[Talk-ca] Canvec import
Frank Steggink
steggink at steggink.org
Wed Dec 9 02:13:43 GMT 2009
Hi lists,
Here is a writeup of the meeting we held to discuss the import of Canvec
data last Saturday (Dec 5th) in Sherbrooke, Québec, as well with some
thoughts how to continue with this process. Please take the time to read
this long writing, since there is a lot to discuss.
First of all, I was very happy to meet with people I haven't met before,
but with whom I had contact for a while, like Richard Weait and Daniel
Bégin. I was also happy to meet Yves Moisan again, as well as meeting a
number of people from Sherbrooke University (staff and students),
CITS/NRCan, and others. I would like to thank you all for your presence,
and to see me talk. Me not being a natural presenter at all, I was
somewhat afraid I would screw up, but with such nice company things went
really well. Finally, I would especially like to thank Marie-Claude
Bélanger for the enjoyable ride from Québec and back. I really hope that
with her and others we'll finally start an active local community.
Libérer le trésor ;)
Anyways, now the meeting itself. It actually wasn't as hands-on as many
of us has hoped, and the agenda wasn't followed that particularly well,
but nonetheless it was a very interesting day. The definite highlight of
the day was the talk held by Emilie Laffray. She was very generous to
make some time free to talk to us about the experiences with the Corine
import (landuse in France). Thank you very much again! Although a bit
somewhat unexpected, to me at least, the most important factor in the
import is the community. Certainly, the technological challenge can also
not be denied, but an import cannot exist without the support of the
community. All members bear the responsibility to maintain the data
after the import.
Emilie showed many of the great tools which were developed during the
Corine import. I don't have a comprehensive list yet, but I'll try to
make it available soon. Anyways, the start page is [1], and I would like
to invite all of you to have a look at how our colleagues in France
dealt with this challenge, if you haven't already done so.
Another interesting aspect was that at the Corine import there is no
single leading figure, but the responsibility is shared by the entire
community, although there was a core group of 4 or 5 people. The scale
of the Corine import is too big to bear by one or a few people alone.
Since a large import touches the entire community, the community as a
whole is responsible for it. This aligns perfectly well with community
support and participation.
We all quickly agreed on this. Although the Corine import is already of
a large scale, this will even be more the case for Canvec. There are 95
feature classes divided among 11 themes. The data covers the entire
country, and the resolution of the data is even higher than Corine. This
is definitely not something which can be led by one leading person, nor
something that can easily be registered in a spreadsheet. We need to
think through all aspects well, in order to ensure that we'll manage to
do this till the very last NTS tile is be imported. We're a very diverse
group of people, each with his/her own unique skills, so we are
certainly capable of doing this. That way the (OSM) world can be proud
of Canada (and as a Dutchman myself I totally agree with that :) ).
So, how shall we proceed with this? As mentioned above, this is a
community effort, but I'll try to get the ball rolling. I would like to
propose to use the wiki to outline the bigger picture, and to register
the things we've reached consensus out. The talk-ca list is for the
daily communication, and the heated discussions, which will definitely
occur. We certainly need to keep ourselves warm in the coming months ;)
Anyways, don't hesitate to come forward if you have ideas. Throw them in
the group, so we can make use of them in the best possible way.
There is no doubt that you have seen that Sam Vekemans has decided to
step aside as the Canvec import manager. He has done a lot of work for
over a year, since NRCan gave us permission to import their data, and
I'm very grateful that he has done that. However, there were some
differences of insight on his role. As mentioned above, the Canvec
import is simply not a one-man project, but we should all use our skills
the best way we can, because this is the best way to a successful
import. Partially due to his own enthusiasm, Sam was a dominant presence
on talk-ca and the wiki, and this doesn't align very well with the fact
that the community aspect is at least, if not more important than the
technological aspect. Also clear communication is very important in this
process, which unfortunately wasn't one of Sam's strongest points. I
know that also I have the tendency to write long messages myself, as I
do right now, but I'm trying to work on it.
Sam has also mentioned that any questions about imports should be
redirected to me, with talk-ca in CC. I think that talk-ca should be the
main destination for such questions. Also I have only 24 hr in a day,
which are not fully spent on OSM ;) For any documentation regarding
Canvec and the various other imports, I would like to refer to the wiki.
Regarding the wiki, it could use some work right now. I have already
started it, and I'll continue to work on it, and I hope that others will
help me with this. Sam has put a lot of content on it, and I would like
to use this as the basis for the cleanup. For those who don't know, the
start page for Canvec is [2] and for all Canadian (import) projects is [3].
Anyways, I have said enough for now. It can't be stressed enough that
this is a community effort, so I'm very interested in hearing your thoughts.
Regards,
Frank
p.s. I think that "Libérer le trésor" (liberate the treasure) is an
excellent slogan for the Canvec import :) For those who are not familiar
with it, it is a song by Québec rock star Michel Rivard. Marie-Claude
and I listened to it twice, shortly after each other, on our way home.
We had to change radio stations when we got out of reach of one of them.
[1] http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/WikiProject_Corine_Land_Cover
[2] http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/CanVec
[3] http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Canada
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