[Talk-us] Join us for another import party at the L.A. Times June 25

[Michael Reichert]

Hi,

Am Fri, 17 Jun 2016 22:20:46 +0000 schrieb Jonathan Schleuss:
> The Los Angeles Times will host another import party to push the "Great
> L.A. County Import" forward. We've imported more than half a million
> buildings with the great help of locals and the folks from Mapbox.

Did each participant use a separate account for this import?

> My focus is to use this import strengthen the Southern California OSM
> community. But, the project is open to all. If you're in the area,
> please join us.

Do you really believe that this helps the local community? A healthy map 
has a strong community and a strong community consists out of people who 
look after their neighbourhood on the map (i.e. keep data up to date).

> Meetup even page Import guidelines Tasking manager I've also been
> working to improve our language on why we're doing this. Feedback and
> more ideas would be greatly appreciated!
> 
> Why are we doing this?
> 
> • To improve our map! More data will allow more users to create projects
> and do analysis on a variety of things. How many units are located
> within 1,000 feet of a freeway? What's the average building age in a
> neighborhood? What's the tallest building on Sunset Boulevard? The data
> will tell you.
> 
> • To catch up with other cities! New York has buildings. Seattle has
> buildings. San Francisco. Portland. Even Bakersfield has buildings. L.A.
> County should too!
> 
> • Because a big earthquake is coming. Free and open data will assist
> first responders. And later it will allow folks to update the buildings
> with tags showing whether they have been destroyed, are dangerous or
> have been red-tagged.

Why do buildings have to be at OSM? Is there any problem which prevents 
you and others to use a free-licensed third party source for building 
data if you have/want to create an emergency map?

> • To encourage more edits. Once buildings are in the map, people will be
> able to orient themselves to the shapes, making it easier to add more
> data, like names or businesses.

Adding POIs also works without buildings on the map. You still have 
aerial imagery (i.e. Bing). Apart from offline editors like OsmAnd and 
MAPS.ME, you have an aerial image available at all those editors.

Best regards

Michael