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

Sun Aug 1 14:09:51 UTC 2021

HI folks,

just wondering if someone who is from Africa (one of the ~54 countries) is
responding here.

Thanks

Heather

Heather Leson
heatherleson at gmail.com
Twitter/skype: HeatherLeson
Blog: textontechs.com

On Sun, Aug 1, 2021 at 3:37 PM John Whelan <jwhelan0112 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Some parts of Africa do have a survey department and some do not.  It
> might be an idea to document those that do.
>
> The African highway wiki page might be the place to do it.
>
> I'm beginning to suspect we need a new rule on highway classification
> changes in Africa, don't do it unless you're local.  I tend to use
> unclassified to connect settlements occasionally I'll go as high as
> tertiary.
>
> I have concerns about projects mapping buildings.  I come across
> settlements where half the buildings are mapped and nothing has been done
> for a year or two.  It doesn't help that much when you try to use the
> number of buildings to estimate the population.
>
> I also have major concerns about highways being deleted.  They aren't easy
> to spot though.  We need some sort of tool?
>
> Having said that HOT has added a number of tools to OSM.  The first is the
> task manager.  Locally in Canada it's been used for imports etc.
>
> New mappers are fine with the right tools in their hands.
>
> We had a mapathon organised to map buildings in in Edmonton.  The
> buildings added were of a poor enough quality to create comments on the
> local email list.  Out of curiosity I got involved with another mapathon,
> we had a poorer turnout but I only gave them JOSM and the buildings_tool.
> With half the number of mappers over two hours we managed to map twice as
> many buildings, some mappers for some odd shapes drew two rectangles then
> joined them. Either HOT needs to use JOSM and the buildings_tools plugin or
> it desperately needs a buildings_tools something in iD.
>
> To help with validation there is SelectduplicateBuildings.js I've deleted
> a few thousand duplicates using the todo list.
>
> I wanted to import the local bus stops in Ottawa.  There isn't any
> practical way to map them otherwise.  If you have all the bus stops in the
> system great, if you only have a few it really doesn't work for route
> planning.
>
> Somehow I got invited to a meeting with the Canadian Minister responsible
> for Open Data at which I identified we couldn't use their Open Data because
> of the license.  A few years later we got a new license which has been
> blessed by OSM's Legal Working Group.
>
> The City of Ottawa was kind enough to adopt the same license so now I have
> my bus stops.
>
> Treasury Board are now working with a number of African countries to make
> their data available under the same license.  What sort of Open Data data
> license does Zambia have?
>
> My understanding is it was the result of a HOT project that decided Maxar
> to make their imagery available to OSM.
>
> HOT aren't the only problem, I've seen dubious edits by Apple etc.
>
> HOT are improving, their projects now tend to map only simple things.
> Their instructions are improving, their work on validation is getting
> better.   You now need to have a bit of experience before you are allowed
> to validate.
>
> On balance I think that HOT adds value to Africa.  Ideally all mapping
> would be done by experienced local mappers with ten years experience but
> unfortunately they aren't enough of them in Africa unlike say Germany.
>
> I think what we do need is better work flows for Africa.  There are plenty
> of smartphones around which are quite capable of adding detail such as
> village names etc.  What we don't have is a set of simple instructions on
> how to do it.
>
> There is also an education problem in parts of Africa.  To be able to
> follow instructions you need to be able to read.
>
> These things are all interrelated and it isn't black and white.
>
> Cheerio John
>
> dfjkman at gmail.com wrote on 8/1/2021 2:12 AM:
>
> 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> <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> <skquinn at rushpost.com>http://www.rantroulette.comhttp://www.skqrecordquest.com
>
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