[OSM-talk] Sudden influx of bad HOTosm edits in West Bank

[Andy Townsend]

For info, here's an example changeset discussion comment I've just 
written.  Where new mappers are not quite getting the hang of things 
it'd be great if before someone leaps to the mailing list to either 
complain abot or defend HOT and HOT mappers they could offer them advice 
and help about how to get better:


"Hello and welcome to OpenStreetMap!
Looking at some of the changes here such as $example I think you may be 
"overinterpreting" the imagery somewhat.
If you look at the different imagery choices available you can get a 
feeling for the scale quite well, and its clear that none or almost none 
of the buildings that you've added here actually are buildings (that's 
clear with both Bing and your custom imagery - in fact your custom 
imagery, if later, suggests that buildings shown on Bing have been removed).
Assuming you're not in the West Bank at the moment, what I'd suggest is 
that you try mapping things more locally to you first - often it's 
useful to look at the imagery of a place you know well to see how 
certain features look from the air.  It can be difficult to tell roads 
from e.g. riverbeds if you're not careful.
If you're in $country (guessing, based on your editor locale of $locale 
above) then there are lots of local groups both HOT-based and non-HOT 
based where you can discuss mapping; there are also mailing lists and 
other forums - https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Contact has lots of 
details.
Best Regards,
Andy"

It'd also be great to refer mappers to other learning resources like the 
wiki beginners' guide or learnosm, but that can be a bit difficult since 
it's difficult to know what they've seen so far

Regards,
Andy