Re: [talk-au] Talk-au Digest, Vol 36, Issue 9
There's no convenient way. ?We could bounce a user off to the OSM site to register, but this is complex because they then need to confirm an email, and after the signup there (appears to be) no convenient way to bring them back to our site. We'd then have to ask them to enter their OSM username and password since we can't easily tell whether they are registered/logged in with OSM (the OSM login cookies are for the openstreetmap.org domain). ?In short, the OSM site doesn't appear to have been designed with the intention of supporting login integration with external services. There are ways around many of the issues, but we'd end up doing a fair amount of work to integrate closely with an external site that may then change the way it works, breaking the flow for our users. Hi all, I have a idea - it's not that different in concept to my Survey Helper system that I emailed out about a few months ago. But the way I see it, the issues are: 1. It's too hard to get Nearmap users to go through the signup process for OSM 2. OSM shouldn't necessarily trust the information coming back from Nearmap users, and would ideally like to vet the information coming back 3. It would be good there was some way to combine the enthusiasm of the Nearmap users with the skills of long-term OSM editors So how about creating an independent database that allows OSM editors to view what is effectively a suggestion box database, which can then be used / accessed by registered OSM users to influence their map editing? That way, Nearmap users are still making contributions, and they can be vetted / influenced by a more experienced OSM editor. That way, one of the activities OSM editors can do, in addition to tracing streets, is also check the Nearmap change suggestions database to see what good stuff the Nearmap user community has provided. ___ Talk-au mailing list Talk-au@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au
Re: [talk-au] NearMap support for OSM editing
1. It's too hard to get Nearmap users to go through the signup process for OSM For a given value of hard :) Yes, right now we think it's too complex and there's also no easy way for us to tell if they're already signed up/logged into OSM. Yep. I guess it would involve asking them to sign up twice. Interesting point... is a given Nearmap user any less trustworthy than a given OSM user? :) Or are you thinking that this would be a result of us making it easier to make changes? A fair question. I'm working under the assumption that a nearmap user is most likely unfamilar with OSM or how to edit ways and POIs according to the agreed standards; otherwise you wouldn't be trying to make it easier for your users to edit OSM data :) That's a good idea, but it doesn't help us address one key requirement, which is that we want to allow users to make corrections on the map and see the results of those changes in very short order (preferably immediately). The OSM data structure is not well suited to us storing edits locally and using them to correct the data used for rendering, so our preference if to resubmit the edits back to OSM as soon as possible so that we can regenerate the maps from the OSM updates. I guess a compromise would be to display another layer that contains all the suggested changes that have been made by all the different nearmap users. People would be able to see oh someone's already flagged that for an edit, and see what the status of all the suggestions are (Accepted, Reviewed, In progress, Fixed, Won't Fix etc). Sort of like a GIS Bugzilla. -- Voon-Li Chung chun...@gmail.com.au ___ Talk-au mailing list Talk-au@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au
[talk-au] Making a laptop Into a Big-Screen GPS (cont.)
This kit may also help, depending on your screen size: http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.12561 when fitted, provides a 7-inch touchscreen via USB, which I'm assuming would be more convenient that using the touchpad. -- Voon-Li Chung chun...@gmail.com.au ___ Talk-au mailing list Talk-au@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au
[talk-au] Abuse
Hi everyone, I'm new on the mailing list, so it would be appreciated if you could forgive some of the newbie / naive responses. Is anyone else slowly getting angrier about the vandalism :( ? They've also added: Jon Cryer Drive (56235587) Blake Johnson Street Simon Barber Drive (29452691) Highlands Road (46594174) and they've rerouted Bolton Avenue through the golf course at Burswood Resort to make way for their Simon Barber Drive (http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=-31.956927lon=115.898245zoom=18). They've renamed the main road in Kalgoorlie to Hannan Street (Fake Great Eastern Highway). I'd say they lived in the Parkerville / Stoneville area and were FIFO workers in Kalgoorlie. Simon Barber Drive seems to be a fictional highway that follows the path of the river and connects Burswood Resort, via some of their other creations, to the Parkerville / Stoneville area. Given it's just one contributor, should we ask a sys/data admin to revert all his changes and ask the relevant user questions later? The vandalism intrudes into the CBD area of the map - I would argue that it is falling into the might bring the project into disrepute elements of the important to respond immediately and revert first and ask questions to the contributor in parallel guidelines in the OSM wiki. Looking at their changes, I don't think they've made any major contribution to the database. -- Voon-Li Chung chun...@gmail.com.au ___ Talk-au mailing list Talk-au@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au
[talk-au] J2ME Survey Assistant Application
(Cross post from the users: Australia forum) Hi all, I've been really getting stuck into performing on-foot surveys of areas where the street names are missing, and I was thinking about an easier way of recording street name data. Walking papers is fantastic (and I still use it to print out where I need to survey), but I was looking for something less fiddly than writing names onto a sheet of paper, as well as trying to enable people not living in an area still being able to help with updating maps in an area. Having written a few J2ME apps in my time, and some of these involving Location Based Services (i.e. GPS), I thought I'd create one to help record name and POI data. I guess you could say it's based on the tourist guide principle (if you look over there point you'll see...). That is, if you record the position, the direction and the comment, others should be able to infer what you have surveyed. The data entry process is quite simple: 1: Find an unnamed street or point of interest to comment on 2: Record point: enter the (compass) bearing and name of the street or comments on the POI When a point is recorded, the GPS coordinates, heading and comments entered are saved onto the phone. At the end of the survey, choose Send from the menu and all the stored data is sent to a server via WWW/CGI. After that, it's relatively simple to render these points using AJAX and OpenLayers. I've included a small screenshot from my recent alpha test of the application at http://vlchung.freeshell.org/mapme.jpg (those of you from Perth will recognise that as the area adjacent to Lord's Fitness Centre). As you can see, I've selected a data point where I'm saying that the street heading directly north is called Jasmine Avenue. It's my hope that this application will be useful for the following reasons: 1: Not so much writing down of stuff in the field, meaning that people running surveys don't have to carry around as much stuff. 2: Dissociates surveying from the actual editing of the map, meaning that if you like walking around doing the surveys but aren't so keen on the data entry, someone else could theoretically lend a hand by using your survey data to update the maps. Same for vice-versa (particularly our OSM friends overseas who physically can't reach the Australian survey areas). I figured I'd post to the Australian group, because of my involvement in updating the Australian maps and the fact that thanks to nearmap it's not (usually) the presence of the streets that are missing, but the names (and this application is geared towards that situation). There are some definite TODOs in here such as using a phone's on-board compass (my phone doesn't have one on board, so I've been using an orienteering compass) or coding for more popular platforms (Android etc). Anyway, so I was wondering if anyone out there: 1: Thinks my app would help the surveying effort? 2: Would be interested in helping test the phone app (J2ME phone with on board GPS required - e.g. Nokia E71)? 3: Would be interested in helping test the idea that this information would enable a third party to enter street name information, by trying to use JOSM / Potlatch to enter in data provided by people from their phones (I think this is quite important, as it's the main reason why I'm motivated to do this)? Thanks in advance, Voon-Li. ___ Talk-au mailing list Talk-au@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au
