[HOT] Projects on the HOT OSM Tasking Manager - lots of them

Sun Dec 6 14:49:33 UTC 2015

Perhaps what we need to do is do a small reality check.  The HOT tile
system is geared up to one mapper completing one tile then a second mapper
validating it.  The first mapper then corrects any errors if any and the
tile is validated and marked completed.

Yes but that doesn't seem to be quite what happens.  In Nepal 70% of the
mappers mapped once and it was probably their first time mapping.  If you
invalidated a tile odds are the first mapper would never return to do any
corrections anyway.

I recently attended a physical maperthon, not a single tile was completed
despite instructions which were followed to split the tiles to the smallest
extent first.  Not knowing the userids at the maperthon I thought I'd go in
and validate / give feed back what had been done.

I validated one tile, project 1234, adding forty nine settlements to the
thirty that were already there.  I gave up on another tile, not the easiest
to map, at what distance do you decide two buildings are part of a
settlement?  But it had a fairly large number of mappers working on each
tile.  There has been no activity for the last nineteen days so I think we
can safely say that project has died.

The Ebola mapping, 101 mappers did more than 60% of the mapping.  3,500
mappers did less than 40%.

To me the more successful projects seem to have one validator and a small
team mapping.  Talking to an end user of the data they much preferred
validated maps, they were more reliable.

In Nepal I worked with a small team again and we went over the tiles
validated or not and revalidated them.  The data quality was so bad at one
point I just went in with JOSM validation and used that to clean up and
validate.  The rest of the team were good and went over the tiles looking
for buildings, normally they found 30% more and this was on both validated
and tiles marked complete.

On the other end of the scale I've looked at tiles that were complete but
not marked done.  Not every mapper feels confident enough to mark a tile
complete.

Having half a dozen mappers go over the same tile isn't really the best use
of resources and people's time.  We don't have enough mappers and although
they don't cost us anything it would be nice to move one or two from the
3,500 to the 101 catagory.

I still think for some mappers if they mark a tile done then it should be
automatically validated.  Yes somethings might be missed but I don't think
we're after perfection or at least I hope not, but the general quality of
work would be higher.

One thing we haven't touched on is the NGOs themselves.  They have
thousands of volunteers, perhaps if they want a particular project
prioritised we should make it easier for them to use their own resources.
I know the HOT training group is working on making it simpler to start
mapping for HOT purposes.

Rant over, I'll go back to sleep.

Cheerio John

On 6 December 2015 at 07:34, Martin Noblecourt <m_noblecourt at cartong.org>
wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> This is an interesting topic, I think what is important is to focus on how
> the data will be useful for responders & communities on the ground.
> On some requests (particularly for humanitarian operations), what we
> really need is to obtain a first overview of an area (villages & roads)
> fast. I've sometimes tried to put the focus on it using the instructions
> (e.g. the projects 1343 <http://tasks.hotosm.org/project/1343> or 1262
> <http://tasks.hotosm.org/project/1262>), however on both tasks I saw new
> mappers spending a lot of time tracing buildings whereas it wasn't
> necessary (yet), and (sometimes very) experienced mappers unvalidating
> tiles because a track was missing on a corner of a task. Although the
> latter were right to do so in absolute, in both case it wasn't really
> helping the task being completed faster (since lots of new mapper then
> spend time working again and again on the same task to get it perfect).
>
> My question is: how can we better highlight when a project is a "first
> pass" for which it is admissible to miss a few details in order for the
> project to be completed faster? And an additional one: on some projects
> part of the area to cover doesn't have imagery good enough to trace, could
> it be useful to add a button to specify that (different than marking it
> done & leaving it unmarked) to avoid several people looking at it again and
> again?
>
> Thanks & best regards.
>
> --
> Martin Noblecourt
>
> *m_noblecourt at cartong.org <m_noblecourt at cartong.org> | Bureau/Office: +33
> (0)4 79 26 28 82 <%2B33%20%280%294%2079%2026%2028%2082> | Skype:
> martin.noblecourt*
> CartONG - Mapping and information management for humanitarian
> organizations | Cartographie et gestion de l'information pour les
> organisations humanitaires
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Sat, 5 Dec 2015 20:28:50 +0100
> From: Blake Girardot <bgirardot at gmail.com> <bgirardot at gmail.com>
> To: "hot at openstreetmap.org" <hot at openstreetmap.org> <hot at openstreetmap.org> <hot at openstreetmap.org>
> Subject: [HOT] Projects on the HOT OSM Tasking Manager - lots of them
> Message-ID: <56633AF2.60902 at gmail.com> <56633AF2.60902 at gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed
>
> Hi everyone,
>
> Dale, among others have been working to update and review all the
> current projects on HOT's main OSM Tasking Manager:
> http://tasks.hotosm.org/
>
> After much work on their part, a lot of projects have shifted up in the
> list.
>
> If you have not had a chance to visit the tasking manager lately, it
> would be a great time to do so as there are a lot of new mapping
> projects and existing projects that need mapping.
>
> We really need more regular mappers as we get more and more requests for
> HOT mapping. HOT and OSM's value is being recognized by more and more
> humanitarian organizations and we are very challenged to keep up with
> the requests we get. Any amount of time you can donate to mapping is
> very helpful.
>
> Tweeting and Facebooking out the MapGive "Why Map?" video would also
> make a huge impact. They have easy to click twitter and facebook links
> on their why map page:
> http://mapgive.state.gov/why-map/
>
> And there are links to the learn to map videos they make as well.
>
> And of course, while you are tweeting and sharing about HOT, please help
> spread the word about our first ever direct fundraising effort:
> https://donate.hotosm.org/
>
> Cheers,
> Blake
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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> HOT at openstreetmap.org
> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/hot
>
>
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