[OSM-newbies] How to (awesomely) map a small Northern Ontario town

[Andrew Errington]

On Wed, August 25, 2010 10:28, Stewart C. Russell wrote:
> I'm spending a few days next week in a town in Northern Ontario. It has
> all the roads in, thanks to the import of Canada's map data by dedicated
> OSMers. What it doesn't have is the trails, museum(s), hotels,
> restaurants, shopping mall, donut shop ...
>
> I'm pretty new to this. Assume I have a notepad and pencil, GPS (and
> know how to use it), camera, laptop and net connection. I've entered a few
> edits in my neighbourhood, around 43.73ºN, 79.26ºW. What could I usefully
> do in a day or so to make this little community's map pop?
>
> If I knew how, I'd print out the existing tiles at a decent zoom level
> on my large format printer, then mark it up. Unfortunately, I don't know
> how to get the tiles.

Take a look at printing a map from Walking Papers[1].  It will show you a
lot of the detail from the map database, and you can scribble your notes
on top.

These days I don't use pencil and paper very much.  I take a picture of my
GPS time at the beginning of the day (so that I can synchronise the GPS
with the camera's clock in JOSM) then I just wander around and take
pictures of everything- long shots of buildings and closeups of signs.  If
I need to be accurate about the location of something (such as the two
ends of a bridge) I will mark a waypoint, but I will usually refer to the
photo to remind me of why I marked that point.

You said you have a net connection, but don't bother editing on the day. 
Use the time to collect as much data as you can, then work on it later
(make notes if you think things are going to be difficult to remember.  I
sometimes wonder why I took some shots...).

Oh, and before you go it is worth studying the existing data- turn on the
'data' layer in the OSM slippy map, or just use JOSM.  Look for anything
unusual or 'untidy' and note its position.  When you go to the actual
place you can verify that it really is as odd as it looks, or you can
collect some new data to tidy up the map.

Finally, don't forget to take some time and smell the roses.  Have some
fun while you are there and don't focus solely on collecting data. 
Remember to eat.  :)

Best wishes,

Andrew

[1] http://walking-papers.org/