[HOT] The status of iD in HOT contexts/projects

Mon Sep 30 17:22:06 UTC 2013

So conflicts *are* a problem but not a show stopper so far. The main
bummer is that if you have a conflict then all your edits are toast,
period. Reload and start over.

We have people saving after every single edit of any consequence. Problems
occur when people don't follow that advice.

We have had a few mysterious error messages pop up that I can't trace.
I'll try to document tomorrow for clarity's sake.

Robert Banick | GIS Coordinator | International Services | Ì American Red
Cross <http://www.redcross.org/>
2025 E Street NW, Washington, DC 20006
Tel 202-303-5017 | Cell 202-805-3679 | Skype robert.banick

On 9/30/13 1:17 PM, "Banick, Robert" <Robert.Banick at redcross.org> wrote:

>Ditto here. That actually starts today, in like an hourŠso we'll see how
>we do.
>
>Robert Banick | GIS Coordinator | International Services | Ì American Red
>Cross <http://www.redcross.org/>
>2025 E Street NW, Washington, DC 20006
>Tel 202-303-5017 | Cell 202-805-3679 | Skype robert.banick
>
>
>
>
>
>On 9/29/13 4:19 PM, "Kate Chapman" <kate at maploser.com> wrote:
>
>>Hi Robert/All,
>>
>>I wanted to mention we'll be using iD as well for the mapping begin
>>this week in Haiphong. It is currently the only OSM editor with decent
>>Vietnamese support. I'm a bit concerned about conflicts during our
>>training, but intend to use the Tasking Manager to try to avoid that.
>>
>>Best,
>>
>>-Kate
>>
>>On Sat, Sep 28, 2013 at 4:21 PM, Banick, Robert
>><Robert.Banick at redcross.org> wrote:
>>> Hi John et al.,
>>>
>>> Thanks for the update!
>>>
>>> Acknowledged that imagery may have to wait a while. C'est la vie ‹ I
>>>know
>>> you all are kept quite busy as things are.
>>>
>>> Regarding conflict detection, I think myself, Kareem Ahmed, and the
>>> wonderful folks at the Kathmandu Living Labs will have a lot more
>>> constructive feedback after our training this week. We'll keep a
>>>running log
>>> of issues with all the softwares we're using and report back regarding
>>>the
>>> highest priority fixes for iD. Overall I agree that a full blown
>>>versioning
>>> editor is beyond scope for iD ‹ we just need something a little more
>>> user-friendly than the current error messages.
>>>
>>> Many thanks to Simon and the Operations Working Group for their GPX /
>>> Waypoints help!
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>> Robert
>>>
>>>
>>> Robert Banick | GIS Coordinator | International Services | Ì American
>>>Red
>>> Cross
>>>
>>> 2025 E Street NW, Washington, DC 20006
>>>
>>> Tel 202-303-5017 | Cell 202-805-3679 | Skype robert.banick
>>>
>>>
>>> From: John Firebaugh <john.firebaugh at gmail.com>
>>> Date: Thursday, September 26, 2013 11:35 PM
>>> To: Robert Banick <robert.banick at redcross.org>
>>> Cc: "kathleen.danielson at gmail.com" <kathleen.danielson at gmail.com>,
>>>william
>>> skora <skorasaurus at gmail.com>, "hot at openstreetmap.org"
>>> <hot at openstreetmap.org>, Tom MacWright <tom at macwright.org>, Simon
>>>Johnson
>>> <SJohnson at redcross.org.uk>
>>>
>>> Subject: Re: [HOT] The status of iD in HOT contexts/projects
>>>
>>> Will, Robert,
>>>
>>> Thanks very much for the thoughtful feedback. I've mentally updated
>>>some
>>> priorities, and can give you a status update on a few of the items you
>>> mentioned:
>>>
>>> - GPS layer: see
>>> https://github.com/systemed/iD/issues/277#issuecomment-25187237
>>> - Waypoint support in GPX traces: thanks to Simon Johnson's work, this
>>>will
>>> be included in 1.2.0, which I've just submitted to OSM.org.
>>> - Imagery offset database: this is another feature where a pull request
>>> would greatly expedite things. It's on my radar, but not a top
>>>priority.
>>> - Conflict detection: this could range from 'periodic preemptive check
>>>for
>>> new data', which might be fairly simple to implement, to 'full blown
>>> detection and resolution', which is very complex and likely out of
>>>scope
>>> entirely for iD. It would be helpful if you could add your opinion on
>>>what
>>> the necessary scope is and ideas for specific changes to the issue.
>>>
>>> cheers,
>>> John
>>>
>>>
>>> On Tue, Sep 24, 2013 at 8:06 AM, Banick, Robert
>>><Robert.Banick at redcross.org>
>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Hi Will,
>>>>
>>>> Super helpful feedback. I agree with your specific points but not with
>>>>the
>>>> overall thrust of your argument. Given that I'm about to conduct a
>>>>training
>>>> next week using iD, I hope I'm right :)
>>>>
>>>> Some constructive responses:
>>>>
>>>> Simon Johnson of the British Red Cross has been working on the GPX
>>>>point
>>>> layer since last week and has submitted a pull request to have it
>>>>fixed. I'm
>>>> not sure what the status of that pull request is but selfishly hope
>>>>that
>>>> it's incorporated by next week. Tom, John et al, any ETA on that?
>>>>
>>>> I'm planning on using the tasking manager to organize the iD tracing,
>>>>with
>>>> the hope that we can avoid conflicts this way. I agree that conflict
>>>> resolution is fairly poor and hope to get around it that way. Any
>>>>experience
>>>> on your end doing this?
>>>>
>>>> I never plan on relying on Bing anyways, since it's too fuzzy in many
>>>> rural areas of the developing world to be of any use. That's not the
>>>>fault
>>>> of the iD team of course, just the reality of imagery availability in
>>>>its
>>>> current state.
>>>>
>>>> Robert
>>>>
>>>> Robert Banick | Field GIS Coordinator | International Services | Ì
>>>> American Red Cross
>>>>
>>>> 2025 E Street NW, Washington, DC 20006
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> From: "kathleen.danielson at gmail.com" <kathleen.danielson at gmail.com>
>>>> Date: Tuesday, September 24, 2013 8:49 AM
>>>> To: william skora <skorasaurus at gmail.com>
>>>> Cc: John Firebaugh <john.firebaugh at gmail.com>, "hot at openstreetmap.org"
>>>> <hot at openstreetmap.org>, Tom MacWright <tom at macwright.org>
>>>> Subject: Re: [HOT] The status of iD in HOT contexts/projects
>>>>
>>>> Great example of constructive feedback, Will. I'm sure that Tom, John,
>>>>and
>>>> team really appreciate it!
>>>>
>>>> On Sep 23, 2013 11:00 PM, "Will Skora" <skorasaurus at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Robert Soden mentioned the interest of using iD for OSM-related
>>>>> trainings during today's HOT tech chat. While in Northern Haiti for
>>>>> the CAP103 project in May-June 2013, a handful of the advanced
>>>>>mappers
>>>>> in Northern Haiti had learned about iD and wanted to learn how to use
>>>>> it, and I attempted to give 2-3 informal brief walkthroughs.
>>>>> afterwards, I wrote my experiences about it and then forgot to share
>>>>> them with the HOT community until now and thought it would be useful
>>>>> to share since we haven't discussed the use of iD in HOT contexts.
>>>>>
>>>>> First off, I truly admire the work done for iD. Its development has
>>>>> been rapid, the developers are very friendly, humble, and responsive,
>>>>> they set an example for the OSM developers' community. I understand
>>>>> that iD developers have other competiting priorities to help improve
>>>>> the editor but there's several issues that I've experienced and as a
>>>>> result, would really hesitate to use iD in HOT contexts where these
>>>>> issues would be appear.
>>>>>
>>>>> - Lack of a GPS layer
>>>>>  - you can currently upload a single GPS track to display in the
>>>>> background, but you are not yet able to load the entire background of
>>>>> GPS traces from OSM of a given area.
>>>>>  https://github.com/systemed/iD/issues/277
>>>>>  Although the quantity and quality of imagery sources available has
>>>>> increased in recent years, there's still a handful of areas in the
>>>>> world where there's no traceable imagery available, often in areas
>>>>> where HOT has operated . In these instances, mappers still have to
>>>>> rely solely on GPX points and GPS layers to map.
>>>>>
>>>>> - Lack of waypoint support in GPX traces
>>>>> https://github.com/systemed/iD/issues/1557
>>>>>  As we often take waypoints as we often take GPS traces and write
>>>>>down
>>>>> information that describes the area associated with the corresponding
>>>>> waypoint.
>>>>>
>>>>>  - In some areas, bing imagery is 'offset' - a road traced with bing,
>>>>> for example, may be 30 or 50 meters away from where it is on the
>>>>> ground. To fix this, 'offsetting the imagery' is necessary. At the
>>>>> moment, iD has the capability to adjust imagery, but the adjustment
>>>>> must be manually done each time a user opens iD to edit OSM.
>>>>> Secondly, without a GPS trace layer (mentioned above), a user does
>>>>>not
>>>>> know whether the data already mapped to OSM are currently offset or
>>>>> not. This is a bit problematic to newer OSM users who may move data,
>>>>> believing that it should match up with bing imagery.
>>>>>  https://github.com/systemed/iD/issues/1124
>>>>>
>>>>>  - conflict detection
>>>>>   - no way to detect conflicts. This is problematic when there are
>>>>> mapping parties and mappers are editing in areas very close to each
>>>>> and you may be editing the same ways as your fellow users.
>>>>>   https://github.com/systemed/iD/issues/1053
>>>>>
>>>>> At the moment, iD is a great editor but the above issues can be quite
>>>>> problematic in some HOT contexts (that don't have great imagery for
>>>>> example) and would be considered dealbreakers in these HOT
>>>>> environments.
>>>>>
>>>>> Given the rapid development of iD, we may even have to reasses it in
>>>>> just a few months. Until then, we should keep iD on the back burner.
>>>>>
>>>>> Regards,
>>>>> Will
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> HOT mailing list
>>>>> HOT at openstreetmap.org
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>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>
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