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
