[OSM-talk] #Occupy camps in OSM?

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

On 11/08/2011 02:18 PM, Erik Johansson wrote:
> But there is a camp there, and a book shop, and a toilet. If there are
> things on the ground you can of course map them.

Yes.

I was just pointing out that if a number of people decide to put up 
tents somewhere, that place might be a "camp" but not a "camp site", 
certainly not one in the sense of tourism=camp_site. (Hint: A camp site 
is still a camp site even when there are no tents.)

When we mapped Haiti after the quake, we as a community decided to 
violate the "on the ground rule", we mapped touristic camp sites even 
when we just spotted three makeshift tents on an aerial image with no 
trace of tourism, with the aim of giving these things prominence on our 
main map that they would not have achieved had we tagged them e.g. 
"humanitarian=refugee_camp". We did that on purpose because we were more 
or less united behind the humanitarian cause, even if it was technically 
a violation of the rules we apply to our normal work.

The mapping of an #occupy camp itself does not have a political aspect; 
what's there on the ground can be mapped. However, attracting above-par 
visibility to such a camp by purposefully mis-tagging it as a 
"tourism=camp_site" *does* have a political aspect, and would only be 
permissible if carried by a vast majority of the project as was the case 
with Haiti.

I think the #occupy camps should be mapped in all detail, with special 
tags, and someone should take it upon them to make specialist maps where 
these tags are rendered. (Our best zoom level, 18, is not very suitable 
for camps anyway, you would want to have 19 or 20 to make a proper camp 
map.)

Bye
Frederik