[HOT] Issue with Harare project - 1649

Thu Mar 10 21:26:45 UTC 2016

Hi, this is a ‘long-term’ discussion that can easily ‘go-off’ on many tangents.

Currently you can either have an ‘open’/public project or a private project on the Tasking Manager.  We (HOT the org and/or community) can’t ever ‘prevent’ other people from participating in OSM; to me this seems to be a ‘protest’ regarding some projects, probably because this person has a personal connection to the area and is worried about what will happen when ‘we’ solicit a bunch of random/new people to map the area.  It is a valid concern, especially if this person is a local and has some ‘sense of responsibility’; even if not – and they don’t really have any more say than anyone else, they can ‘complain’ and engage in ‘edit wars’ if they choose, at that point we (as HOT or individual mappers) can really only reach out to the individual and/or the OSMF/DWG for assistance.

To cover another of Martin’s points – HOT (the Organization) has a ‘standard’ set of practices for our Activation Coordinators, but our instance of the Tasking Manager has many other people/organizations creating projects (and the protocol is only ‘required’ during an HOT declared incident).  I’ve ‘eluded’ to this before, but I think at some point in the (near) future, we (as an org) need to establish a ‘minimum requirement’ for everyone who is creating projects on our installation – the TM is open source, one of the reasons – if you don’t want ‘our audience’ to participate, you can set-up your own.  Anyone who is interested in creating projects for HOT during disasters (or want to get a head start on any PM requirements); I would suggest taking the Activation Essentials, Task Management and HOT Validation (and Data, Imagery and Usability if you want to ‘go all out’) courses here: http://courses.hotosm.org 

Cheers,

=Russ

From: Nicholas Doiron [mailto:nickd at codeforamerica.org] 
Sent: Thursday, March 10, 2016 9:59 AM
To: Martin Dittus
Cc: Martin Noblecourt; hot at openstreetmap.org; Russell Deffner
Subject: Re: [HOT] Issue with Harare project - 1649

> can project owners currently block certain users from using the Tasking Manager? Would it make sense to do so? 

This feature will be necessary at some point if not already. We all believe in good intentions, and the success of Task Manager means that good intentions is a good starting point. But looking forward, it's better to have the feature ready than to find someone sabotaging Task Manager during a natural disaster or a pilot by a new partner org.

This feature doesn't block users from editing OSM or reverting changesets, so I think it's ethical within the OSM world.

-- Nick Doiron

On Mar 10, 2016 8:37 AM, "Martin Dittus" <martin at dekstop.de> wrote:

It seems to me there are really three separate concerns here.

1. Resuming Martin’s project. Russ addresses this.

2. OSM data quality discussions around HOT newcomers. That’s a big topic and an ongoing discussion, and is maybe best discussed in the places Russ mentions. Any such incident is probably best be referred to such a forum, however HOT members should be active participants in such discussions, so Martin please share links if you post to one of the OSM lists.

It may also be a good time to review data quality concerns that have been raised, and find some kind of consensus approach to dealing with them. For example a “best practices” doc for HOT coordinators (which may already exist). This will then help have such a discussion.

3. Dealing with uncooperative contributors. Without knowing the details, it seems to me that this individual has decided to take matters in their own hand and disrupt an existing process. While their intentions may come from a good place, their acts are hardly constructive. I'm concerned that this issue might not simply go away. Furthermore, it may also spill over into other projects.

As a community member I think this action was transgressive to a point where it warrants a slightly more formal response; for example a polite email by a HOT organiser with an invitation for dialogue, and a request to stop. I also don’t think Martin should be tasked to deal with the issue by himself; it seems he hardly caused the conflict, he merely happened to coordinate the project, which is one among many.

An idle thought — can project owners currently block certain users from using the Tasking Manager? Would it make sense to do so? Such a block would be easily bypassed, and might stoke the flames rather than stop the issue.

(Martin, you’re welcome to contact me off-list if you want support for any of this, however I should also say I’m not formally a HOT member.)

m.

> On 10 Mar 2016, at 15:20, Russell Deffner <russell.deffner at hotosm.org> wrote:
>
> P.S. Martin,
>
> The Activation WG does not handle 'edit conflicts' or really any conflicts as we have plenty of those internally for coordinating HOT stuff.  You also started with 'Dear OSM community' - just to clarify - this list is the 'HOT community'; to address the larger/general OSM community you would want to email talk at openstreetmap.org - and if you do need 'intervention' with another mapper, that's the OSMF Data WG (http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Data_working_group)
>
> Happy Mapping! (let me know if you need help 'resetting'/invalidating all tiles in 1649)
> =Russ
>
> Russell Deffner
> Russell.Deffner at hotosm.org
> Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT)
> http://hotosm.org
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Russell Deffner [mailto:Russell.Deffner at hotosm.org]
> Sent: Thursday, March 10, 2016 8:04 AM
> To: 'Martin Noblecourt'; 'hot at openstreetmap.org'
> Subject: RE: [HOT] Issue with Harare project - 1649
>
> Hi, Just a quick note - you can now 'invalidate all tiles' from the misc tab as a Project Manager; so no need to re-create.
>
> Also this user http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/rab - although they have a long OSM history, I wouldn't call them 'expert' as they still don't use changeset comments correctly after 8 years :)
>
> =Russ
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Martin Noblecourt [mailto:m_noblecourt at cartong.org]
> Sent: Thursday, March 10, 2016 7:51 AM
> To: hot at openstreetmap.org
> Subject: [HOT] Issue with Harare project - 1649
>
> Dear OSM community,
>
> I'd like to get your feedback about what happened on the following
> project: http://tasks.hotosm.org/project/1649
>
> This project have been marked as completely done by one single mapper
> without tracing, under the argument new mappers would damage existing
> data. The area is indeed already well mapped but also a lot of data is
> still missing (including rivers, roads and buildings) and it is pretty
> easy to trace so I doubt the project will damage the area (unless
> contribution to OSM is now reserved to "experts").
> Another argument we received was that some of our previous Missing maps
> projects (such as 1465/1466) were a "complete quality disaster"...
> Although still unfinished and requiring an important work of validation
> (like all TM projects...), we strongly disagree that these projects were
> a disaster: they allowed mapping large areas that weren't mapped
> previously at all - which is in fact the goal of Missing Maps...
> The road network in particular still requires work of
> standardization/clean up, but this is quite common on TM activities too
> (getting mappers, whether they are new ones or experienced but not used
> to the African context, to properly tag roads, is a long-term
> challenge). Starting from scratch mapping of an area is as everyone know
> a work that often requires several steps.
>
> We intend to recreate the same project on the TM as it will be a waste
> of time to invalidate all the tiles again, please let us know if you
> don't think it is the appropriate way.
> Feedback are of course most welcome on the tasks created by Missing
> maps, we have in fact already had very interesting conversation with
> great validators and will be happy to hear from more people as long as
> it is respectful of everyone :-)
> (I someone thinks this message should to be forwarded to the Activation
> working group too, please do so since I'm not on it)
>
> Thanks for your feedback,
>
> Martin & Violaine for the CartONG team
>
>
>
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>
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