[OSM-talk] A message to our friends at HOT, Peace Corps etc. about Changeset Comments

[malenki]

On Wed, 18 Nov 2015 19:52:40 -0500,
john whelan wrote:

> HOT and OSM are slightly different, HOT maps on OSM but uses a
> simpler more standardized approach.  

fwiw: HOT means Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team.
For me this sounds a lot like "very close to OSM".

> Many of their volunteers ofte  do not know enough English to write a
> meaningful change set comment.

So let them do it in their native language. Ideally, in the future
there will be more local mappers which should speak the same language

> HOT tends to map in areas that do not have a great deal of OSM mapping
> already in place so I don't see that it really matters if they use
> preset comments from the tile system.

What does it matter if there is already a lot or little of data to
changeset comments? As I said above: individual comments should help
individual mappers later on.

> Or are we now asking that all mappers on OSM have to be able to read
> and write in English since that is the normal language for
> communication in OSM or is one of the local African languages
> sufficient. 

Any language is sufficient, preferredly one spoken in the region where
the mapping occurs.

> If it is then I assure you I won't be able to understand
> what it says.

As it was pointed out: there are online translating tools.
Additionally: do you need to understand all changeset comments in OSM?
In China, Japan and Russia, too? :)

> I think one thing I like about HOT is the validation process, an
> experienced mapper goes over the mapping and tries to eliminate as
> many errors or mis-tags as possible and ensure that everything
> visible in the image is mapped,

Well, when I think of the HOT data I often look at it seems mostly I am
the (only) one doing the bug fixing and validating if I have some time
I can spend on it.
An example:
Lately in Afghanistan HOT didn't ask for waterways being mapped which
resulted in various issues:
Bridges weren't mapped because they are hard to distinguish in that
region when you don't look for waterways too – and bridges are prone to
collapse during earth quakes.
Fords aren't mapped for the same reason.
Quite some of the intermittent waterways get incorrectly mapped as
highways. Sure, there /are/ waterways being used as highways, but not
the ones I reviewed.

Because of this and some more issues (tons of highway=road, highways
connected to residential areas, a bad import from ~2010) I decided to
skip assigning to tasks but instead first map complete waterways and
afterwards all waterway/highway intersections. I also fixed the other
issues mentioned.
Well, I got a bit offtopic.

Two of the problems are that there is
a) a lack of enough manpower to map (e.g. there is still a lot missing
in HOT's Afghanistan Tasks)
b) a lack of enough manpower to review

An other example was a training of mappers in Albania.
The result was partly quite messy: a bunch of ways being not
rectangular nor having tags on them (well, some with area=yes).
There was no cleanup several weeks after editing stopped. I wonder what
the training effect is when the data gets left in this state
I had problems finding the person responsible for this task. Regarding
his OSM edits history he seemed not more experienced in mapping than his
pupils.

> and yes I understand armchair mappers are looked down on by many
> mappers

Is that so?
I do map both ways a lot and being a good "armchair mapper" needs
skills which need to be trained, too.
By the way, 99% my mapping (!= collecting data/surveying) is done in
an armchair. :)

> but the work they do is valuable in many areas.

Of course.

Regards,
Thomas