[OSM-newbies] Conversational gambit: New to OSM?

[James Ewen]

On Sun, Oct 4, 2009 at 9:18 PM, Richard Weait <richard at weait.com> wrote:

> 1. What first brought your attention to OSM?

How about this one... NetStumbler. I was playing with NetStumbler,
wandering the neighborhood to see just how many WAPs I could find. It
was kind of amazing, the number of access points went up probably by a
factor of 5 over the course of a year, but the total number of
unsecured access points went down. Someone mentioned that the GPX
track that I made while stumbling could be uploaded to OSM. From there
my free time dwindled.

> 2. What made you decide to get involved and join this list?

I love maps. OSM gave me the chance to not only play with maps, but to
lend a hand in creating them.

> 3. What is the trickiest part about starting with OSM, for you?

Figuring out how to go from a blank screen to a mapped area. Knowing
what tags to use for which features.

> Can you suggest how to make this tricky thing less-tricky?

My tool of choice is Potlatch, and I am hard pressed to come up with a
better way of allowing users to enter information into the database.
However, every time a new release of Potlatch becomes available, I am
shown that I know very little about creating tools for users. Each
time an update comes out Potlatch just gets better and better.

If you could somehow create a tool that would automatically map the
world around me as I drive about with no input required from me, I'd
be suitably impressed. If it could automatically map the areas that I
have never been to, I would be amazed!

James
VE6SRV