[OSM-talk] Lake District, Black Forest, etc.

[Andy Robinson]

Nick Whitelegg wrote:
>Sent: 30 January 2007 5:14 PM
>To: talk at openstreetmap.org
>Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] Lake District, Black Forest, etc.
>
>>a word of caution regarding the various ideas of a "Lake
>>District" or "Black Forest" mapping week. I'm all for setting high
>>goals and challenging tasks, but if you aim too high then it might
>>just happen that you end up completing just a fraction of what you
>>hoped to complete, and the satisfaction that was likely felt by the
>>London participants evades you.
>
>>I'd advise against setting the wrong expectectations. I read that the
>>Lake District has an area more than 2,000 square kilometres, which is
>>quite large already; the Black Forest is more than five times that
>>size (and has more than 32,000 kilometres of hiking trails and
>>several thousand kilometres of paved roads). I doubt that it is
>>possible to map a "significant portion" of either within a week!
>
>>So all I'm saying is, select an achievable subset... or recruit more
>>mappers ;-)
>
>Regarding the Lake District event, it was never the intention to map the
>whole lot in one week. The aims of events such as the Lake District are:
>
>a) by using a countryside location, offer a different flavour of mapping
>event which is likely to particularly appeal to, and recruit, people with
>an interest in countryside mapping;
>
>b) to comprehensively map a particular part in the Lake District. I don't
>think it's beyond the realms of possibility to map everything in, say, the
>Grasmere/Langdale area - even in a particularly foul weekend earlier this
>month I managed to map many footpaths in Great Langdale and a couple of
>routes up the Langdale Pikes. 'Significant' is a subjective word but I
>would argue that planting a 'seed' in one of the more popular parts of the
>Lakes would encourage other people - particularly those that visit the
>area on a regular basis - to extend the mapping outwards. It's all about
>engendering interest.
>
>Going back to the Surrey Hills event, despite the fact that not all of the
>"Surrey Hills" area was mapped (large numbers of footpaths between Reigate
>and Guildford remain unmapped) I'm sure all who attended would agree it
>was a worthwhile and enjoyable event. Similarly for the New Forest,
>probably 75% of all the mapped tracks in the Forest are mine (it's just
>down the road) and only 25% other contributors to the New Forest weekend.
>But again I'm sure most people enjoyed themselves.
>Same goes for the IoW too. Again David Groom is responsible for the
>majority of the mapping there.
>
>c) A national park, such as the Lakes or the New Forest (cf. last year's
>event) is likely to be the best choice for a walking event in terms of
>profile and attracting interest.
>
>
>Regarding the Black Forest, I never evan began to suggest that mapping
>all, or even a significant part, of it was feasible in a week. For me, a
>trip to the black forest even without a gps would be enjoyable. I just
>thought that a mapping event in the area would provide an excuse for a
>combination of walking holiday and OSM get-together.
>
>I think the key thing is, even if the mapping events do not lead to
>complete coverage, if one enjoys oneself then they can be construed as a
>success. The key thing with these sorts of walking-oriented mapping events
>is to choose locations which people will want to visit for the scenery's
>sake alone.
>
>That said, the Isle of Purbeck is in the list. That's a much smaller area
>:-)
>
>Nick
>

I'll echo Nick's sentiments here. For those that have not yet been to a
mapping weekend or similar event its worth pointing out that first and
foremost we have great fun. These are social events and open to anyone who
cares to come along and have some fun together. In some locations those
mapping do it extensively and completely, but others prefer to wander about
with no particular plan. Both approaches are fine, as is picking an area
that someone has already mapped, after all OSM doesn't have rules in this
regard. So while the focus and attention is often put on "completely"
mapping somewhere (Isle of Wight, Rutland or wherever for example), the map
in reality is never complete. It's just a lot more complete in some areas
than others and getting to whatever state we jointly get it to has to be
fun. Otherwise, why do it. For the majority of us, OSM is a hobby or
distraction from the crueller things in life ;-)

I always come away from a mapping weekend feeling like I/we achieved
something, whether that is making new friends, finding your ACL (ale
quantity limit) or producing some cool looking mapping.

Hope to see many of you at a mapping event over the coming year :-)

Cheers

Andy

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