[Osmf-talk] Africa as a training ground was RE: google Open Buildings usage request

[dfjkman at gmail.com]

Hi Shawn,

One of the problems is the number of projects on the go at any one time,
Africa has more HOT projects on the go than the rest of the world put
together, many of them overlap and many of them die a natural death without
ever being validated leaving a great deal of mess behind. Many of the HOT
mappers are new to OSM and the same few validators tend to be spread over
many projects and even they may not know what they are looking at in the
satellite imagery, I suspect they also get overwhelmed with the amount of
corrections they have to make. I have been in contact with the leads of some
of these projects and they have responded well to any advice I have given.
Some of the validators also respond well others just move off to other
projects. The real problem comes where you have a particular mapper who is
unwilling to take the advice given and continues to make the same errors
over and over. Worse still they tell you they are doing it for the good of
the country so development decisions can be made. The assumption being that
Zambia does not have a survey department and is unable to produce their own
official ordinance survey maps, something they have been doing for over 50
years.

Then you get projects that come through and make changes to major road
classifications, remove roads that do not appear in imagery but have been
mapped by a local mapper and change classifications. After you make
corrections the whole thing kicks off again with the next project that comes
through with a new hashtag. Sort of like a 'Mad Max' movie. As a local
mapper you either run around trying to fix the errors or slink off to some
far flung corner and map in peace.

That being said interpreting imagery in Africa is not easy, particularly in
Zambia as it is highly seasonal, what may appear to be a track in one image
may appear as a path in another particularly if the image was taken towards
the wet season and everything is greening up and vegetation is encroaching
on to the track. Whole well defined roads or tracks may disappear under a
tree canopy and what once appeared to be nothing but scrub now looks like a
well wooded area. Zambia in particular has a seasonal wetland feature that
during the rains resembles a wet meadow and in the dry season, when most
imagery is taken, resembles a grassland and may even appear black once it
has burnt with wild fires. Some of these 'dambos' will have a temporary pool
of water at the lowest point known as a pan. Some will have an ephemeral
steam that runs through the centre of them while with another the stream
runs to one side of it or there is no stream at all, in the dry season the
stream bed may be used as a track, I have often come across these dry stream
beds mapped as tracks. A small collection of buildings does not necessarily
imply a village but is more likely a small family farm. All this makes
Africa not the ideal place for a beginner mapper. It is not a given that a
local mapper in one part of Africa will recognise all features in another
part of Africa either.

Dave
-----Original Message-----
From: Shawn K. Quinn <skquinn at rushpost.com> 
Sent: 31 July 2021 08:42
To: osmf-talk at openstreetmap.org
Subject: Re: [Osmf-talk] google Open Buildings usage request

On 7/31/21 01:25, dfjkman at gmail.com wrote:
> Another point is touched upon by Craig, 'If the same thing had 
> happened in Germany there would have been a riot on this channel'. 
> Africa is treated as the training ground for new mappers, this is all 
> well and good, new mappers are welcome and needed, but the large areas 
> they map and errors introduced are many and varied and can take 
> considerable time and effort to correct and as a result nobody 
> bothers. Nobody actually asks the Africans what they want or whether 
> they mind this mess being created in their backyard, judging by the 
> response to this thread they don't want it. No wonder many in Africa feel
they are just the guineapigs for the rest of the world.

This concerns me. Both the use of Africa as a training ground without any
input from the residents, and the apparent lack of a real, proper training
ground for new mappers. While we do have a sandbox, apparently either the
new mappers don't know about it or it doesn't fit the needs for practice of
mapping new features.

At the very least, we should be practicing the ethic "if you wouldn't want
someone mapping like that in your city, don't map like that in Africa (or
wherever)". Basically, it's a variant of the golden rule.

Thoughts?

--
Shawn K. Quinn <skquinn at rushpost.com>
http://www.rantroulette.com
http://www.skqrecordquest.com

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