[HOT] Why the HOT obsession with low quality buildings in Africa ?

Tue Jul 3 13:56:14 UTC 2018

 Hello everyone,
I am Mohamet Lamine Ndiaye, a founding member of the Openstreetmap Senegal
community and the main contributor on the mapping of the Bâtit at the level
of the suburbs of Dakar.
Thank you Jean Marc for your comments and I think this is the umpteenth
time we talk about it and during your last visit to Dakar you could hold a
training on advanced editing techniques JOSM and quality control with
OSMOSE and this has been a great contribution to the quality of the work.
However, it should be noted that in terms of the quality of the images and
the density of the mapping areas, the contributors find it difficult to
distinguish the actual boundaries of the Buildings from the actual impact
on the quality of the building. Nevertheless, this does not preclude the
use of these data in large-scale and highly resilient projects for the
populations.
The Sunugox project at the level of the Dakar Suburbs in five communes
financed by the European Union is done on the basis of this mapping and the
results were conclusive. Another example, as part of the World Bank's Open
Cities project, the basic data are those that have been mapped by the
community at Saint Louis since 2014. And a work of updates will be done by
the people. speakers at the project level. This is basically what motivates
this work of mapping buildings.
Today, if we have drones imgeries we could make updates but also the fact
that projects use this basic data.
Today, the availability of drone imgeries or the fact that projects use
this basic data could help update the data and also meet the aesthetic
needs.
Other things, you should know that there are neighborhoods that do not
benefit from subdivision and non-harmonized architecture of some lots do
not promote aesthetics.
Having contributed to several activations, the quality of the images and
the level of resolution found in these areas is greater than that of our
countries and this affects the level of detail. So many parameters to take
into account.
What is important for me is that we have to start with something and
although these data are of inferior quality, they respond to operational
needs on the ground in case of disaster or flood for the organizations that
intervene on the zone.Also if we have data released by the cadastre we will
be able to make updates based on the subdivision and this will answer the
aesthetic concerns. For that, an important advocacy work will have to be
done at the level of the public authorities.

2018-07-03 8:46 GMT+00:00 Rupert Allan <rupert.allan at hotosm.org>:

> Two words: Disaster Response
>
> Although OSM will break down without its hard-won reputation for accuracy,
> there is also the case for 'some data being better than no data'. It's the
> old argument, I think, but for us this data is vital, however incomplete.
> We work with aggregated data:
>
> Building materials and standards are used to map: Cholera, Malaria,
> Earthquake risk, general poverty levels, flood risk, vulnerability to
> infection, TB outbreaks, population per building, whether structures are
> temporary (refugee) permanent (hosting community), fire risk (spreading).
> These are practical/technical elements not always at the forefront of the
> digital mind.
> When we plan a $10million intervention with only $3million, we need to
> know the areas where there is most risk.
>
> A simple look at OSM metrics of, say, thousands of grass rooves amongst
> tin rooves in a fire, or hundreds of mud walls instead of concrete in an
> immanent flood, really helps. At this point, this data directly impacts
> and/or saves thousands of lives.
>
> That's my obsession.
>
> Best,
>
> Rupert
> *Rupert Allan*
> Country Manager - Uganda
> E-Mail: rupert.allan at hotosm.org
> Uganda:+256777656999 (mtn) /+256792297795 (africell)
> UK: +447970540647
> Skype: Reuben Molotov
>
>
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>
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>
>
> On Tue, Jul 3, 2018 at 7:12 AM Lists <blslists at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I concur with the points made by Jean-Marc Liotier. As Deming said in the
>> 50's, it is important to build quality into the process, not depend on
>> checks after the fact.
>>
>> Along those lines, I still think that we could have an AI program do a
>> big part of the initial mapping.
>>
>>
>> Bryan Sayer
>>
>>
>> -------- Original message --------
>> From: Jean-Marc Liotier <jm at liotier.org>
>> Date: 07/02/2018 10:58 AM (GMT-05:00)
>> To: AMEGAYIBO Kokou ELolo <amazanake at gmail.com>
>> Cc: talk at openstreetmap.org, hot at openstreetmap.org
>> Subject: Re: [HOT] Why the HOT obsession with low quality buildings in
>> Africa ?
>>
>> On Mon, July 2, 2018 11:55 am, AMEGAYIBO Kokou ELolo wrote:
>> >
>> > The majority of these tasks were created in training workshops on
>> > OpenStreetMap in Bamako, quality control work is done afterwards by the
>> > local community normally. I share your points of view, but for training
>> > workshops it is our best method to channel, control the work of the
>> > newbies and also familiarize them with the use of the Tasking Manager.
>> > I am open to any contribution who can help us improving our approach.
>>
>> I understand the difficulty of getting large numbers of new contributors
>> started with Openstreetmap - mistakes are normal and must be accepted as a
>> cost of growing the project. Nevertheless, I think that there are ways to
>> keep that cost lower.
>>
>> First, and most important, I believe that quality control should not be
>> relegated to "done afterwards" - especially with less proficient
>> contributors who are most likely to make mistakes, and especially if they
>> are enthusiastic (it pains me to see incredible dedication in go to
>> waste). Quality control must be an integral part of the contribution and
>> that must be drilled into new contributors as early as possible. Insist on
>> using the JOSM Validator, have the users look at their own contributions
>> on Osmose... Show them how to be more responsible of their own work ! Or
>> course, having experienced users supervise is valuable but they are a
>> scarce resource and most importantly they risk infantilizing less
>> experienced contributors. Most of my own contributions start with looking
>> at Osmose, seeing a bunch of errors and I start editing there... Quality
>> control is a core skill for everyone, at every level of proficiency.
>>
>> Second, have users. Creating data costs, maintaining it costs... Why are
>> we doing it ? We are doing it for users. How do we judge quality ? I am as
>> fond of the map as an aesthetic object as anyone here but we all agree
>> that we want to put our efforts to good uses - so we judge quality by the
>> fitness of the product for a particular use. If the data has no users, it
>> is dead data.  For example, as a user, I am a walker and a cyclist - I
>> enjoy buildings on the map as landmarks to help me navigate... That is my
>> personal way of judging quality - but other users may have other ways: to
>> some users the purpose of having buildings in Openstreetmap may just be
>> "there is a building here and its shape is not that important" - and maybe
>> those users are the majority, who knows ? So, as a producer of data, be
>> aware of how the data is used - that is the key to rational quality
>> control. That remains true if you just chose the buildings as a new
>> contributor training object.
>>
>> Third, make sure that the most recent imagery of decent quality is used.
>> For the specific case of Bamako and at the current time, ESRI World is
>> better than Bing: https://i.imgur.com/w6YBG70.jpg - of course, this is
>> subject to change over time. In understand that, for lack of available
>> properly surveyed geodesic reference points, large numbers of users
>> working with multiple sources of imagery generates its own challenges (I
>> found that particularly frustrating in Dakar's suburbs).
>>
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