[OSM-newbies] Welcome WG meeting notes

[Dudley Ibbett]

Hi Martijn

I'm not sure there were "obstacles".  There has been a steep learning curve but it has been quite enjoyable to experiment with different methods for mapping.  Part of the fun perhaps.  There have been practical issues with regard to surveying.  I've destroyed one camera and one mobile phone so far and have now invested in a waterproof/shockproof camera.  Audio mapping hasn't been very helpful when walking.  So I guess some more wiki articles on the practicalities of gps surveying would be good.  There technology continues to improve so it would be good to see these updated with new devices, methods etc.    I would say the general tutorials available seem to be all geared around cities and my interest has been mapping the countryside.  In some ways that has made it easier as I have mostly been adding new data in areas where people haven't mapped before.  

I would say that the quality of satellite imagery is an obstacle and to be honest I am leaving mapping villages at the moment.  The quality of imagery seems to be better in to the west of where I live, so I'm waiting until it updated.  

There is some much to map!  This can be an "obstacle".

I would say that I was welcomed by "SomeoneElse" when I did my first edit, which was very helpful and I would encourage you to develop a system that might enable this to be done for all new users.  There aren't any OSM groups near me.  

Whilst the documentation wiki is very good some basic guides that pull together the information you need to start mapping in cities/the countryside etc. would have been helpful.

Some documentation is quite out of date:  http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/UK_Mapping_Priorities.  Whilst it forms a historical record it might not be very helpful to new people as it doesn't give the correct picture.  

Regards

Dudley

> From: m at rtijn.org
> Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2012 14:02:29 -0700
> To: newbies at openstreetmap.org
> Subject: [OSM-newbies] Welcome WG meeting notes
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> We just had our Welcome WG meeting on #osm-strategic. I had a first
> shot at using meetbot, which is why the notes [1] may look a little
> awkward. There is also a full IRC log [2].
> 
> [1] http://matt.dev.openstreetmap.org/osm-strategic/2012/osm-strategic.2012-12-20-18.18.html
> [2] http://matt.dev.openstreetmap.org/osm-strategic/2012/osm-strategic.2012-12-20-18.18.log.html
> 
> We're basically still figuring out how to best focus our efforts,
> which may take a while longer as it's a topic that potentially has a
> lot of angles.
> 
> We did decide that for now we will use the newbies@ mailing list for
> WG communications. Once we get more established and even perhaps even
> 'official' WG status we might move over to a dedicated list.
> 
> One related effort that could use immediate support is the LearnOSM
> redesign. Specifically https://github.com/hotosm/learnosm/issues/10 -
> so we have some resources from within the WG committed to that.
> 
> In the mean time, I think we should use this channel to carve out our
> strategy and objectives. To help with that, let me ask newbies in this
> list: what obstacles did you face in your first steps with OSM?
> 
> -- 
> Martijn van Exel
> http://oegeo.wordpress.com/
> http://openstreetmap.us/
> 
> _______________________________________________
> newbies mailing list
> newbies at openstreetmap.org
> http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/newbies
 		 	   		  
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