[OSM-talk] Why the HOT obsession with low quality buildings in Africa ?

[Warin]

On 02/07/18 18:52, Frederik Ramm wrote:

> Hi,
>
> On 02.07.2018 10:24, Jean-Marc Liotier wrote:
>> churning out buildings like demented stonemasons trying to reach their weekly quota
>> of gamified task-managing !
> I recently stumbled upon
>
> https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=15/-6.8958/39.1623
>
> (Tanzania) and had a similar thought. The buildings there are at least
> square and largely match aerial imagery, but this, too, looked like
> supercharged one-trick-pony image tracing combined with very little on
> the ground knowledge (e.g. quite a few roads and tracks clearly visible
> on the imagery are not traced, and from someone local you'd expect the
> occasional POI or label).
>
> Someone must have buildings very high on their priority list (don't even
> know if HOT are involved but it certainly doesn't look like local mapping).
>
> It will be interesting to learn why buildings are so important. Or are
> they just the lowest-hanging image tracing fruit, or just easier to count?
>
I have been mapping a few buildings lately - mainly to add addresses to.
Past mappers have placed a few POI ... but they tend not to be too precise - e.g. between buildings or on the footpath.
Once the building outline is there then you see the discrepancy. And any further additions of POI can be guided by the building outlines.

I hope 'my' buildings are a little better that what is described above, some of that depends on the imagery,
some in the pride of workmanship and some on the fatigue of the mapper.
Certainly any HOT manager who rewards the number of things done should be alert to the quality reduction that such motivation brings.

One of the good things about adding addresses .. you notice things like the road name is wrong.