Re: [Talk-ca] Users in Ottawa and Geobase
Hi John, On Wed, Oct 28, 2009 at 9:19 PM, john whelan jwhelan0...@gmail.com wrote: My objective at the moment is to get something sane that can be used by various groups in the city with GPS devices to tag trees, heritage buildings etc. So, if I'm understanding what you say above and in previous e-mails, you want people to be able to add POIs and Geotagged photos. I'm not sure why we have to blow away extant data and import fresh, since the GPS co-ordinates wouldn't change even if the extant data is just purely wrong. If you are saying that provided I can do a couple of GPS traces down some of the city center roads then based on that we can adjust the road system wholesale to more nearly agree with the GPS as was done in Vancouver etc. then I'm more than happy. Well, I think this is what everyone is after. We want all mappers, good and not so good ones, to feel they can contribute. We hope to educate and make beginners better, so that their mapping improves over time. When I joined, Toronto was a map of about 8 or 10 major streets. Huge areas of the city were mapped over time. Every baby step helps, whether it's tracing Yahoo images, adding names to streets or verifying data with a GPS. 5 year olds can contribute, as can 95 year olds, and that's what makes OSM so wonderful. It's been a long time since I took a look at GIS systems professionally and I'm not familiar with what is the best approach. I would prefer not to put too much load on others knowing they are all volunteers. Don't put any load on volunteers -- teach them to do what is important to them. Like any open source project, people have an itch to scratch. There will be different volunteers that want every road in, or every mail box, etc. Your volunteers want to tag buildings? Teach them to do it. You might also explain how to fix a road, if the alignment is wrong, 'cause that might annoy them. Give them the tools, then it's up to them if they have that itch. On mapping parties realistically this is better done in the spring / summer / fall time frame when bicycles can be used, Ottawa gets a bit chilly at this time of the year for organising something in the next four months. I surveyed a bunch of roads on warmer winter days. My advice would be to start small and aim small. I think the first Toronto mapping party covered a very small number of blocks, but they mapped a lot. It was a big and easy to see change, and people get to point and say, I mapped that. I'm not sure with the Geobase import this is as much an issue anymore, but once the roads were in there was lots of time to add details like type of road and name on the very cold days. Gerald ___ Talk-ca mailing list Talk-ca@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-ca
Re: [Talk-ca] Users in Ottawa and Geobase
On Thu, Oct 29, 2009 at 8:24 AM, Gerald A geraldabli...@gmail.com wrote: I think Sam was hinting at wholesale deletion and replacement, rather then editing permission. That's the problem, hinting at an idea is not an accurate statement. Sam (and others) have made a number of generic statements, when they are talking about specific situations. This leads to issues where people take these generic statements, and interpret them to mean that one can not make changes to the OSM map. We need to ensure that people coming into the project understand why certain statements are made, and why these decisions are part of the OSM unofficial policy. Correcting wrong roads is definitely encourages, but the OP suggested simply blowing all of Ottawa away because he found some areas of dubious value. My take on Sam's suggestion was that if the OP was sure that it was all bad, he should double check with the people that did the work before simply blanking the slate. We're basically all on the same side of the arguement that wholesale deletion of data to make way for a bulk import is a bad idea, except for John. There is very little to be gained by this action, but there is a HUGE potential for a lot of serious negative effects. I think you do agree that correction of the data is the way to go, and I think that Sam could have been a bit clearer about correction rather then delete and replace being the preferred method of tackling this. Exactly. We need to be very clear when trying to descibe policy. Just saying that you are not allowed to edit OSM data after it is entered is blatantly wrong. As I have described a number of times already, editing is encouraged, but wholesale deletion and blind bulk importing is discouraged. Wiping out Ottawa, and importing GeoBase data will lose thousands of hours worth of work that is not included in the GeoBase dataset. Wiping out just the road network and importing GeoBase still leaves as much work to realign all the rest of the data that was associated with, or based upon the OSM road network. James VE6SRV ___ Talk-ca mailing list Talk-ca@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-ca
Re: [Talk-ca] Users in Ottawa and Geobase
Let's recap, I've seen no substantiation for the statement that thousands of hours of work will be lost. I've seen nothing from any one else who has done any GPS traces in Ottawa. I've seen two different places where the existing OSM map is 100 meters out from a GPS measurement. Basically the map in Ottawa is unreliable but we don't know where. There seems to be no way of knowing whether a road has been mapped by GPS trace or sketched in by hand. The groups solution seems to be that in time enough people will magically come out of the woodwork with GPSes and remap the city. It is likely that the same roads will be remapped over and over whist others will not be touched since no one knows what is happening. I don't think I can take that to any of the groups I talk to from time to time. The quality just isn't there to build on. Cheerio John Wiping out Ottawa, and importing GeoBase data will lose thousands of hours worth of work that is not included in the GeoBase dataset. Wiping out just the road network and importing GeoBase still leaves as much work to realign all the rest of the data that was associated with, or based upon the OSM road network. James VE6SRV ___ Talk-ca mailing list Talk-ca@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-ca ___ Talk-ca mailing list Talk-ca@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-ca
Re: [Talk-ca] Users in Ottawa and Geobase
John Whelan wrote: Basically the map in Ottawa is unreliable but we don't know where. There seems to be no way of knowing whether a road has been mapped by GPS trace or sketched in by hand. If I understand the process correctly, to do an import from Geobase you would need to use a script (http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Geobase2osm) to convert the files from Geobase to .osm files. If you were to select a section of the city, do the geobase2osm conversion, then open the existing osm data in JOSM as one layer and the Geobase osm file as a second layer, you should be able to get some ideas about which parts of the map need attention. I suspect that this might not be much more work than a wholesale delete+import anyway. Remember that if you delete and replace a large area, you will most likely need to do a bunch of fixing at the borders of that area. ___ Talk-ca mailing list Talk-ca@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-ca
Re: [Talk-ca] Users in Ottawa and Geobase
On Thu, Oct 29, 2009 at 12:53:45PM -0400, Adam Glauser wrote: John Whelan wrote: Basically the map in Ottawa is unreliable but we don't know where. There seems to be no way of knowing whether a road has been mapped by GPS trace or sketched in by hand. If I understand the process correctly, to do an import from Geobase you would need to use a script (http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Geobase2osm) to convert the files from Geobase to .osm files. Although the conversion from geobase is a lot of work, it's already been done! See https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Am70fsptsPF2dG1ZN1YwMmZCVDhDOHZpbUNmOGlvWGchl=enpli=1 In particular, the area http://www.easy-share.com/1905429944/031G45.may29.osm.gz covers Ottawa. What I recommend when updating Openstreetmap is to use josm and download the relevant openstreetmap data and gps traces (you already uploaded your personal traces to openstreetmap, right?). Next, load your local copy of the relevant geobase data. Then use your judgement plus local knowledge as to how streets should be mapped. One thing that seems to initially surprise people who have not used GPS much is how bad a lot of GPS traces are. A good, modern GPS is amazing when the skies are clear. However, use an old gps or add trees or cloudy skies and you can suddenly find the traces weaving more than a drunk driver. *** BTW, if possible set your GPS to record at 1s intervals. *** Until perfectly aligned, free, hi-resolution satellite imagery comes along, every tool we have is flawed. Even then, satellite images can't see through trees or clouds. -- James Treacy tre...@debian.org ___ Talk-ca mailing list Talk-ca@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-ca
Re: [Talk-ca] Users in Ottawa and Geobase
On Thu, Oct 29, 2009 at 12:36 PM, John Whelan jwhelan0...@gmail.com wrote: Basically the map in Ottawa is unreliable but we don't know where. There seems to be no way of knowing whether a road has been mapped by GPS trace or sketched in by hand. Any map can be unreliable, and often providers of such maps don't know where. The nice thing about OSM is if it isn't right, it can be made so. Just because a road is GPS traced doesn't make it better then one done by tracing. Each has possibility for different errors, and done right, both can be accurate and correct. The groups solution seems to be that in time enough people will magically come out of the woodwork with GPSes and remap the city. It is likely that the same roads will be remapped over and over whist others will not be touched since no one knows what is happening. I'm not a native to Ottawa, but http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=45.4218lon=-75.6907zoom=14layers=B000FTF seems to line up quite well with what I remember. Viewing in Potlatch, it also seems to align quite nicely with the Yahoo imagery of the area. Now, the Yahoo imagery might be incorrectly rectified, but it would seem that might need the data shifted around, rather then a wholesale delete re-import. There are lots of tools to help correct and tweak things -- I'm sure we can dig up a tool or two that will help find errant streets. We're a crowd sourced project -- we depend on people coming out of the woodwork to do stuff. I believe only a number of GPS traces would be needed, rather then a complete re-mapping of the city -- but that is just my opinion. What it sounds like to me is that the group is trying to suggest ways to make the data better in the scope of the projects philosophy. I don't think I can take that to any of the groups I talk to from time to time. The quality just isn't there to build on. OSM isn't perfect, and it'll never be finished, because there is always something else someone will want to add on to it. But the current map, as it exists, seems pretty complete. If it's not up to the accuracy you want, then you are free to help improve it. But improving != removing and re-importing. Or, if you can wait, I'm sure someone will improve it. Gerald ___ Talk-ca mailing list Talk-ca@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-ca
[Talk-ca] Number of Mappers in Ottawa
A quick look at the number of mappers that have contributed to Ottawa there are a lot of individuals and that excludes the GeoBase import. At least some do not live in the Ottawa area, but that also does not preclude their visiting and adding to the map, and I am not sure the tools that they used but at least with some of the names I fully trust their capacity for high quality work. There is very little that was done with the GeoBase import in the area that I was looking at. From January 01, 2009, which is after the GeoBase import started in Canada but long before the Ottawa area was done, there have been 24 individual mappers that have contributed to the map in and around central Ottawa. Of those people 15 people have made contributions since June 01, 2009. Even since September 01, 2009 8 people have contributed to the map. Looking further at those that have contributed at least something since January 01, 2009, and this data is for their total contributions, there are some that have contributed little, even as little as a single node or way, while others have contributed a great deal, one person has over 620 ways and points contributed. Wiping out the work of all of these people is going to destroy a great deal of work that was done for the map. The source of the data was from ITOWorld http://itoworld.com and select the area you want to look at. You are going to have to set up an account with the site but they offer an excellent summary of work done by mappers throughout the world in a number of forms. Richard ___ Talk-ca mailing list Talk-ca@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-ca
Re: [Talk-ca] Number of Mappers in Ottawa mail got munched
My initial mail seems to have been truncated and hopefully this will be better A quick look at the number of mappers that have contributed to the map of Ottawa shows that there are a lot of individuals and that excludes the rather minor contribution from the GeoBase import. At least some of the people that contributed to the map do not live in the Ottawa area but that does not preclude their visiting and adding to the map. I am also not sure what tools they used to find the streets and POI but at least with some of them I fully trust their capacityto produce very high quality work. From January 01, 2009, which is after the GeoBase import started in Canada but before the Ottawa area was done, there have been 24 individuals that contributed to the map in and around central Ottawa. Of those 15 have made contributions since at least June 01, 2009. Even since September 01, 2009 there have been 8 people that have made contributions towards the map of Ottawa. Looking further at those individuals that have contributed to the Ottawa map since January 01, 2009, and this is for the aggregate totals of all of their contributions in the area, the totals range from a single contribution to over 620 total contributions. The source of this data can be found within ITOWorld http://itoworld.com and look at the data for OSM. The site requires registration but does provide a great deal of data about changes to an area and the data within that area. Wiping out the contributions made by all of these people is going to destroy a great deal of work. And I am pretty sure that a great deal is of good quality as well. Richard ___ Talk-ca mailing list Talk-ca@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-ca
Re: [Talk-ca] Users in Ottawa and Geobase
On Wed, Oct 28, 2009 at 9:19 PM, john whelan jwhelan0...@gmail.com wrote: My objective at the moment is to get something sane that can be used by various groups in the city with GPS devices to tag trees, heritage buildings etc. Super. You have groups of interested people, motivated and equipped? Then your mapping parties will be able to clean up Ottawa in no time. They can map their trees and straighten the roads. Ask them to note street addresses and points of interest as well! You see this is the real goal; get more people engaged in improving and maintaining the map so that we all have access to data stewarded by the same obsessive data-love we apply to our neighbourhoods. If you are saying that provided I can do a couple of GPS traces down some of the city center roads then based on that we can adjust the road system wholesale to more nearly agree with the GPS as was done in Vancouver etc. then I'm more than happy. I think that strategy would be fraught with peril. The Ottawa portion of OSM was built by invested locals, in many sessions. There will be no uniform offset. A couple of GPS traces puts you in the same boat as the original mappers. Your individual contributions will be welcomed as part of the community effort. It's been a long time since I took a look at GIS systems professionally and I'm not familiar with what is the best approach. You have all of these motivated contributors just waiting to go out and map trees (and streets and gas stations and bowling alleys...)? What's the hold up? ;-) I would prefer not to put too much load on others knowing they are all volunteers. Indeed. Demanding action from a group of volunteers seems unlikely to succeed without some strong external motivators. Wholesale deletion of the work of many volunteers without their consent seems even less likely to generate a positive outcome. I would consider that wholesale deletion to be vandalism. On mapping parties realistically this is better done in the spring / summer / fall time frame when bicycles can be used, Ottawa gets a bit chilly at this time of the year for organising something in the next four months. Nicer weather can be fun. The first two mapping parties in North America were held in some pretty bad weather. Not by design, but because you generally want to pre-plan a mapping party by more time than you can get a reliable weather forecast. And, if you plan the mapping party as a meetup to share information, goals and techniques (including how to use potlatch and josm, etc.) folks might even be more likely to show up; wonderful summer weather can drive them to the cottage, rather than your mapping party. You have an opportunity here. You are connected to a group that may be really interested in their local map and really motivated to get it right. Don't wait for perfect weather to share your interest; you'll never get it. The weather can always be better. And if you want a hand with your events in Ottawa let me know. ___ Talk-ca mailing list Talk-ca@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-ca
Re: [Talk-ca] Number of Mappers in Ottawa mail got munched
On Thu, Oct 29, 2009 at 1:25 PM, Richard Degelder rtdegel...@gmail.com wrote: A quick look at the number of mappers that have contributed to the map of Ottawa shows that there are a lot of individuals and that excludes the rather minor contribution from the GeoBase import. The source of this data can be found within ITOWorld http://itoworld.com and look at the data for OSM. The site requires registration but does provide a great deal of data about changes to an area and the data within that area. You can also get a history of activity on an area within Potlatch... http://www.openstreetmap.org/history?bbox=-75.7845,45.3813,-75.5994,45.4411 Here's a little of the latest activity. ID Saved atUserComment Area #2981665 October 29, 2009 15:51 Sensei Marc Ottawa lock 29 -75.703,45.384,-75.678,45.428 #2978903 October 29, 2009 06:34 acrosscanadatrails fixing up a little bit of Ottawa, ON-75.702,45.421,-75.696,45.423 #2978586 October 29, 2009 05:11 nmixter (none) -122.202,37.750,24.896,47.190 (big) #2978379 October 29, 2009 03:04 Sensei Marc Ottawa locks -75.701,45.385,-75.676,45.427 #2978371 October 29, 2009 03:00 Sensei Marc (none) -75.767,45.385,-74.314,45.653 (big) #2978094 October 29, 2009 02:11 Mirko Küster fix -86.468,43.049,14.028,53.055 (big) #2973473 October 28, 2009 15:06 Sensei Marc (none) -75.767,45.385,-74.315,45.653 (big) #2973439 October 28, 2009 15:03 Sensei Marc (none) -75.699,45.427,-75.697,45.427 #2965045 October 27, 2009 13:10 Johnwhelan added footpath-75.702,45.425,-75.688,45.433 #2951962 October 25, 2009 22:20 adjuva Korrekturen an highway-Tags. -80.524,42.499,17.971,52.529 (big) #2951120 October 26, 2009 01:10 adjuva Korrekturen an highway-Tags. -137.389,-35.639,157.368,61.927 (big) #2949317 October 25, 2009 20:49 adjuva Korrekturen an highway-Tags. -79.947,-0.988,13.449,54.923 (big) #2939676 October 24, 2009 17:50 daswaldhorn Grenze USA repariert -180.000,17.795,180.000,61.288 (big) #2939376 October 24, 2009 17:20 daswaldhorn Grenze USA ergänzt -180.000,-2.652,180.000,77.768 (big) #2938512 October 24, 2009 15:51 daswaldhorn Grenze Kanada repariert -129.809,41.526,-63.249,49.769 (big) #2937063 October 24, 2009 15:42 Andre68 Fixing coastline error -134.671,39.331,-8.387,78.837 (big) #2932406 October 23, 2009 20:47 Sensei Marc (none) -75.712,45.417,-75.712,45.417 #2931994 October 23, 2009 22:32 Andre68 Fixing coastline error -128.104,-28.364,155.181,78.811 (big) #2931722 October 23, 2009 20:04 Sensei Marc (none) -75.701,45.367,-75.659,45.443 #2931293 October 23, 2009 19:09 Sensei Marc (none) -75.852,45.345,-75.670,45.427 2930249 October 23, 2009 16:23 Sensei Marc Test bridge -75.699,45.427,-75.697,45.429 #2929187 October 23, 2009 14:01 Sensei Marc (none) -75.697,45.389,-75.677,45.397 #2928997 October 23, 2009 13:33 Sensei Marc (none) -75.696,45.393,-75.696,45.394 #2928982 October 23, 2009 13:31 Sensei Marc (none) -75.697,45.394,-75.686,45.397 #2923153 October 22, 2009 17:57 Sensei Marc Ottawa locks2 -75.701,45.418,-75.680,45.428 #2921693 October 22, 2009 14:31 Sensei Marc (none) -75.703,45.423,-75.695,45.427 #2921621 October 22, 2009 14:30 Sensei Marc lock test-75.698,45.427,-75.697,45.429 #2921258 October 22, 2009 13:38 Sensei Marc HogsBack-75.700,45.384,-75.700,45.385 #2918052 October 22, 2009 05:27 Andre68 Fixing coastline error -115.298,11.892,103.047,62.188 (big) #2917864 October 22, 2009 03:34 Sensei Marc ottawalock -75.703,45.366,-75.677,45.427 #2917857 October 22, 2009 03:26 Sensei Marc (none) -75.706,45.370,-75.699,45.385 #2917723 October 22, 2009 03:04 Sensei Marc (none) -76.296,44.686,-75.573,45.517 (big) #2917528 October 21, 2009 23:59 robhedrick BBOX:-95.31,37.26,-73.88,45.19 ADD:0 UPD:59 DEL:42 Removing duplicate nodes from the last 37 in NA - only found a few.-96.812,36.947,-73.884,45.983 (big) #2917466 October 22, 2009 00:57 Sensei Marc (none) -75.919,45.169,-75.614,45.409 (big) #2916957 October 21, 2009 23:13 Nedim(none) -81.535,6.854,28.254,47.677 (big) #2916929 October 21, 2009 23:18 Sensei Marc blackrapid -75.712,45.207,-75.665,45.382 #2916754 October 21, 2009 22:49 Sensei Marc rideau north of clowes -75.935,44.946,-75.607,45.434 (big) #2916522 October 21, 2009 21:05 Ropino sport -165.358,-17.542,28.381,60.601 (big) #2914679 October 21, 2009 19:53 Sensei Marc (none) -75.708,45.329,-75.677,45.427 #2911412 October 21, 2009 12:51 Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason Reverting changeset
Re: [Talk-ca] Number of Mappers in Ottawa mail got munched
Thank you some meaningful numbers on mappers at least which was not immediately apparent. So it looks as if we'll just have to wait until the mess gets straighten out. I found two on OSM, one wasn't active and the other, Marc Sensei, didn't respond. My premise of just dropping in the Geobase data was based on the fact I could only identify two other Ottawa mappers. So it look as if not much had been done so far especially on the GPS side. Thus doing the job quickly would save any more effort until we ended up with the clean map. Since where ever the Geobase import and the OSM data meet there is a clean up to be done it appeared that given the apparent resources (two people) the job would be faster to just drop in the Geobase thus minimise the boundaries. As it is it looks as if the area of up to 100 meters will need to be checked for omissions, joins etc. Then the idea was given a decent set of roads to leverage some of the groups I come across on the planning side to add tags. I don't think the Ottawa OSM map is mature enough to suggest it to them at this point in time with its missing segments of roads etc. Perhaps in a couple of years when its straighten out. Bye the way someone made a comment that I'd only mentioned two items being over 100 meters off. It's now at least three and they were off in different directions. All were in locations with clear sky above, I assume they were satellite tracings. Cheerio John Richard Degelder wrote: My initial mail seems to have been truncated and hopefully this will be better A quick look at the number of mappers that have contributed to the map of Ottawa shows that there are a lot of individuals and that excludes the rather minor contribution from the GeoBase import. At least some of the people that contributed to the map do not live in the Ottawa area but that does not preclude their visiting and adding to the map. I am also not sure what tools they used to find the streets and POI but at least with some of them I fully trust their capacityto produce very high quality work. >From January 01, 2009, which is after the GeoBase import started in Canada but before the Ottawa area was done, there have been 24 individuals that contributed to the map in and around central Ottawa. Of those 15 have made contributions since at least June 01, 2009. Even since September 01, 2009 there have been 8 people that have made contributions towards the map of Ottawa. Looking further at those individuals that have contributed to the Ottawa map since January 01, 2009, and this is for the aggregate totals of all of their contributions in the area, the totals range from a single contribution to over 620 total contributions. The source of this data can be found within ITOWorld http://itoworld.com and look at the data for OSM. The site requires registration but does provide a great deal of data about changes to an area and the data within that area. Wiping out the contributions made by all of these people is going to destroy a great deal of work. And I am pretty sure that a great deal is of good quality as well. Richard ___ Talk-ca mailing list Talk-ca@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-ca ___ Talk-ca mailing list Talk-ca@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-ca
Re: [Talk-ca] Number of Mappers in Ottawa mail got munched
On Thu, Oct 29, 2009 at 2:32 PM, John Whelan jwhelan0...@gmail.com wrote: So it looks as if we'll just have to wait until the mess gets straighten out. Do you have any idea what happens if we ALL take that attitude? There is no them in OSM, it's an us type community. I found two on OSM, one wasn't active and the other, Marc Sensei, didn't respond. Have you given him time to check his incoming mail and respond? It is easy to miss items sitting in the OSM inbox, and if the user uses JOSM or another offline mapping method, they might not log onto OSM for extended periods of time. My premise of just dropping in the Geobase data was based on the fact I could only identify two other Ottawa mappers. So it look as if not much had been done so far especially on the GPS side. Thus doing the job quickly would save any more effort until we ended up with the clean map. Just for reference, here's what the OSM map looks like when there's not much being done in an area. http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=65.2780lon=-126.7932zoom=17 This link is for Norman Wells, NWT. There are no local mappers in the area. If you zoom out, you'll find the MacKenzie River which was created by a JOSM Lakewalker plugin on Feb 10, 2009. If no one works in the area, nothing happens. The Ottawa area looks like it has much more information than Norman Wells, so we have to assume that the OSM community has actually been working in the area. History information backs up that assumption. Then the idea was given a decent set of roads to leverage some of the groups I come across on the planning side to add tags. I don't think the Ottawa OSM map is mature enough to suggest it to them at this point in time with its missing segments of roads etc. Perhaps in a couple of years when its straighten out. It may never become mature enough then if everyone waits for magic to happen. Bye the way someone made a comment that I'd only mentioned two items being over 100 meters off. It's now at least three and they were off in different directions. All were in locations with clear sky above, I assume they were satellite tracings. Have you corrected these items? If not, then when you look at them in a couple years, they might still be located in the wrong place. Do you yet understand that OSM is a community project, and it takes investment by the community to create a usable product. If you don't want to invest the time and effort to help further the project, then you might just want to look at investing your cash into a commercial mapping solution. Nothing is free... OSM espouses to be free as in speech, but someone has to invest the effort in making the noise... by helping to map the area, you are making the noise that others can listen to. If you sit on your hands and wait, it takes that much longer for everyone else to produce a product for your consumption. Perhaps your professional background is getting in the way of understanding that not everything in the world is a product that is produced by someone else, and simply purchased when needed. Sometimes you have to roll up your sleeves and help yourself. I found a footpath that you added to the map, so I know that you know how this works. James VE6SRV ___ Talk-ca mailing list Talk-ca@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-ca
Re: [Talk-ca] Number of Mappers in Ottawa mail got munched
When you use people whose first interest isn't mapping in large numbers you need to keep it simple. I've used little old ladies in electric wheel chairs before now to take photographs of specific locations on the other side of the Atlantic. Worked fine but they do get confused easily so if something appears to be 30 meters from where they think it is the amount of hand holding goes up quite sharply and that is support time I can't afford. Once you have the basic streets in roughly the right place tagging becomes easier and a lot more things become possible. A lot of my work has been in the realm of simplifying fairly complex things so they can be used by the masses to get a very reasonable return on investment, this does not need to be directly in monetary values but can be, for example I changed a typeface once which saved about a $1,000,000 a year. With OSM I can see some very good opportunities for its use once it reaches a certain level of reliability of information. The three items that were more than 100 meters out have been corrected as have most of the sections of road that were omitted from the import because one road on the OSM map was up to 100 meters away from where it should be. I don't have the time or resources to go and verify large areas of Ottawa, I can carry a GPS with me when I pop out which gives data at low marginal cost but that's probably the limit of it. My estimate of the Ottawa map getting sorted out is probably two years assuming more people get involved. Given the large amount of verification of the old OSM data and the clean up work to be done on the boundaries of the Geobase / OSM data merge my contribution will be insignificant. Mind you if you look carefully you'll find two more footpaths have been added. I am associated with at least one project in sourceforge and on another freeware project my work has been downloaded well over 500,000 times so I am familiar with making items that do not have to be purchased. On those projects I made use of others to verify the quality. Cheerio John 2009/10/29 James Ewen ve6...@gmail.com: On Thu, Oct 29, 2009 at 2:32 PM, John Whelan jwhelan0...@gmail.com wrote: So it looks as if we'll just have to wait until the mess gets straighten out. Do you have any idea what happens if we ALL take that attitude? There is no them in OSM, it's an us type community. I found two on OSM, one wasn't active and the other, Marc Sensei, didn't respond. Have you given him time to check his incoming mail and respond? It is easy to miss items sitting in the OSM inbox, and if the user uses JOSM or another offline mapping method, they might not log onto OSM for extended periods of time. My premise of just dropping in the Geobase data was based on the fact I could only identify two other Ottawa mappers. So it look as if not much had been done so far especially on the GPS side. Thus doing the job quickly would save any more effort until we ended up with the clean map. Just for reference, here's what the OSM map looks like when there's not much being done in an area. http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=65.2780lon=-126.7932zoom=17 This link is for Norman Wells, NWT. There are no local mappers in the area. If you zoom out, you'll find the MacKenzie River which was created by a JOSM Lakewalker plugin on Feb 10, 2009. If no one works in the area, nothing happens. The Ottawa area looks like it has much more information than Norman Wells, so we have to assume that the OSM community has actually been working in the area. History information backs up that assumption. Then the idea was given a decent set of roads to leverage some of the groups I come across on the planning side to add tags. I don't think the Ottawa OSM map is mature enough to suggest it to them at this point in time with its missing segments of roads etc. Perhaps in a couple of years when its straighten out. It may never become mature enough then if everyone waits for magic to happen. Bye the way someone made a comment that I'd only mentioned two items being over 100 meters off. It's now at least three and they were off in different directions. All were in locations with clear sky above, I assume they were satellite tracings. Have you corrected these items? If not, then when you look at them in a couple years, they might still be located in the wrong place. Do you yet understand that OSM is a community project, and it takes investment by the community to create a usable product. If you don't want to invest the time and effort to help further the project, then you might just want to look at investing your cash into a commercial mapping solution. Nothing is free... OSM espouses to be free as in speech, but someone has to invest the effort in making the noise... by helping to map the area, you are making the noise that others can listen to. If you sit on your hands and wait, it takes that much longer for everyone else to produce a
Re: [Talk-ca] Users in Ottawa and Geobase
Wholesale deletion of the work of many volunteers without their consent seems even less likely to generate a positive outcome. I would consider that wholesale deletion to be vandalism. I strongly agree. Manually edited data should never be removed and replaced automatically with a data import. Imported data likely contains errors and omissions and does not contain additional information (such as one way streets and POIs). Instead, one should clean up the data by surveying and by using validation tools such as keep right (keepright.ipax.at). To clean up an area quickly, it may be useful to copy and paste missing data from GeoBase, as it is generally fairly accurate (though it does not include one way streets, and new roads built in the last few years tend to be missing). ___ Talk-ca mailing list Talk-ca@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-ca
[Talk-ca] Anybody know who/what vreimer is?
In my hometown of Chilliwack, there's a new overpass/section of road opening tomorrow. It's been open to pedestrians for the past week, so I've already collected gps tracks of it, and added as construction. Tonight I went to remove the construction tag, and see that vreimer messed up the geometry of the roundabout. This user seems to do quite a bit of editing (73 changesets in 2 days, scattered across Canada), so I'm wondering if it's some bot, and precisely what it is doing. I've already sent a message to the user in case it is human. Adam ___ Talk-ca mailing list Talk-ca@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-ca
Re: [Talk-ca] Anybody know who/what vreimer is?
Thanks Adam, As we disussed on chat. I'll contact that user. (no need for others too) Cheers, Sam Twitter: @Acrosscanada Blog: http://Acrosscanadatrails.blogspot.com Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/sam.vekemans OpenStreetMap IRC: http://irc.openstreetmap.org @Acrosscanadatrails On Thu, Oct 29, 2009 at 7:20 PM, Adam Dunn dunna...@gmail.com wrote: In my hometown of Chilliwack, there's a new overpass/section of road opening tomorrow. It's been open to pedestrians for the past week, so I've already collected gps tracks of it, and added as construction. Tonight I went to remove the construction tag, and see that vreimer messed up the geometry of the roundabout. This user seems to do quite a bit of editing (73 changesets in 2 days, scattered across Canada), so I'm wondering if it's some bot, and precisely what it is doing. I've already sent a message to the user in case it is human. Adam ___ Talk-ca mailing list Talk-ca@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-ca ___ Talk-ca mailing list Talk-ca@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-ca
