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

[Suzan Reed]

I agree with JIm that smaller tiles seem to encourage mapping. Even though anyone can split a tile, it’s possible people aren’t comfortable splitting them. In Mexico, like Jim, I split several tiles in an area I was working, and next day many had been worked. Also like Jim I don’t think all of a task should be split into small tiles as there are many areas, as there were in the Mexico task, that have little going on and they should remain big.

So here’s the suggestion: Activators review the task and split tiles in the densest areas to encourage mappers to take on those tiles. Seems easy enough for them to do. 

It would also be good to always have the humanitarian aspect described in depth. Like most I am more inclined to map when I have an emotional connection to the people and the situation. Links to photos would also be useful. Buildings are different from place to place and it’s good to know what the structures look like, and it’s also good to see what’s happening on the ground to real people in the crisis. Sometimes I don’t think the task has enough human need explained, and the task is cold. I am mapping a large task that had links to the NGO working on the ground with photos of the situation. That dedicated me to the task. I’ve searched for photos of the area and found out what roads and the land looks like, and that’s really helped my mapping. It would be helpful if every activation had those links. Not difficult for the activators to add them. 

Suzan 
SReed


On Dec 9, 2015, at 7:04 AM, Jim Smith <seth006 at blarneystone.com> wrote:

I somewhat agree with Ralf’s point about tile size making a difference. When I went to help mapping for the recent Mexican hurricane, there was a section marked priority. Some non-priority surprise, the other split tiles were then being worked as well but still none of the non-split priority ones. I split a couple more and sure enough, those became actively worked on as well.
 
I used to think in terms of not splitting a tile unless it is massive but after that I realized it might not be a bad thing to split a few in a priority area just to get mappers started.
 
Splitting an entire area down may be counterproductive since they can’t be “unsplit” for areas that are found to be easy mapping but if you find an area being passed over, try splitting a tile or two and see if that helps get it started.
 
Jim
 
From: Ralf Stephan [mailto:gtrwst9 at gmail.com] 
Sent: Sunday, December 6, 2015 11:33 AM
To: hot at openstreetmap.org
Subject: Re: [HOT] Projects on the HOT OSM Tasking Manager - lots of them
 
The key for moving people from one-time to many-time contribution is motivation.
I have seen volunteers suddenly much more motivated when I commented with more
than a few words on a validation I did. But at least equally important is task and tile size.
Large tasks are tackled more than a few times only by long-time contributors. Why have
such big tasks when there is no hurry? I know I am more motivated if tile sizes are small.
I'm sure it's more so with new contributors, so why have such large tiles per default, if
they aren't completed anyway? Everything is made ever more casual, but I need 30-60
minutes to complete the smallest tile size to my satisfaction. Please increase the split
count AND make the default tile size smaller, or you will never get enough completed tiles by people who want to invest rather 15 than minutes.
 
Sorry for ranting
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