[OSM-talk] Some thoughts against remote mapping

[Mikel Maron]

A few points
Full disclosure. The post that touched off this thread was written by my wife and partner in Map Kibera.
All the points on this thread are very good points to keep in mind with any mapping project, but there's no universal rule in my experience.
Don't forget that mappers are everywhere and that amazing connections take place that don't fit our usual conception of remote mapping, like https://twitter.com/uscgjerusalem/status/523473404532645888
I have seen the amazing pride that comes from residents themselves creating the map from a blank spot. I've also seen the same from a very well filled map, selectively and carefully updated with local knowledge. And I've seen incredible, life saving work from remote mapping, that locals are not only incredibly grateful for, but value as a connection to the global community.
The key in my opinion is understanding the transformative pride of mapping (as we all know well, that's why we're here), and designing for it. Our design challenge for OpenStreetMap constantly changes, and much of our tools are still oriented towards filling in the blank map.
A map with all the buildings can look "done" in the standard rendering, but of course we know it's not done. Is there a way to visualize the map to take into account the depth and local knowledge of the data? So that the pride of filling in the blank spot can be felt even when previous work has been done? I'd say that's a design challenge even in well mapped countries, which will need to be maintained and updated for the rest of time!
-Mikel * Mikel Maron * +14152835207 @mikel s:mikelmaron 


     On Saturday, June 13, 2015 1:52 PM, Tom Lee <tlee at mapbox.com> wrote:
   
 

 These critiques seem to be beginning to develop themes explored more fully and famously by James Scott in _Seeing Like A State_. In it, he explores the implications of government efforts at systematization, including the original French cadastre and some German forest management projects.
I'm afraid the news is worse than you might think, Frederik: Scott makes a compelling case that the *very act of mapping itself* snuffs out locally adapted systems of property management, social support and cultural exchange. It is a troubling critique and one that bears serious consideration. (It also carries vast and unwieldy intellectual coattails, including a deep connection to the failed anarchist project of the early twentieth century.)
For my part, the value of being able to deliver emergency services, economic development and competent governance seem overwhelmingly worth the cultural costs that accompany efforts to rationalize the world. It seems to me that the verdict is in and we're all building a global society (and global map!). I'm skeptical that OSM should or can be a meaningful bulwark against this process.
Local mapping is preferable not because it escapes the intellectual hegemony of mapping practices -- there is no escape from them at all if you are making a unified map -- but because it delivers a better map.
And some map is better than no map:
> Does every building address need to be mapped? If not, it just seems like an easy win — why not collect everything? One reason not to is because later when you find you need local buy-in, even OSM may be viewed as an outsider project meant to dominate a neighborhood, a city, especially in sensitive neighborhoods where this has indeed been a primary use of maps. I wonder if people will one day want to create “our map” separately from OSM. A different global map wiki which is geared toward self-determination, perhaps? That would be a major loss for the OSM community.
This struck me as shortsighted.  The author is suggesting that leaving the map blank is preferable because someone might fill it in later, and that person might feel intimidated by the presence of existing data. I will gently submit that needing a blank slate is not even close to the most off-putting thing about OSM for new mappers.
More to the point, even if you take an *extremely* rosy view of the extent to which the act of mapping enhances self-determination, the "loss to the OSM community" seems vastly less important than the losses to everyone who could be using the map to facilitate their businesses, recreation, or government. Every day that a part of the map remains unusably empty is a day that those people lose benefits they might have had -- or a day in which they become more reliant on closed data that has already gotten the job done.
Tom





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