[HOT] Squared buildings

john whelan jwhelan0112 at gmail.com
Mon Apr 25 14:11:29 UTC 2016


>Do people leave helpful comments when validating tasks?

I lead Missing Maps sessions where I'm often the only "experienced" OSMer.
I do tend to include squaring/circling buildings in my demo steps, and I
just bought a few cheap USB mice o have those available

More importantly, after the event I try to review at least one task per
user at the event. If I invalidate that task, I will try and find another
of theirs that I can validate. I'm told invalidating a task sends a message
(with the comment contents) to the user. Validating a task will send a
message to the user if I use @ and include their username. For tasks that
would be invalid, I either make sure I mention what I fixed or I invalidate
it (even if it would be quick to fix) to give the mapper a chance to see &
fix what they did wrong/missed.

I'm not great at reviewing, because often I find it hard to have the time
and I don't find the tools fast for finding/reviewing tasks of new users.
Not all users manage to use our event hashtag in the change comment.

I know it's not practical to leave a message on every task reviewed, but
maybe reviewers could aim to comment on ~5 tasks per reviewing session (or
10 per 100 they review, etc).
I appreciate those who do a lot of viewing. 100% green looks better than
100% orange.

>>>

First it works best when you can validate within a day or two of the work
being done.  The idea is to catch errors early on so they don't get
repeated.  Maperthons are a particular challenge the volume of work done at
a particular time and second leaving feedback to a person who will only map
once is a waste of time.  Generally speaking I'll just add missing content
rather than invalidate a tile and leave a comment, added twenty five
villages.  In Ecuador because of the volume of mapping I've just been
invalidating.

We don't have enough good validators but if you can find one and get them
to validate the project from the beginning then it has a snowball effect,
lots of green tiles gives a message this is a successful project, lots of
grey ones the opposite.  Most projects are in the lime light for about two
weeks if they don't get traction and a sort of team effect then they'll
probably never get completed.

Maperthons have another challenge buildings and iD, the matter has been
discussed already but if you can set up one or two mappers with JOSM and
the building tool that works best and we get less depressed validators.
The other big challenge of Maperthons is new mappers rarely complete a tile
so it makes it difficult for a validator to know where to check.  Get them
to split the tile as much as possible. They then stand more chance of
completing a tile.

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/OSM_Tasking_Manager/Validating_data

Cheerio John

On 25 April 2016 at 09:20, Gregory <nomoregrapes at googlemail.com> wrote:

> Do people leave helpful comments when validating tasks?
>
> I lead Missing Maps sessions where I'm often the only "experienced" OSMer.
> I do tend to include squaring/circling buildings in my demo steps, and I
> just bought a few cheap USB mice o have those available
>
> More importantly, after the event I try to review at least one task per
> user at the event. If I invalidate that task, I will try and find another
> of theirs that I can validate. I'm told invalidating a task sends a message
> (with the comment contents) to the user. Validating a task will send a
> message to the user if I use @ and include their username. For tasks that
> would be invalid, I either make sure I mention what I fixed or I invalidate
> it (even if it would be quick to fix) to give the mapper a chance to see &
> fix what they did wrong/missed.
>
> I'm not great at reviewing, because often I find it hard to have the time
> and I don't find the tools fast for finding/reviewing tasks of new users.
> Not all users manage to use our event hashtag in the change comment.
>
> I know it's not practical to leave a message on every task reviewed, but
> maybe reviewers could aim to comment on ~5 tasks per reviewing session (or
> 10 per 100 they review, etc).
> I appreciate those who do a lot of viewing. 100% green looks better than
> 100% orange.
>
> From Newcastle,
> Gregory (LivingWithDragons)
>
>
> On 17 April 2016 at 23:30, Jo <winfixit at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> And Jo hasn't been validating all that much building related tasks
>> lately. He only started again about a day ago, due to a Mapathon happening
>> nearby to him...
>>
>> Jo got distracted validating schools in Uganda and doing interesting
>> stuff with Python to add those to Wikidata as well. Or creating spreadsheet
>> formulas to help others add stuff caught in spreadsheets.
>>
>> Anyway, so even Jo gets tired of squaring the lot of them.
>>
>> I don't know if it's superimportant to make them rectangular. When I do
>> validate buildings, I like them to be squared because, indeed, I think
>> trapezoid shaped buildings look ugly when rendered. If they would be
>> trapezoid shaped in reality, this would probably not bother me though.
>>
>> Jo
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> 2016-04-17 23:19 GMT+02:00 john whelan <jwhelan0112 at gmail.com>:
>>
>>> ​Just to recap the problems, we start with iD not displaying the
>>> buildings in the tile, whether this is because the time has lapsed and a
>>> second mapper has started on the tile or iD not showing all the detail I'm
>>> not concerned with the reason simply the fact that to me its not reliable.
>>>
>>> Then we have mappers not using mice and not zooming in.
>>>
>>> Huts seem routinely to be one mapped correctly then all the next ones
>>> people come across are cut and paste of the first.  This means the size of
>>> many is incorrect.
>>>
>>> We have an expectation that if we look at the area of the building we
>>> can estimate the population.
>>>
>>> So we end up with a lot of approximately mapped buildings which we then
>>> ask people to square.  When we square we are approximating again which
>>> means the accuracy for building area goes down even further.
>>>
>>> Whilst Jo is happy to carefully inspect each building after squaring I
>>> probably don’t have the patience when faced with a large number and I
>>> suspect a fair number of validators feel the same.  Especially when its
>>> faster to go in delete the lot and remap with JOSM building_tool plugin.
>>>
>>> I think we can assume that a four sided building will have four sides
>>> when mapped.
>>>
>>> I personally think that a squared building looks better but from a
>>> functional point of view we know there is a building there, the aid workers
>>> have a map which shows them the location and if the four sides aren't
>>> perfectly square they will still be able to recognise it.
>>>
>>> My personal view is for four sided buildings some sort of image
>>> recognition software as the first pass followed by validation would give us
>>> much better accuracy and probably be faster.
>>>
>>> My second choice would be to use something like the building_tool plugin
>>> for JOSM. It would give us much better accuracy and people might even
>>> manage to get the building lined up with the four corners of the image.
>>>
>>> We could of course clone Jo but that might be difficult.
>>>
>>> Cheerio John​
>>>
>>>
>>> On 17 April 2016 at 14:40, Jo <winfixit at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi John,
>>>>
>>>> I'm validating tasks with many buildings in it and even though we
>>>> stressed on it for the Mapathon, I still find quite a few of them not being
>>>> made rectangular.
>>>>
>>>> So I started using this search to find all the buildings with 4 nodes:
>>>>
>>>> building inview nodes:4
>>>> Square them all, then search like this:
>>>> building parent modified
>>>>
>>>> So you can add all the buildings which have nodes that moved to the
>>>> todo list. Then you can use ] quickly to review them and see if it still
>>>> makes sense. use 'w' to move their nodes if needed, followed by 'q'. Then
>>>> ']' again to move to the next one. This makes it relatively efficient
>>>> without losing accuracy. It definitely beats ]q]q]q]q]q] :-)
>>>>
>>>> Then search again using:
>>>>
>>>> building inview nodes:5-
>>>>
>>>> to review the ones with more nodes.
>>>>
>>>> building inview nodes:-9
>>>>
>>>> also works to exclude round buildings.
>>>>
>>>> Jo
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> 2016-04-15 1:23 GMT+02:00 john whelan <jwhelan0112 at gmail.com>:
>>>>
>>>>> >2. Validation - either invalidate or fix.
>>>>>
>>>>> ​>​
>>>>> Step 1 is the preferable route but if people are working on their own
>>>>> or the turnout makes one on one assistance impossible, then it should be
>>>>> fixed in the validation step.
>>>>>
>>>>> ​I think less well under half of the mapped tiles in HOT have been
>>>>> validated and of those that have I'd say another 20+% wouldn't meet my
>>>>> personal standards and 50+% wouldn't meet Jo's.  I admit my personal
>>>>> validation standard is aimed more at making sure what is there is
>>>>> reasonably correct according to the project instructions.
>>>>>
>>>>>  So are you suggesting gold standard validation ie JOSM plugin todo
>>>>> list and each building is examined carefully before squaring?
>>>>>
>>>>> Is some form of bulk squaring acceptable?  On the grounds its better
>>>>> than nothing?
>>>>>
>>>>> If the tiles get invalidated who do we expect to come back and fix
>>>>> them?  Remember 99% of the "unoffical" maperthon mappers will never return.
>>>>>
>>>>> In the case of projects that have many of these types of buildings
>>>>> which may not be attractive to validate should we just ignore the problem
>>>>> and hope one day someone will gold plate validate the project.  It may even
>>>>> happen.
>>>>>
>>>>> Remember that validation is voluntary and validators can choose which
>>>>> projects to validate on and which to just ignore.
>>>>>
>>>>> I accept some of the big organised groups probably think they have
>>>>> proper training on their organised maperthons and tame validators to map
>>>>> their particular projects so for them the problem doesn't exist but think
>>>>> in terms of HOT generally, think in terms of the maperthons that take place
>>>>> with no experienced mappers.  They exist.
>>>>>
>>>>> I understand it is not an easy question and there are very different
>>>>> view points but I think we need to have the discussion and attempt to reach
>>>>> some sort of consensus of how to get the most out of the limited resources
>>>>> we have rather than have individual validators make their own pragmatic
>>>>> decisions.  One of which is delete them all and remap, its faster.
>>>>>
>>>>> Cheerio John
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On 14 April 2016 at 18:33, Clifford Snow <clifford at snowandsnow.us>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Thu, Apr 14, 2016 at 3:16 PM, john whelan <jwhelan0112 at gmail.com>
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> So your suggestion on how to deal with the existing poorly mapped
>>>>>>> buildings would be?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> 1. Determine the cause(s) of the poorly mapped buildings. Do we need
>>>>>> more helpers in MM mapathons? The last one I did, we had a number of new
>>>>>> mappers. Those of us helping were stretched just answering questions. Not
>>>>>> being able to spend time going over people work. And yes - we did teach
>>>>>> squaring buildings. We also recommended people bring a mouse to the
>>>>>> session. One of our team brought extra for people to use and I even lent
>>>>>> mine out. Drawing features without a mouse is difficult. We've even
>>>>>> suggested to Red Cross that they have a bag of mice to lend during MM
>>>>>> events.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> 2. Validation - either invalidate or fix.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Step 1 is the preferable route but if people are working on their own
>>>>>> or the turnout makes one on one assistance impossible, then it should be
>>>>>> fixed in the validation step.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Best,
>>>>>> Clifford
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> @osm_seattle
>>>>>> osm_seattle.snowandsnow.us
>>>>>> OpenStreetMap: Maps with a human touch
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> HOT mailing list
>>>>> HOT at openstreetmap.org
>>>>> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/hot
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
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>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Gregory
> osm at livingwithdragons.com
> http://www.livingwithdragons.com
>
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