[OSM-talk] new mailing list request - OSM outdoor/natural phenomena mapping

Richard Z. ricoz.osm at gmail.com
Wed Mar 5 22:16:41 UTC 2014


On Wed, Mar 05, 2014 at 04:38:40PM -0500, Serge Wroclawski wrote:

> After reading your replies to the list about other topics, my view on
> the situation has evolved. It seems that you want to add highly
> specialized information into OSM, information which is well
> documented, but not easy to collect for an amateur mapper (someone who
> comes in off the street, who does not own specialized equipment, etc.)

well.. back to the subject. I was proposing a mailing list for outdoor
activities mapping and modelling of nature-related stuff.

Later I got carried away trying to explain how better understanding of 
natural phenomena and scientific models could improve OSM.

In some cases you may need specialized knowledge to contribute data but 
in most cases you only need that knowledge to develop a suitable data 
model to represent the obvious things in OSM.
Somehow I am convinced that once a standard model of vegetation layers would
be suitably adopted for OSM an amateur mapper would not find it harder to 
use than deciding which of the {landuse|landcover|natural}={forrest|wood}
to apply.

Also, is it really the specialised knowldge that is so complicated? I am
finding myself fighting with multipoligons and relations. Not long ago
I spent half an hour figuring out why some particular islands in a river 
weren't rendered.

Richard



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