[Osmf-talk] [Talk-africa] Africa Missing Roads Project

Bert -Araali- Van Opstal bert.araali.afritastic at gmail.com
Tue Feb 16 16:40:14 UTC 2021


Hello Courtney,

Thank you for the interest to improve the OSM maps.

To avoid any confusion you took the right steps in following the
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Organised_Editing_Guidelines.

Referring to Geoffrey's and Claire's reply, please reach out through the
channels they provide to get a response from the local communities. 
To help you in streamlining your communication, especially since as I
understood, your edit concerns multiple countries across Africa, always
provide at least a copy or summary of your local communications and
responses through Talk-Africa.
It will give you the maximum chance of gaining support not only from the
local but global community.

Please be aware that all your edits are subject to acceptance by the
global and local OSM communities. Without acceptance they can be
reverted. Unfortunately, Africa has few official local chapters.  The
groups you will find to offer help will be mostly local user groups but
always keep in mind they do not represent the whole community.

That said, please refer to the guidelines already mentioned by Claire, 
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Highway_Tag_Africa, as they are the
standard applied in African countries.  Do get informed of any local
variants or additions through the local communities as some might be
available or under development.  Do not try to impose any own standard
or philosophy without consent from the global community. 
Use our proposal guidelines
(https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Proposal_process) for that. I
think, if you have not done already, it would be a good idea what you
specifically mean with your intentions to complete / solve mismatches
between your database and the OSM data, like f.i. with a tagging
cross-reference table, described or published on the OSM wiki.

Please consider, since you are reaching out to a community with very
limited resources, to support them through donations or hiring local OSM
members in your team.

Your initiative has not passed unnoticed. Some improvements and concerns
have been discussed in the OSM Foundation talk group and are still
ongoing. You can reach out to the OSM Foundation working groups or to
local contacts that you establish for details.

Kind regards,

Bert Araali

On 16/02/2021 17:52, Geoffrey Kateregga wrote:
> Hello Courtney, 
>
> Thanks for reaching out, please consider joining and reaching out to
> the OSM Africa Telegram group here https://t.me/osmafrica
> You are most likely to get more feedback there.
>
> Kind regards,
> Geoffrey
>
> On Tue, Feb 16, 2021 at 4:39 PM Claire Halleux
> <claire.halleux at hotosm.org <mailto:claire.halleux at hotosm.org>> wrote:
>
>     Hello Courtney,
>
>     My understanding is that your MapRoulette challenge focuses on
>     some specific countries in Africa.
>     Have you tried communicating this information to the communities /
>     country mailing lists potentially affected or directly interested?
>
>     Regarding the road classification, many contributors in these
>     countries would rather use the following
>     guidelines: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Highway_Tag_Africa
>     (as many countries are still missing in the international
>     equivalence page)
>
>     Is TomTom also working in other African countries, such as DR
>     Congo for instance?
>
>     Regards,
>     Claire (OSM DRC)
>
>     On Mon, Feb 1, 2021 at 10:52 PM OSM <OSM at tomtom.com
>     <mailto:OSM at tomtom.com>> wrote:
>
>          
>
>         Hello OSM Africa,
>
>          
>
>         This is Courtney from TomTom. Data analysis done by TomTom
>         indicates some missing roads or tracks in Africa, as
>         determined by comparison to TomTom’s own map vs OSM. We have
>         identified approximately 50k tasks in MapRoulette that have
>         not been worked since we posted the challenge about a year ago.
>
>          
>
>         MapRoulette is a tool that lets you go through potential
>         issues one by one and either correct them or indicate they are
>         not a problem. Here is the guidance that is included in the
>         MapRoulette challenge description: 
>
>
>         If you are adding a road in a country where you have not
>         mapped before, please first have a look at the OSM wiki
>         <https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Highway:International_equivalence> to
>         confirm the highway class to use. Please add the road if you
>         can verify that it exists from aerial imagery sources.
>
>          
>
>         Here is the project
>         link:  https://maproulette.org/challenge/13426/
>
>          
>
>         Our editing team will start to work on some of these issues,
>         and we welcome your feedback on our progress. 
>
>          
>
>         Let me know if you have any questions or suggestions.
>
>          
>
>         Courtney <https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Courtiney>
>
>          
>
>         TomTom Editing/Activities
>         <https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Organised_Editing/Activities/TomTom>
>
>         * *
>
>         * *
>
>          
>
>          
>
>          
>
>         _______________________________________________
>         Talk-africa mailing list
>         Talk-africa at openstreetmap.org
>         <mailto:Talk-africa at openstreetmap.org>
>         https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-africa
>
>     _______________________________________________
>     Talk-africa mailing list
>     Talk-africa at openstreetmap.org <mailto:Talk-africa at openstreetmap.org>
>     https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-africa
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Talk-africa mailing list
> Talk-africa at openstreetmap.org
> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-africa
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/osmf-talk/attachments/20210216/29639c1f/attachment.htm>


More information about the osmf-talk mailing list