On Jun 9, 2011, at 7:42, Jerry Clough : SK53 on OSM <sk53_...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> Generally, I am still opposed to a bot. There is a substantial body of > evidence that automated imports damage the ability to recruit and nuture new > mappers. Could you cite the evidence? Is it just hand waving about AND or something more specific? > Recent posts about Latvia, Austria and The Netherlands on talk all > substantiate this: in many cases the people recognising the issue were those > who either carried out the import or agreed to it. > > I think a completion bot is a distraction from a much more important issue. > > In order to get a better level of completeness in the UK what we need are > more mappers. There are several ways to recruit mappers: they require a > decent amount of hard work, and probably a broader range of skills than > writing a bot. We need a more organised way of generating publicity on a > regular basis both for national and local media. We need a better press kit. > We need to move the emphasis of mapping from getting GPS tracks: dont get me > wrong this is still valuable, but a local mapper without a GPS can do a fine > job with Bing, OS OpenData, Walking Papers, a camera, and ground surveys. We > need more outreach techniques: not just mapping parties, or pub meets or > mini-mapping, but workshops for people interested in consuming data, > workshops to review the data from particular usage perspectives (cyclists, > walkers, sustainable living, wheelchair users, etc.). We could do with more > supporting materials for such things: slideshows, posters, how to organise > .... I'm finding this ain't that easy, but at least I'm trying. > > We also need to recognise that the more detailed each area becomes the harder > it becomes for a new mapper to feel that they can contribute, not forgetting > the "I might break something". If we are to devote effort to code its better > directed at tools which can make the life of new mappers easier: this > obviously includes contributing to existing editors, but it may mean creating > new ones. It almost certainly means working to get a much more sophisticated > OpenStreetBugs integrated into the rails port: many new mappers will > initially be happy to point out bugs (see recent examples on OSM Help where > the first thing someone wants to fix is a turn restriction). > > I strongly dislike the meme "OS data is always more accurate than OSM", > because it implies there's no point in doing surveys anyway. Yes, errors > occur, although mainly in transcription rather than in surveying as can be > seen by errors in using OSSV & OSL, but tools like ITO OSM Analysis and OSL > Musical Chairs really help to pick up these errors: I've been able to go back > to pictures and audio recordings and indeed verify that I'd not changed > Street to Road when I copied the tag over from another way. There is also the > spurious accuracy problem: people filling in a road name from OS Locator when > there is NO evidence on the ground that the road has that name (pace RichardF > in W Oxon): see my blog post on Kenyon Road. Many of the unnamed roads in the > immediate vicinity of where I'm writing this are of that type: sometimes > dogged persistence can nail down that the road is still called that, for > instance from address information. > > Take a look at Corby: its OSL road complete: a small part on the N edge was > surveyed, the rest is largely from OSSV. There is a huge amount of > information missing: footways, paths in parks, information about Places of > Worship, other POIs. Corby is the classic sort of place which is less likely > to receive attention from OSMers according to Muki's studies: its out of the > way, it lacks a strong middle-class demographic. There are plenty of people > living in places like this who are using Skobbler's apps, but we're never > going to reach out to them if we do the easy bits from our armchairs and > leave the harder less rewarding mapping activities for others. > > Why not build a separate database & render which merges the missing names (& > roads) from OSSV/OSL and OSM data, but is external to the OSM planet > database. This could use many of the same techniques as a bot. > > A bot is putting short-term gain ahead of our long-term interests. > > Regards, > > Jerry > > _______________________________________________ > Talk-GB mailing list > Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org > http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
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