[Talk-ca] Defining a local mapper group

john whelan jwhelan0112 at gmail.com
Tue Mar 19 17:19:06 UTC 2019


This needs a bit of context.  It relates to importing building outlines of
which there are two Open Data sources available for Canada both have
acceptable licenses.

Traditionally mappers have concentrated on one aspect of mapping.  I happen
to like bus stops for example and bus shelters also footpaths that lead to
them.

What we have discovered is different people have different ideas of what is
acceptable.  Ottawa mappers for example are happy with the building
outlines available for Ottawa.  At least one mapper outside Ottawa feels
the Ottawa building outlines are not acceptable because they do all have
right angles at the corners.

We have a mapper in Toronto who I understand feels that building outlines
should be simplified to omit things like bay windows.  Bay windows appear
to be acceptable in Montreal.

So what the local mappers find acceptable is acceptable.

Then we get to people like Jonathon whose only interest is not mapping
building outlines but in using tools such as street complete to add tags to
building outlines.  Students using street complete rather than drawing in
the building outline in iD then adding tags create fewer errors on the
map.  They are interested in having those building outlines on the map that
can be enriched.  Are their desires taken into account or do they have to
map something first?

Now we get to the tricky bit.  I'm local to Ottawa but I very rarely do
meetups.  So should my vote count?

If Africa there are lots of HOT remote mappers but ideally any decisions
are made by the "local" mappers.

So who counts as a local mapper?  Just those who attend a physical
meeting.  What about a conference call?  HOT allows its mumble servers to
be used for OSM business by the way.  Mumble is an Open Source VIOP.   I've
seen conference calls used to discuss things certainly, Slack is another
method of communication that I know nothing about other than it is
commercial. The major cities are fine but some of the smaller locations
have very few mappers.  One of the Ontario towns I've been mapping remotely
in has essentially one mapper who is very much in favour of importing
buildings.  Their thoughts are not really relevant since practically all
the building outlines in that location have been mapped with JOSM and the
buildings_tool plugin.  If I look at Ontario there is one mapper whose name
pops up all over the place but are they a "local" mapper for locations a
thousand kilometers apart?

So since it is the local mappers who make decisions, who are they?

Cheerio John

On Tue, 19 Mar 2019 at 11:34, Martijn van Exel <m at rtijn.org> wrote:

> If you’re interested in forming local mapper groups based on actual
> contributions to OSM you are free to use the Meet Your Mapper tool I built
> a little while ago.
>
> You can draw a bounding box and retrieve a list of mappers who contributed
> there. It generates some basic stats such as number of nodes / ways /
> relations and tries to classify mappers in a few categories.
>
> Some more information here:
> https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/mvexel/diary/44833 and the tool lives
> at https://mym.rtijn.org/
>
> Martijn
>
> On Mar 19, 2019, at 11:29 AM, Jonathan Brown <jonabrow at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Ideally, a local mapper/group would be one that contributed data to an
> open digital map that can be verified and used to solve a problem (e.g.,
> food security, fresh water, climate change, etc.). The local mapping group
> should be able to contribute data via satellite imagery, open data, and/or
> a physical location. The challenge is how to cultivate and maintain local
> mapper groups based on volunteer work.
>
> Jonathan Brown
>
> *From: *John Whelan <jwhelan0112 at gmail.com>
> *Sent: *Friday, March 15, 2019 10:01 AM
> *To: *Jonathan Brown <jonabrow at gmail.com>
> *Cc: *talk-ca at openstreetmap.org
> *Subject: *Re: [Talk-ca] Local groups as part of import plan
>
> The problem is defining and contacting a local group.  Once defined then
> they can make the decision.
>
> I've seen as few as two people make a local group decision on an import
> before now although normally it is done over coffee.
>
> Also we get into who is a local mapper.
>
> Many people have an interest in seeing the data imported but I'm under the
> impression only those with a OpenStreetMap userid who have contributed
> count.
>
> Would anyone care to define a local mapper or group?
>
> Thanks John
>
> Jonathan Brown wrote on 2019-03-15 9:46 AM:
>
> Could we get Stats Can to support a few local groups who want to use a
> common framework for a collaborative research project that addresses a
> sustainable development goal outcome (e.g., the OSM fresh security challenge
>  https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Food_security and
> https://www.usda.gov/topics/food-and-nutrition/food-security) ?
>
> Jonathan
>
>
>
>
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