Contribution of the OSM community fo the Yolanda / Haiyan was awesome with more then 1,600 contributors from 82 countries. Thanks to all of you for this. Various medias have recognized how we made the difference for humanitarian relief, delivering printed maps 10 days after the typhoon.
This is now the reconstruction period and various humanitarian teams are working in the region. In such emergency context, the collection of map data is not their first priority. But it worth trying to provide them simple tools to collect OpenData for OSM. While they are using the maps, it may convince them to contribute and add information. While some of them might use various smartphone Applications, we should provide a simpler way of contributing for others. We tell them that they can simply add a Note to the OSM map and describe features such as schools, health facilities, commerces, etc. There are other situations where this could be useful. In Africa for exemple, access to smartphone is easier then to individual computers. Users could add a note rapidly from OpenStreetMap.org and contribute to provide information on infrastructures. From the Notead added ont the map, OSM contributors working remotely can then take care to interpret this information and add the objects with the appropriate tags. We also have to understand that in many countries, just few people have individual computers Looking at various Notes that have been added recently, I see that the description is often too short. I suggest that the Note feature be revised with the objective to facilitate collection of OpenData. Nothing complex, no hierarchical menu should be developped since other tools already do it. I think that we could simply tell them to put some details to help us describe this object on the map adding the appropriate characteristics : - The type of feature (ie, school, hospital, various types of commerces, etc.) - The name of this feature I also see duplication of Notes for the same feature and it is not easy for less experienced users to find the Note layer. Then, when a user click to add a Note, the Note layer should be added automatically. And it surely help to insist on opening an OSM account so that we can communicate with these people. Pierre
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