Difficult, how many mappers would a validator oversee at the same time.
The edits are done on a local PC and the bandwidth requirements between
the mapper and validator would be higher than the existing method and
bandwidth is often at a premium.
Having said that the idea has merit for a mapper who intends to map more
than once. It's just expensive in validator time and remember it has to
be an experienced validator.
Cheerio John
Lists wrote on 2020-04-24 10:03 AM:
I wonder if it would be possible to "validate" in real time. Some
method that a validator could watch as the mapper did their thing, and
make suggestions as they went? Then it becomes both training and
validation simultaneously. Obviously it would have to be on a consent
basis from the mapper, ie they would have to opt in when they started
and a validator would have to be available. Otherwise, it seems like
it would be better just to make the correction and maybe have it send
a message to the mapper about what got changed.
Bryan Sayer
-------- Original message --------
From: john whelan <[email protected]>
Date: 04/24/2020 9:43 AM (GMT-05:00)
To: Jean-Marc Liotier <[email protected]>
Cc: "HOT@OSM (Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team)" <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [HOT] Validators [was: COVID-19 For The Long Haul]
What I found when validating HOT tasks was that if I provided feedback
that wasn't too negative on the task "ie the african highway wiki
suggests that this type of highway should be mapped thus: with a link
and reference to the wiki rather than you done it wrong" then the
mapper would go on to do far more tiles and do them correctly, but it
had to be done very shortly after the mapper had mapped. So I'd sit
on a project and immediately validate the tiles as they were done. It
took considerable time and effort on my part to do this. I also
noticed some validation was done by inexperienced mappers who were
invalidating tiles for correctly mapped highways etc. One that comes
to mind was project manager who invalidated a tile for a highway that
had been correctly mapped in OSM before the project started on the
grounds that mapping highways was not part of the project.
However what I noticed as Jean-Marc has commented was that much of the
mapping problems were from mappers who hadn't completed the tile and
their feedback wasn't immediate. Feedback sent to them was basically
ignored 99% of the time.
A couple of things happened. The task manager changed and I could no
longer find the last tile mapped. Response tails off over time.
Within the hour 80% response, within a day 50% response, a week 2%
response. Validating a tile a week later meant the feedback didn't
reach the mapper immediately. Second I'd no idea if the mapper had
corrected their problems later or not. So the mapper might get half a
dozen messages for tiles they had mapped sometime ago and they had
already changed their mapping practices. This is not positive feedback.
The second thing was the projects wanted buildings. I'd already
noticed that some buildings were being mapped two or three times.
Validating a building? Well it takes me 2 or 3 mouse clicks to map one
in JOSM with the building tool, building=yes. iD takes more clicks.
To correct an incorrect building takes more effort than to map it
correctly in the first place. Someone was kind enough to build me a
script in JOSM that detects duplicate buildings. I'm not going to
validate work when it takes longer to validate than to do it correctly
in the first place.
Then it gets interesting. The JOSM validation tools have improved.
These days I can grab about a tenth of an African country at a time.
It takes 16 gigs of memory and JOSM has to be set up correctly but it
works. The duplicate building script now will detect duplicate
buildings over one tenth of the country not just a tiny tile. JOSM
validation and the todo list are very powerful for picking up crossing
highways, other errors and doubtful tagging.
These days there are more automated approaches to picking up errors in
mapping. Both Jean-Marc and myself fix multiple errors by HOT
mappers. I must confess that if the error was made four years ago on
a HOT project by a mapper who has made four edits and the mapper
hasn't mapped for four years I might even correct the error without a
changeset comment.
I worked with the training group to identify the most common errors, I
understand that training for project managers and validators has
improved and projects no longer ask new mappers for complex mapping.
I understand that validation can help new mappers and get projects
completed more quickly but I also understand it takes a lot of time
and effort on behalf of the validators to do it right.
Cheerio John
On Fri, 24 Apr 2020 at 07:06, Jean-Marc Liotier <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
On 4/24/20 12:26 PM, Russell Deffner wrote:
> Especially crucial are our Validators! With so many projects in so
> many locations, it will be a monumental task to keep up on
validation.
> If you have the role, please leave the mapping to the newer
> contributors and help us keep our quality up and give
instructions to
> mappers as soon as possible.
What happens when tasks are invalidated ? In theory the errant
contributor welcomes constructive feedback, fixes his contribution
and
mends his ways. How often does that happen in practice ? I almost
(there
are a few happy exceptions of growing contributors) never receive
answers to changeset comments, so most often what was supposed to be
validation ends up as mopping up after ephemeral contributors. I
don't
work with the tasking manager - my validation activities are
driven by
Osmose and OSMcha... Is the validation experience different with the
tasking manager or is my experience representative of a problem ?
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