[HOT] Why we fail mapping Ivory Coast ?

[Dietmar]

Hi,

i'm a novice hot mapper and first time active in Japan now.

In the first time, a lot of people from other countries were active in
japan. If seems to me, that now even there are very few people still working
remotely on it.

I suggest, the number of people, who really stay on a theme, when the
locally or worlwide public focus lost, is very low.

On the german talk-de mailing list, very soon after 11th of March, a thread
started, if we got information, who could use our newly added data in japan
in the desaster area. I thought, it was very early to await a feedback from
there, but sooner or (not to late) later feedback from the hot areas back to
the remotly engaged people would help really to stay the interest on the hot
areas.

More generally, working on hot themes: i feel a big gap between my standard
osm community in germany, in contact via mailing lists oder forum threads
and my locally osm group in town versus the other part of osm, the hot
group.

For me, it seems to be a closed or better say, a small, very engaged (timely
and deep) group of people and it seems to me hard to get in contact and
possible to find a place for me there.
There were two invitations to come close to the group: february in haiti and
i got the information of a camp end of march in bretagne, france. Both were
unfortunately to far away for me.
If there would be a meeting or weekend in germany or, for example, at the
sotm europe in vienna, it would help to bring the hot view to new osm
people.

And it would be very good to get information, what kind of support could
help, even when the interested mapper has not so much time to spend.

Greetings,

Dietmar

  -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
  Von: Frédéric Bonifas [mailto:fredericbonifas at gmail.com]
  Gesendet am: Donnerstag, 21. April 2011 13:36
  An: hot at openstreetmap.org
  Betreff: [HOT] Why we fail mapping Ivory Coast ?
  Hi,

  I have noticed that the participation in mapping Ivory Coast isn't huge.

  We usually have no data sources. So we spend time tracing with landsat,
defining the areas of interest, trying to get images, and complaining about
the lack of available data sources.

  For Ivory Coast we are in the contrary case : we have tons of satellite
images but no one to trace over it.

  Perhaps you are currently mapping another area ?
  Perhaps you don't see the interest in mapping Ivory Coast ?
  Perhaps the data sources available were not promoted enough ?
  Perhaps quality of available satellite imagery is too bad ?
  Perhaps the communication around the usefulness of this mapping action
wasn't good ?
  Perhaps the media did not talk a lot about this crisis ?
  Perhaps ... ?

  This is really a "naive" message, without pre-conceived ideas, just to
understand why we fail and how we can improve.

  Thanks

  --
  Frédéric Bonifas
  +33672652807 skype:fredericbonifas
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