[Talk-us-massachusetts] masstrails

[Greg Troxel]

"Alan & Ruth Bragg" <alan.ruth.bragg at gmail.com> writes:

> I really like Will Kilburn's masstrails.com, I hope we can use that as
> a source for adding all the trails in MA to OSM.​
>
> Will recently sent me a couple of documents outlining a new area in
> Wayland called Mainstone Farm.  I rectified the SVT trail map ​ at
> mapwarper.com, then I copied the TMS layer from the "export tab" and
> added the imagery under Imagery Preferances in JOSM ​ and ​copied the
> trails into OSM. I then walked ​some of the trails with a buddy,
> verifying​ the main trail. I set a route relation
> (type=route,route=hiking,network=lwn) for that trail and it now
> appears in hiking.waymarkedtrails.org
> <https://hiking.waymarkedtrails.org/#route?id=6760013&map=15!42.344!-71.3448>
> as Hamlen Mainstone Farm Trail.  ​I didn't get a chance to checkout all
> the access trails. It would be nice if someone in the area wants to
> edit those.

I very much want to see all the trails in OSM too, but I think we need
to be careful about licensing.  masstrails seems to be a collection of
links to other maps, so the real issue is the other maps, and if those
have a license compatible with the Contributor Terms.

It's quite possible SVT actually owns the rights to their maps and would
give permission, if someone asked.


> I'm disappointed that only strave seems to offer trail traces. The others
> seem to want $30/year to look at traces that people have submitted. I see
> that they offer to show the trails on top of OSM.

I guess using OSM and then charging for data seems a little bit
philosophically inconsistent!

> I wish there was an organized approach to encourage hikers to upload
> traces into OSM.

Yes, that would be nice.   I suppose it might be possible to do outreach
to hiking and conservation organizations.  Perhaps via having an OSM app
that makes it easy.