[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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