good observations have already been made in this thread similar to analysis I have published over the last years.</div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">It is quite a challenge to map dense african cities. I agree that we cannot obtain good results using outdated images. Often,. the lack of details and quality of satellite imagery limits the possibiliies to map. This is surely not a task for newcomers. If AI softwares do observe the same inaccurate imagery, they surely wont do better.<br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">HOT and Missing Maps partners have often justified Building Mapping projects to support Vaccination. But how the too often bad quality data can help ? And why they never come back to enhance the data?<br></div><span style="font-style:italic;color:rgb(0, 0, 191);font-weight:bold;"> </span><div class="ydpe07a1963signature"><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><span style="font-style:italic;color:rgb(0, 0, 191);font-weight:bold;"></span><span style="font-style:italic;color:rgb(0, 0, 191);font-weight:bold;"><font style="background-color: inherit;" face="garamond, new york, times, serif">Pierre </font></span><br><span style="font-style:italic;color:rgb(0, 0, 191);font-weight:bold;"></span></div></div></div>
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Le dimanche 1 août 2021 11 h 55 min 41 s UTC−4, Bert -Araali- Van Opstal <bert.araali.afritastic@gmail.com> a écrit :
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<p><font face="Verdana">I am from Uganda and also mapped in South
Sudan, Kenya, Tanzania and the DRC.</font></p>
<p><font face="Verdana">The situation here is described well and is
even worse, yet nothing has improved over the years, the
opposite, it has worsened.<br clear="none">
It has to be described in the correct context though. Before we
had HOT projects here, there was hardly any mapping in Africa,
still today, it will be hard to find any very active local
mappers not involved in the "HOT building mapping projects for
beginners".</font></p>
<p><font face="Verdana">HOT does not only dominate the mapping
activities, it does also rule the local chapters. Local chapters
are registered by HOT payed members, local chapter members are
all HOT volunteers, naturally, focusing and organising events to
support HOT projects only. <br clear="none">
The core issue: lack of resources, financial means. HOT was
helpful in the past, providing means, including financial
facilitation and IT resources, but has become more and more a
vehicle to support it's ever growing organisation and overhead.
It has become more and more dependent on powerful corporate
financiers, ESRI, Facebook etc... alike, using non open source
tools and corporate non open source resources which reveal or
violate the privacy of OSM members. Well beyond and
contradicting to the free and open source philosophy of OSM.<br clear="none">
Over time, the issue has grown due to the sheer extend of their
projects, not only in bb size, but also in the number of
changes. A local mapper or organisation, without financial
support, can hardly compete with thousands of low quality edits
and damage on a daily basis.<br clear="none">
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<p><font face="Verdana">My experience with HOT has been positive in
the way that I tried to establish some "HOT independent" local
guideline activities. After some initial interest, mostly from
HOT volunteers, it has stranded, due to lack of active
participants willing and able to deviate from the HOT interests.<br clear="none">
That is a normal reaction though, if you lack even the basic
resources like a laptop, affordable internet or a basic income
to support these, you can't do much. When you get facilitation,
for those lucky ones it's a means of income, not volunteering.
Competing with volunteers from across the world who do have
those means, feeling sorry for the poor African and jumping in,
with good intentions, but actually hindering the local
communities in getting a durable solution and access to
resources.</font></p>
<p><font face="Verdana">Compare it with the aid for healthcare,
education etc... . You don't solve these by financing projects
and sending health specialists or teachers ("HOT humanitarian
managers" or the few "OSM specialists" among them) from more
prosperous regions. Engagement, training, management by locals,
supported in every way, even as a basic income, is a possible
outcome. HOT tried this, hardly succeeded, local project
managers, volunteers, rarely respond to any comments outside the
HOT environment, let alone are willing to follow advise or
guidelines not created by HOT. Again, understandable due to
their financial dependencies, intention to slavishly follow
whatever HOT management or board decides, to support HOT's
projects since they provide the financing. Remain non-creative
and innovative mapping thousands of simple building outlines and
roads and deleting anything you come along which I was not
trained for by HOT or unfamiliar with.<br clear="none">
We are in a vicious circle here, one which HOT can break by
changing it's policies, or which we as a global OSM community no
longer accept, act against, as a protection and a means of
inclusion for the less fortunate among our communities and
adhering to our initial goals and code of conduct.<br clear="none">
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<p><font face="Verdana">The Africa highway tagging is a result of
and created by HOT. It even has a request on the page not to
edit it's contents without consulting HOT. Not that it is bad,
at least it is something we can use as a guidance. But it is not
a result from a true local African community.</font></p>
<p><font face="Verdana">Greetings,</font></p>
<p><font face="Verdana">Bert Araali</font></p></div></div></div>
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