[OSM-talk] Quality and the Openstreetmap value chain

[Mario Frasca]

I wish to add some nuance to Frederik's opinion:

On 12/05/2020 07:06, Frederik Ramm wrote:
> The scarce resource in this project are still mappers, not consumers.

as far as my experience goes, in most places where I've been the scarce 
resource is people on the spot: __local__ mappers with access to the 
internet and some motivation to share knowledge.

an other rare factor is the ability to talk cross-communities. you might 
not notice it here in this group, or in the Telegram group, because the 
participants are all from the same community, while there are others, 
quite different from what you meet here. there's people who will require 
"speak my language (please), because I don't understand yours" (and this 
will be said in whichever language), and the language barrier is the 
least of the problems, because you may well read/write Spanish, or 
English, but I've witnessed Americans and Europeans speaking the same 
language, but not managing to focus on the issue, because —if you ask 
me— some irrelevant but fundamental formal error.

let's leave the above aside for a moment.

I do not know how to motivate local mappers.  people simply do not share 
knowledge if there's not a short term payback, I'm guessing here, but 
maybe they fear losing the exclusivity of the information, I don't 
know.  bus drivers were happy to keep a phone in their car to let me 
record the route, but I've approached tourist operators, asking for 
"where's that petroglyph", or "would you record how you walk to the 
waterfall", to no avail, during a couple of months in a touristic area 
in Panama.  "strategically" touristic.  just check who's been mapping 
the area of Santa Fe, Veraguas, Panama, how many local people.  and how 
many GPS traces are available.  it's not just 'mappers' which are 
scarce, it's the whole idea of sharing information which should be 
worked upon.

and who knows the cross-community ability would help.

Mario Frasca