[OSM-talk] Stares

[Thomas Szukala]

Nick Whitelegg schrieb:
>> I tend to keep my GPS unit in my pocket when I encounter people. The 
>> accuracy probably suffers, but at least I don't get the stares :)
>>     
>
> To be honest I'd have thought keeping the gps unit out would mean you're 
> less likely to get harassed - it makes you look like you're kind of doing 
> something official.
>
> Luckily I've never really had any major trouble but my standard response 
> would probably be "Got the internet? Look up www.openstreetmap.org. Is 
> your street on there and named? No? Will it soon will be..."
>
>   

What about some flyers which you can give to somebody if he shows 
interest in what you are doing or is suspicous about it.

You could even make custom flyers for the area you are mapping at the 
moment. This would show the person directly what you are working on and 
you can see for yourself where you still need to do some mapping. Some 
sort of scratchpad for yourself and others....

With some evidence in you hand it is much easier to show people what you 
are doing and even raise some interest in the project where you dont 
expect it.

Photographers tend to have the same problem, when they want to 
photograph unusual (non touristic) places.
I remember a story of a guy who was trying to photograph a highway by 
night (long time exposure). A policeman came by and was some kind of 
picky about what the strange guy with this strange equipment (DSLR, 
tripod, etc) was doing, unitl he showed him on the camera screen the 
results. Then the conversation started to go in the direction on how 
this was done and how he (the policeman) could do it by himself.

Thomas