[OSM-talk] Some thoughts against remote mapping

[Kate Chapman]

I'm unsure if we have a good way to compare, but most people introduced to
OSM generally don't stick with it. Are the Missing Maps attrition rates any
different than people who find out about OSM in other ways?

On Mon, Jun 15, 2015 at 12:55 PM, john whelan <jwhelan0112 at gmail.com> wrote:

> >" Everything is geared towards churning through newbies and generating as
> much as possible media coverage, not fast, efficient and quality
> coverage of the areas in question. It may have not been intended so from
> the very start, but that is definitely what it has turned out to be."
>
> I tend to validate in HOT more than map these days and one comment I'd
> make is I've seen new mappers come into Nepal and later transfer into other
> HOT projects, their mapping skills are improving as well.  Once they get
> going with JOSM their productivity tends to go up so they're getting close
> to the 5% core.  Quite a number of projects have benefited from the Nepal
> newbies and whilst they might be new to OSM at least two are better than I
> at picking out details or knowing what to look for.  I think one comment
> was its much the same as their normal work when they were looking at the
> flooding in the UK.
>
> Perhaps we need something like the HOT validation system in OSM more
> generally but I don't know how it would work.  Locally OSM mappers have
> used a rich range of tags, I'd say about 25% other than highways didn't get
> rendered for one reason or another when they were initially tagged.
>
> Cheerio John
>
>
>
> On 15 June 2015 at 15:39, Simon Poole <simon at poole.ch> wrote:
>
>>
>> Kate
>>
>> I could go in to great lengths to define what the core mappers are,
>> perhaps the 5% that provide 95% of the data or the 10'000 that could
>> easily map the equivalent of a MM-mapping party on their own in an
>> afternoon and so on.
>>
>> But that is not the point, Robert was claiming that the remote part of
>> MM was designed to address 'the Western "core" of OSM contributors'. His
>> words, not mine, and clearly, from the first events on, that was not the
>> case, regardless of definition.
>>
>> Everything is geared towards churning through newbies and generating as
>> much as possible media coverage, not fast, efficient and quality
>> coverage of the areas in question. It may have not been intended so from
>> the very start, but that is definitely what it has turned out to be. I'm
>> sure it is a big boon for the involved organisations in any case.
>>
>> Everybody can do more or less do what they please in OSM which naturally
>> includes MM, but just so I don't have to like everything and I do
>> reserve myself the right to call a spade a spade.
>>
>> To end on a positive note: the team from HOT working on the activations
>> in the wake of the Nepal earthquake had to come to grips with the
>> reality that using disasters as a newbie recruiting events is perhaps
>> not such a good idea and after a considerable number of issues labelled
>> a lot of the tasks explicitly for experienced mappers which is likely
>> the way it should be.
>>
>> Simon
>>
>>
>> Am 15.06.2015 um 17:33 schrieb Kate Chapman:
>> > Simon,
>> >
>> > Can you explain to me who the "core OSM" contributors are?
>> >
>> > Is the issue that people doubt the usefulness of the remotely mapped
>> > data? That we don't really believe in our own success?
>> >
>> > -Kate
>> >
>> > On Mon, Jun 15, 2015 at 12:20 AM, Simon Poole <simon at poole.ch
>> > <mailto:simon at poole.ch>> wrote:
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >     Am 15.06.2015 um 04:11 schrieb Robert Banick:
>> >     ...
>> >     >
>> >     > Remote mapping was easier to set up in the early phases of the
>> project
>> >     > and much more accessible to the Western “core” of OSM
>> contributors, not
>> >     > to mention sympathetic journalists, who wanted to check out and
>> perhaps
>> >     > contribute to the project. As a result the remote component has
>> gotten
>> >     > an outsized amount of attention within the greater OSM community
>> even
>> >     > though it’s only half of the story.
>> >     ...
>> >
>> >
>> >     I had a long diatribe here as a response that I thought better of,
>> but I
>> >     really did want to point out that the remote part of missing maps
>> has
>> >     never addressed the core OSM contributors at all. I don't think,
>> even
>> >     with giving everybody a lot of slack, that it can be seen as
>> anything
>> >     else than a marketing activity of the involved organisations in
>> which
>> >     the net result is not of any real concern. And I don't think
>> shifting
>> >     the blame for the above to the journalists is in any way fair.
>> >
>> >
>> >     Simon
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >     _______________________________________________
>> >     talk mailing list
>> >     talk at openstreetmap.org <mailto:talk at openstreetmap.org>
>> >     https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
>> >
>> >
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> talk mailing list
>> talk at openstreetmap.org
>> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
>>
>>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk/attachments/20150615/ca951ec9/attachment.html>