[HOT] validation

john whelan jwhelan0112 at gmail.com
Sun Jun 28 13:00:50 UTC 2015


The problem with email addresses are that when Nepal started up we had
several thousand new mappers in the first few days, if even 5% contacted
the email address the person gets swamped and burns out.

Maperthons, 1093 and 1094 I did quite a bit of validation on these, much of
the initial mapping was done in Maperthons and the quality was uneven.

Examples of projects where I've validated as things were completed are
http://tasks.hotosm.org/project/976
http://tasks.hotosm.org/project/686
http://tasks.hotosm.org/project/689

There are a couple of others that I validated and mapped on that are now
complete.  Currently I'm sitting on http://tasks.hotosm.org/project/1087#
http://tasks.hotosm.org/project/687 http://tasks.hotosm.org/project/688

The problem is how do you bring this type of project to a newcomer's
notice?  I happen to be a bit selective on the projects I sit on and
validate, generally speaking I prefer good imagery and avoid projects that
ask for buildings.  Yes a tile of 500 buildings looks wonderful but I work
with a small number of mappers and they aren't the most popular projects
with them.

If you put something in the task instructions then people have to read them
and there seems to be a tendency to just map first and read the
instructions afterwards.  In African villages highway=pedestrian isn't on
the list of highways for Africa in the wiki.  Once you nudge them once or
twice there is far less clean up to do when validating so ideally a tool
that showed any new mapper who has mapped would be very nice but it isn't
going to happen overnight.  More validators would be nice but they need to
be tactful, have read the instructions and also have some knowledge and
experience.  I recall one of my tiles was bruskly invalidated because I
hadn't mapped something that was not required in the instructions.

My initial reaction was quite strong, the exact words I thought were
perhaps not appropriate to repeat in the mailing list, and I can't help
feeling with a new mapper they might well have wandered off and done
something else.

So how can we do something?

Thanks John


On 28 June 2015 at 07:35, Dale Kunce <dale.kunce at gmail.com> wrote:

> John and Susan I love this idea. The Missing Maps projects are generally
> really good for new mappers. We could set up a couple of tasks outside a
> mapathon just for this purpose.
>
> Would you once a list of people you can contact in the task instructions.
> These folks will also be the ones responsible for being the validates and
> Mentors
>
> On Sat, Jun 27, 2015, 9:21 PM Suzan Reed <suzan at suzanreed.com> wrote:
>
>> John mentors me, and it's been extremely valuable to have him gently
>> mentioning problems.
>>
>> Having a list of projects for new people where they can get some
>> mentoring as they learn to map would be exellent. Being isolated isn't
>> easy. Being on a team and working with other mappers encourages us to do
>> more mapping, and it's more interesting and dare I say, fun.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Suzan
>>
>>
>> On Jun 27, 2015, at 6:11 PM, john whelan wrote:
>>
>> I normally keep an eye on about three or four projects and validate any
>> tiles that get marked done on those projects usually within a day or so and
>> often within an hour or two.
>>
>> Working like this I find I can gently mention problems to newcomers and
>> strangely enough the projects get finished off.
>>
>> Could some one think of a way to have a list of projects that are
>> validated in this way that newcomers can find easily so they can get a bit
>> of support and don't feel too isolated.  It would need commitment from
>> someone to validate a project rather than the project manager adding it to
>> the list.
>>
>> Yes I understand that Maperthons are wonderful and looking over someone's
>> shoulder is useful but there are people who find getting to Maperthons not
>> so convenient and it would be nice to cater to them.
>>
>> Thanks John
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