[Talk-GB] OSM feature density vs edits per features

[Andy Townsend]

On 01/09/2017 10:55, Neil Matthews wrote:
>
> Not a member of the London OSM community, but...
>
> Also, do you think that there might also be an effect from "visiting" 
> OSM contributors to an area?
>
> I used to regularly walk to/from occasional meetings with companies in 
> London and map items on the way
>

I'm also exactly that sort of "non-London London mapper".

With a DWG* hat on I occasionally get asked to investigate problems in 
lots of places around the world, so I've got a bit of subjective 
familiarity with "how different places get mapped", and I suspect that 
London is perhaps one of the most difficult places to undertake the 
analysis that it sounds like you're doing, for a few reasons:

o lots of history (lots of it pre OSM licence change)

o Very high feature density, so that edits to one thing can accidentally 
affect others nearby

o Very wide spectrum of different sorts of mappers ranging from people 
who just map "everything" to people who concentrate on certain sorts of 
features (who may or may not be locals - wikidata adders sometimes 
aren't, for example) and tourists using MAPS.ME.

One thing you won't be short of is the sheer volume of data.  If you 
like a challenge, go for it - but I suspect that you might be better 
starting with somewhere with fewer variables if you want some 
quantifiable results to come out of it.

Best Regards,
Andy

* OSM's Data Working Group.  For the avoidance of any doubt I'm writing 
this in an entirely personal capacity.