[Talk-us] Mappy hours in May

[Paul Johnson]

On Fri, May 1, 2015 at 1:25 PM, Clifford Snow <clifford at snowandsnow.us>
wrote:

>
> On Fri, May 1, 2015 at 10:41 AM, Paul Johnson <baloo at ursamundi.org> wrote:
>
>> I've been following it, even if it hasn't posted anything.  Don't know if
>> you actually have to be a card-carrying, dues-paying member (I've been a
>> bit depleted cash-wise since around the time I joined, so in my own
>> imagination, I'm a member, I just pay in sweat equity) to post on behalf
>> of, but if you need help, I don't mind curating it.
>
>
> Paul,
> Thanks for offering to care for out google plus account. I have heard that
> google is rethinking their g+ strategy. Mostly focusing on photos and
> hangouts.
>

Seems to be a lot of smoke and noise from the same folks who have been
arguing that "nobody uses Google+", based exclusively on Vic Gundotra's
departure from the G+ team.  Since that's happened, we've seen...

   - Google Voice almost entirely deprecated in favor of integration into
   Contacts and Hangouts.
   - Android's GAPPS checking it's contacts against Plus
   - Picasa folded into Photos.
   - Latitude folded into Plus.
   - Zagat folded into Plus.
   - Reviews on Market and Maps folded into Plus.
   - Authenticator and single sign-on APIs folded into Plus.
   - YouTube folded into Plus.

If anything, you probably already use Plus and don't realize it (especially
since I see your headshot next to your email address in GMail right now) if
you use literally any Google service that hasn't already been obviously and
tightly tied into Plus and obviously isn't destined for the upcoming Google
killing off projects spree (remember Code?  Reader?).


> Charlotte Wolter and I have been working to get a communication work group
> established. I'd love to have you join in. Out thought is that we need to
> "think outside the box" to attract new users.
>

Side-tracking a bit on the "outreach" and "outside the box" tangent...

Well, the self-selection sample just got skewed significantly in Oklahoma,
Arkansas and Tennessee this last weekend, as I managed to recruit a few
(maybe half a dozen) people at Wild Nights <http://www.wildnights.org/>
while I was at that outdoor furry convention last week.  Also,
coincidentally, that convention and possibly Oklacon
<http://www.oklacon.com/> are going to start using OSM and promoting
navigation apps that are free and can cache data for offline use as both
cons "scritch and bitch" session (ie, what went right, what could be
improved) indicated a lot of people (especially those unfamiliar with rural
Oklahoma, which is a pretty large sample even among Oklahomans!) had a very
difficult time even finding the site, even if they'd been there before.
Contributing factors appear to be OklaDOT now primarily publishes it's
official state map in PDF form (and I can't even find it on their website
at the time of this writing, with links going 404 or 500), expecting the
end user to have access to a plotter to print it out on; and the trend
towards using Android and iOS based devices rather than a dedicated device
like a Garmin nüvi, and navigating inside the park (or even just within the
group camp the conventions are held in) due to poor, badly scaled maps
produced by the Department of Recreation and Tourism and the conventions
themselves.

To that end I've already mapped out Roman Nose State Park
<http://openstreetmap.us/~toby/shields.html#16/35.9320/-98.4278> and, to a
lesser extent, the nearby town of Watonga
<http://openstreetmap.us/~toby/shields.html#12/35.8793/-98.4170>, for the
upcoming Oklacon.  I'm currently going over some Mapillary traces
<http://www.mapillary.com/map/im/bbox/35.00160605550574/35.006685578857166/-95.34246683120728/-95.33034324645996>
to get the relevant group camp at Robber's Cave State Park due to the tree
cover, and the nearby town of Wilburton
<http://openstreetmap.us/~toby/shields.html#14/34.9184/-95.3006>, so the
Wild Nights crowd has something to work with next year.

Some more abstract thoughts from that weekend that were OSM related
included that I should have made multiple Mapillary runs each day of the
convention, and that I could probably use a shirt with the OSM logo
magnifying a bear paw print and the caption "Do I map in the woods?"
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