[OSM-talk] Some thoughts against remote mapping

[Rafael Avila Coya]

Hi all:

I have read all the emails of this thread, and found some of the views
about remote/local mapping as well as imports quite interesting. Anyway,
I have to say that, although this conversation can lead to some people
to enrich/modify their views about this subject, it won't lead to real
changes on the OSM mapping rules. It is amusing for me thinking on the
OSM community deciding to restrict the remote mapping or banning imports
in any way whatsoever. It would be a seriously destructive move, and I
would strongly oppose any such moves.

About remote vs. local mapping and import-yes vs. import-not, my opinion
is quite clear:

If you make me have to choose, I will tell you that I find local
on-the-ground mapping better than remote mapping. We should encourage
local mapping by local people (and growing local, active OSM
communities), but that doesn't mean that remote mapping by non-locals is
bad. I find remote mapping by non-local people very good and positive,
and we should also encourage people to map remotely as well as locally,
teaching them how to do that and what the limits are for both
approaches. I have mapped more than a million objects in the last 6
years in 84 countries, and I am ***very proud and happy*** of my remote
mapping, whether I knew the area on the ground or not. Needless to say,
when you map an area you don't know on the ground, you will apply a more
conservative approach. But that's it. Apart from that, I repeat, we
should not only say that remote mapping is a good thing, but in fact
teach/encourage people to join. And I will go on happy-remote-mapping as
I did up to now. And proudly.

My opinion about imports is similar. In a perfect world, we would map
everything from scratch, but we don't live in that mapping Paradise.
Importing data is a very good thing, and many of the data we have now in
OSM come from imported datasets. So, again, we should encourage and
welcome non-importing mapping, but we should also help and encourage, as
I do, those people who have data that want to import it to OSM and make
it a better geo-database. We use Imports Guidelines to assure any import
is done properly.

I honestly find that discouraging users on remotely mapping or on
importing data is destructive/negative for the growth and health of the
OSM community. But it's up to everyone of us to promote certain ways of
mapping and discourage others. We are a free community with freedom of
speech, aren't we?

Cheers,

Rafael. (edvac)

On 13/06/15 16:37, Frederik Ramm wrote:
> Hi,
> 
>    I'm known for being critical of armchair mapping by people with no
> personal connection tho the area being mapped. Whether done for fun, for
> money, or to help, I think that in most cases it is a bad idea that runs
> against the spirit of OSM.
> 
> (I'm willing to concede that there are exceptions, and that sometimes
> doing something that's against the spirit may still be useful. But these
> are individual cases, to be carefully justified, and remote mapping
> should never become anyone's standard mode of contribution.)
> 
> Until now I thought that the main exception, one that even I would have
> to accept, is mapping for humanitarian purposes.
> 
> I was all the more surprised - positively surprised - to read this
> thoughtful essay by Erica Hagen, who founded Map Kibera:
> 
> http://groundtruth.in/2015/06/05/osm-mapping-power-to-the-people/
> 
> I'd encourage everyone to read that. It questions some rarely questioned
> assumptions; it even says that mapping by locals doesn't really "count"
> if those locals are just doing it for the money (a sentiment that I've
> always felt but rarely dared to express, because who can expect locals
> in the poorest parts of the world to map "for fun" like privileged
> westerners do?).
> 
> It also says that "local" isn't "local" if the locals from the wealthy
> city map the slum in their midst. I've tended to routinely associate the
> call for "more diversity" in OSM as mainly being one for levelling the
> gender playing field but this article goes much further.
> 
> In some parts the article echoes a rather more acerbic posting written
> last month by Gwilym Eades, a university lecturer in London:
> 
> http://place-memes.blogspot.de/2015/05/the-hubris-of-proactive-disaster-mapping.html
> 
> which essentially accused humanitarian mapping (and as I would add, any
> remote mapping really) of "homogenising, westernising, and colonising"
> the map.
> 
> I don't agree with everything written in these postings but they
> certainly deserve some wider audience, and that's why I am writing this
> here - since neither author is on these lists and I haven't seen their
> messages mentioned or quoted anywhere.
> 
> I think the tl;dr of both these postings could be: "Whenever you give
> someone a map by remote mapping, you also take something away from them."
> 
> Bye
> Frederik
> 

-- 
Twitter: http://twitter.com/ravilacoya

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