[OSM-talk] Crowdfunding for OpenStreetMap in Bénin : 275km² high resolution satellite imagery for Cotonou by 1-May 2016!

Frederik Ramm frederik at remote.org
Thu Apr 28 13:02:18 UTC 2016


Hi,

On 04/28/16 08:55, Greg Morgan wrote:
> The problem I have with both Christoph and Frederick statements from
> Germany are that the comments have a feeling of not invented here and
> more imperialism. 

The main problem I have with armchair mapping is not "people map an area
without going out", it's "people map an area without EVER HAVING BEEN
THERE".

I'm less concerned about you mapping your extended home region from
aerial imagery (assuming for a moment that you live in Montana). If you
find something on an image that makes you wonder, you can always make a
small detour on your next trip to the supermarket and check it out in
person, plus you'll know what kind of builidngs are common in the area
and so on.

What I think is bad for data quality is people from thousands of miles
away "helping" by tracing from aerial imagery without local knowledge.
This might work for the most basic of features but it has been shown
that even something as seemingly straigforward as the tracing of
buildings can go quite wrong if you don't know anything about the
culture and the area, and *this* has been branded (accidental)
imperialism by some - "what looks like a German barn on the aerial image
certainly must be a barn in Ghana too".

> Germany is about the size
> of Montana USA.  Germany has a population of about 89 million people.
> Montana has a population of around one million people.

The city of Coutonou alone - to come back to the subject - has 800k
inhabitants, so a lower bound for the population density in the area
being discussed here is 3000 people per square kilometre; about 1000
times as much as Montana and about 10 times as much as Germany. I do
realize that People in Coutonou might have other priorities in live than
the spoilt kids in Germany but I don't think it serves your argument to
invoke population density.

> Arm chair
> mapping is perfectly good solution in this and many other cases.

I dont't think that arm chair mapping is "perfectly good" in many cases,
I think the risk of said accidental imperialism is too high. Would you
want Montana mapped by people who've never even been to the US and
perhaps don't even speak English?

Bye
Frederik

-- 
Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"



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