Re: [HOT] Board Elections: another Personal Opinion

[Kate Chapman]

On Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 11:45 AM, nicolas chavent
 wrote:
> Kate wrote a beautiful blog post about HOT achievements in 2012 at a time
> when two paid employees were boardees. Was this a problem for our
> organization? Did this question the legitimacy of HOT amongst hum/ dev
> actors and donors? Why would this situation be all of sudden different in
> 2013 when clearly our organization is gradually growing and getting more
> robust and mature..

Actually people have repeatedly emailed me off list and said they did
not think it was appropriate for employees to also be on the board of
directors. This began after the HOT strategic meeting last year when
the decision to pay you and I stipends was made. It is not that the
situation it is different, it is that we were acting incorrectly
before. I've since done research, I would suggest others do their own
research. Additionally within the membership survey there as a not
insignificant amount of people that indicated they did not think that
paid people should be on the board.

I find it ironic that if we had incorporated in France it would be
impossible for anyone to be on the board who was also compensated by
the organization. So had you known how to do the incorporation
paperwork instead of I we would not be even having this discussion.

-Kate

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Re: [HOT] Board Elections: another Personal Opinion

[nicolas chavent]

Hey all

Joining this thread after an interesting trip to Bruxelles (DG ECHO) for
HOT presenting the lessons learned from 3 months of EUROSHA deploy (blog
post in the next days) and hearing about the terms of the new call for
participants on a third round of similar projects. Prior getting to this
conversation I had to spend some time  figuring out ways forward in the
design of a possible next project for HOT in Haiti for which our classic
open hiring will be open soon,

I had little sleep in the last nights but feel that there is a need for an
intervention here as the closure of the vote is 48 hours from us.

I'd like to state the value that I place to all present board members, to
Kate with whom I have disagreement on this matter but with whom I enjoyed
working with and the board she  composed, surely a beautiful set of talents
and for most of them people I met around this use of OSM in humanitarian
and development work.

I am also sharing here a frustration as per the limitations that English is
putting on me in this debate when there is a need to articulate complex and
subtle elements.

I think that HOT as a new organization is half way from the vision of the
organization portrayed by Kate and that there is a need to continue
progressing towards them, but that we as an organization are not there yet.

I am not going to question in this thread fhe model of organization that
HOT ultimately want to have, this is part of another debate. I just like
all of us to think through what we ultimately serving and enabling: the
development of the OSM project in Least Developed Countries or Developing
countries in humanitarian and development contexts where reslient empowered
local mappers can eventually step in and lead the response to a crisis or
run a project without needing HOT support nor the humanitarian IM/GIS
support or partnering from an equal foot. This makes of field work and the
growth of local osm groups in Developing Countries something of an art that
HOT has been inventing, which has an impact, which make HOT a rather unique
set up even in the realm of Voluntary Technical Communities.

I think that the underlying skills and knowledge needs to be well
represented at the board amongst other skills. I also think that those who
have been more active in fostering this growth in different contexts, with
different modus operandi over long time need to represent this perspective
in the board. This field rooted innovative aspect of HOT as well as Sev and
I past practical knowledge of the humanirian realm have been beneficial to
the Team and instrumental to achieving our mandate. It  has informing with
other necessary view points the course of HOT actions and through myself
has a voice in our board able to step in decision making process when this
was necessary. I just want to distinguish here different levels of field
experiences which I do not feel sound enough to replace yet the perspective
Sev or I would have made. This being said,  HOT is active growing this
field expertise in the Team through various venues so that more willing
hotties can get this exposure and be familiar with field/ humanitarian and
development and gain over time this experience and have it informed their
decision. This is because of this risk of disconnect that I deem necessary
to re-run for the board.

Kate wrote a beautiful blog post about HOT achievements in 2012 at a time
when two paid employees were boardees. Was this a problem for our
organization? Did this question the legitimacy of HOT amongst hum/ dev
actors and donors? Why would this situation be all of sudden different in
2013 when clearly our organization is gradually growing and getting more
robust and mature..

I am failing to see why this run up of Sev and I would no longer be
positive to the organization but a threat. How can two longtime committed
hotties (as you can read, this started for me in Nov 2007), working solely
for HOT and volunteering only for HOT an important amount of their time can
be disloyal to the organization they contribute to create?

Would we think this of Heather newly "hotified" and very possibly on the
board when one could have thought about a transition phase where the
organization could have benefited from her inputs as a member or as an
adviser? No. The current rules of the organization allow for Heather to
join and support at the board and I think that this is a good thing for HOT.

Shall HOT have to question the loyalty to the organization of boardees who
have side interest when no MoU between the the organizations have been put
in place? No because of the trust built over time, the expertise deployed
and the impact made.

I believe that being on this transition, in its current phase of gorwth,
HOT needs these talents to be present in the board even though things are
not perfect to remain on track with its mission and growth.

I would also echo the point made by Severin about the geographical
diversity and the need for other cutlures (inclu

Re: [HOT] HOT Board of Directors election 2012/13

[Kate Chapman]

Hi All,

Voting Members of HOT, please don't forget to vote. You have roughly 2
more days.

Thanks

-Kate

On Fri, Jan 11, 2013 at 3:56 AM, Schuyler Erle  wrote:
> Dear HOTties,
>
> It's time for this year's Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team Board of Directors 
> election!
>
> Please go RIGHT NOW and vote here:
>
>  http://goo.gl/Mt1tA
>
> On the election ballot, you may select up to seven (7) individuals to serve 
> on the Board of Directors of the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team in 2013. You 
> have until end of day PST, Wednesday 16 January 2013, to submit your vote.
>
> You may find the list of nominations at:
>
>   
> http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Humanitarian_OSM_Team/Board_Elections_2012
>
> You may vote for fewer than seven nominees. If you vote for more than seven, 
> your ballot will be considered invalid. If you vote more than once, only the 
> last ballot submitted will be considered valid.
>
> Only ballots submitted by voting members of the Team will be accepted. If 
> you're not a voting member, we love you all the same, but please don't waste 
> your time and ours by submitting a ballot that legally can't be counted. You 
> may review the list of voting members at:
>
>  http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Humanitarian_OSM_Team/Members
>
> According to our bylaws, all Board members must be elected by a simple 
> majority of voting members. We will announce the election results next 
> Friday, 17 January 2013.
>
> Please don't wait until the last minute to submit your vote! Once again, your 
> HOT Board of Directors election ballot is at:  http://goo.gl/Mt1tA
>
> On behalf of your Board, keep it HOT,
>
> SDE
>
>
> ___
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> HOT@openstreetmap.org
> http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/hot

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[HOT] Mali Pre-Activation : Update

[Pierre Béland]

Following the last week rebel attack of Konnaand the international military 
intervention, the situation is changing rapidly in north of Mali. The rebels 
were pushed out of the cities, but in this immense and desertic area that 
borders with many countries, they are highly mobile and may attack in various 
directions. 

I propose that while we follow the humanitarian situation more closely, we 
start to map more systematically the infrastructures of north of Mali. Vast 
areas are covered with Bing high-res imagery. 

To start, I have prepared a job for the area north of Ségou where this morning 
the rebels seized Diabaly.
see http://tasks.hotosm.org/job/142 Nord-Mali Activation: Ségou nord 
Infrastructure

The populated places should also be better identified. To name more 
systematically these places, it is possible to import the Geonames country 
database for Mali. But this import must be done manually by an experienced 
mapper and validated against Bing imagery. Any volunteer for this task ?

 
Pierre 
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Re: [HOT] [Tasking Manager] enhancements - testers required

[David Schmitt]

Hi Pierre,

thank you for working on the Task Manager. It is an important piece of 
S/W in- and outside of HOT.


On 2013-01-12 21:18, Pierre GIRAUD wrote:

The most important (new) things to notice are:
  - tiles can be accessed in a read-only mode,
  - with this in mind, tiles url (in the address bar) can be used to be
shared to someone else. This might be useful to use a tile as reference
in a discussion between mappers,


That was something quite confusing about the task manager: you had to 
login to do *anything*. I see on the dev server, that it's still a 
requirement to login to browse the tasks. Is this really necessary? It 
would be nicer if a login would be *only* necessary for "write" actions, 
like locking/commenting ?



  - you need to explicitly lock the tile before working on it,


So I can load and edit things without locking? To my engineering mind, 
that sounds like a recipe for conflicts. I do not understand the use 
case. Is there a workflow, where one needs to lock the task, but not 
load it into an editor? That would be better served with "lock", "lock 
and load".


With my UX head on, "lock" also sounds very technical and forebidding. 
Perhaps "Work on this" might be more inviting. Also in the history 
"Locked by ..." does not describe what's happening. "X started to work" 
or "X reserved the tile," might be more to the point.


BTW, would it be possible to get a link/integration to one of those 
whodidit services? Not everything that happens in a location is going 
through the task manager.


  https://www.google.com/search?q=whodidit+openstreetmap


  - comments are now required when marking a task as done or
(in)validating one,


What should users put there? Thinking back to the tiles I did, I can 
only remember one or two tiles where I felt a comment was required.



  - users have access to the tile change history.


Which surely helps making comments more useful. But required?


I'm not sure how important the locking is when an advanced user wants to
(in)validate the work done on a job.
How about allowing validation without any lock. Or maybe we should
rethink the validation process.
Any thoughts?


I think locking is important when the workflow "expects" the user to 
write to the tile.


Regarding the question of motivating people to re-take tiles for 
validation, this too (like "lock") might be a problem of the used word: 
"validation" sounds academic, important and of high responsibility. As a 
arm-chair mapper with only very little knowledge of the task's 
background, it is not my place to *validate* edits. Perhaps call it 
"second-pass"? That could lower the barrier. Also, I'm of the opinion 
that the data-user (in all of OSM) has to do her own validation to see 
whether the data is up to the required accuracy for the intended usage. 
Again this is not something someone from the wider community can do. 
Third, real validation can be done in batches, where much more than a 
single tile is pre-loaded into josm, background tiles are downloaded in 
batches and then quickly checked. This would not require locking or 
loading through the TM, but only invalidating or accepting the checked 
tiles.



Best Regards, David




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Re: [HOT] Board Elections: another Personal Opinion

[Schuyler Erle]

On Jan 14, 2013, at 12:00 AM, Severin MENARD wrote:

> Other kind of flexibility we have to state is the example of Heather 
> potentially passing non HOT member to board member in one month: I actually 
> totally agree with Kate about Heather and would vote for her without any 
> problem and even pleasure; it just makes me smile after the din some did 
> about the nominations of field volunteers last month, and only as members. 

Severin, while I agree with much of what you had to say, the situations with 
Heather and with the 20 or so EUROSHA volunteers are not at all comparable. 
Prior to their nomination, the EUROSHA volunteers were completely unknown to 
me, and probably to most of the people on this mailing list. In fact, I think 
none of them have ever posted a message to this list, or otherwise introduced 
themselves or their work to our community. While I'm sure we all appreciate 
their contributions, I don't see what could possibly entitle them to a voice in 
determining the organization's policy.

By contrast, Heather Leson is a long-time friend and collaborator of HOT. She 
has been involved in crisis mapping for years, and has a proven record of 
dealing wisely with the sensitive issues of mapping vulnerable parts of the 
world. More to the point, in volunteering for a role of responsibility on the 
Team, she took pains to introduce herself and her intentions for doing so. She 
is no stranger to our community, and I am proud to endorse her for a seat on 
the Board of Directors.

SDE
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Re: [HOT] [Tasking Manager] enhancements - testers required

[Pierre Béland]

Robert,

It is already possible to export the tile grid by adding /export to the url  :  
/job/#no/export

 
Pierre 



>
> De : "Banick, Robert" 
>À : Kate Chapman ; Pierre GIRAUD  
>Cc : HOT Openstreetmap  
>Envoyé le : Lundi 14 janvier 2013 14h17
>Objet : Re: [HOT] [Tasking Manager] enhancements - testers required
> 
>Kate, I like your thoughts on a sequential mapping and validation process. I 
>always do this informally (roads, then buildings) and find it to be a lot more 
>productive.
>
>One unrelated, entirely selfish wishlist item I'd like to throw out is the 
>ability to download the tile grid itself. I've been working with some 
>universities to do specific mapping tasks and for organizational purposes it 
>would be great to download the tile grid so we could print it and manually 
>parcel out tiles. It's kind of a specialized use case but I think that 
>functionality could be useful to any on-the-ground group trying to use the 
>tasking manager as an organizational tool.
>
>Robert Banick | American Red Cross
>
>-Original Message-
>From: Kate Chapman [mailto:k...@maploser.com] 
>Sent: Sunday, January 13, 2013 7:10 PM
>To: Pierre GIRAUD
>Cc: HOT Openstreetmap
>Subject: Re: [HOT] [Tasking Manager] enhancements - testers required
>
>Hi Pierre,
>
>I think it is a requirement to validate tiles. Yes we haven't figured out how 
>to get people to do it, but I think that is an instructional issue.  Perhaps 
>if the validators were given access to a greater number of tiles to validate 
>at a time. Maybe they could pick multiple tiles at once.
>
>Long-term I'd like to see the workflow so that you can define the steps a task 
>goes through. Meaning I could say I want all squares to go through the 
>following phases. Map the roads -> map the buildings -> validate. Then another 
>task could have a complete different set of phases. Map the residential areas 
>-> map the water ways -> map the roads.
>
>We haven't quite figured out the validation yet, but it is important.
>
>-Kate
>
>On Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 4:30 AM, Pierre GIRAUD  wrote:
>> Ok, I've gone further with my experimentations.
>> I'm really not satisfied with the validation workflow and I've tried 
>> to change it completely.
>>
>> I'm convinced that it's not really a requirement to be able to "validate"
>> tiles. It appears (looking at the statistics) that very few tiles have 
>> been marked as valid in the past jobs. I suppose that's because 
>> validation itself is not easy. It's easy to tell that a tile in 
>> invalid though. Thus, it's really a requirement to be able to "invalidate" 
>> tiles.
>> In the version currently installed on dev server, the "validation" 
>> button doesn't exist anymore. The tiles can now take only 2 statuses 
>> "done" or "not done". Colors have been changed too. They're now more 
>> "common" to people's habits and they match the buttons colors too.
>> Also, there's no need to lock a tile to tell it's invalidate. I think 
>> this should be a quick process.
>>
>> I intend to add a "message box". Users could for example receive 
>> messages from the application to be informed that a tile they 
>> previously worked on has been invalidated.
>>
>> One other thing I changed is the "users tab". I simplified things by 
>> removing the numbers telling how much the users worked. As someone 
>> already told me, this is not a race. We don't need a winner.
>> What I added though is the availability to see which tiles the given 
>> users worked on by highlighting them on the map. This feature has been 
>> asked several times.
>>
>> Once again, feedbacks are welcome.
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Jan 13, 2013 at 6:43 PM, Augustin Doury 
>> 
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Sorry for this second email, I just want to add something about this 
>>> point of my last email :
>>>
>>> 1) Limit how many times you could split the tasks, for a zoom level 
>>> of 17, maybe not more than once.
>>> > sometimes tasks are splitted twice or more, it really slows the mapping.
>>>
>>> On the "users" page,the number of tiles done by a contributor could 
>>> depend on the size of the tiles he has done :
>>> - if he did not split tiles, show "1" for one tile
>>> - if he did, show "0,25" for one tile which is from a tile splitted once.
>>>
>>> Augustin
>>>
>>> On Sun, Jan 13, 2013 at 5:11 PM, Augustin Doury 
>>>  wrote:

 Hi! Couple things I realized this morning using the Tasking Manager :

 1) Limit how many times you could split the tasks, for a zoom level 
 of 17, maybe not more than once.
 > sometimes tasks are splitted twice or more, it really slows the 
 > mapping.

 2) Make it easy to find which task you're working on, In the current 
 version all "current worked on" tasks are highlighted in orange, 
 maybe the task linked to your OSM account could be highlighted in an 
 other colour.

 3) It's too easy to delete a task, it could be great to add one step 
 more for security checki

Re: [HOT] [Tasking Manager] enhancements - testers required

[Om G]

Hi Pierre,

I'm really happy to see such live interaction between the code and the 
community!

There is something that zooniverse does with their participant training.. 
example images.. and I think it wouldn't be that hard to implement.

A new Task manager could select a representative image and enter a complete 
description of what is being looked for. This image would have a layer 
visibility toggle for the volunteer to see raw image and the desired tracing.

The new volunteer could read the description presented and select the map layer 
on/off to get a better feel for what the goal is. A few of these examples could 
also be provided as merely a series of 'validated' tiles for that "data goal" 
(roads, buildings, huts etc.)

The interface would use existing objects and functions, allows easy 
customization by a manager. I'm thinking that each 'phase' would be a separate 
workflow with layer tag attribute set by the manager (i.e. each of the current 
set of tiles are given a keyword attribute automatically based upon what was 
entered from the manager console.)

These tags might come from an existing list for better cross-utility.

The workflow would be simple but the entry point would specific to that goal, 
or 'campaign'.. Example, http://tasks.hotosm.org/job/126/roads

This way a mini tutorial can be the responsibility of managers but (not 
time-prohibitive) and reduce the amount of training overall.

This would also be helped if the 'validators' could indicate (by a star and a 
comment) some images as particularly good at representing some aspect of the 
image task.. unusual examples, common mistakes etc. This 'star' system could do 
much more training than written tutorial, alleviate FAQ time, be inherently 
adaptable to any type of task, be always available, and reduce errors overall.

Om



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Re: [HOT] [Tasking Manager] enhancements - testers required

[Banick, Robert]

Kate, I like your thoughts on a sequential mapping and validation process. I 
always do this informally (roads, then buildings) and find it to be a lot more 
productive.

One unrelated, entirely selfish wishlist item I'd like to throw out is the 
ability to download the tile grid itself. I've been working with some 
universities to do specific mapping tasks and for organizational purposes it 
would be great to download the tile grid so we could print it and manually 
parcel out tiles. It's kind of a specialized use case but I think that 
functionality could be useful to any on-the-ground group trying to use the 
tasking manager as an organizational tool.

Robert Banick | American Red Cross

-Original Message-
From: Kate Chapman [mailto:k...@maploser.com] 
Sent: Sunday, January 13, 2013 7:10 PM
To: Pierre GIRAUD
Cc: HOT Openstreetmap
Subject: Re: [HOT] [Tasking Manager] enhancements - testers required

Hi Pierre,

I think it is a requirement to validate tiles. Yes we haven't figured out how 
to get people to do it, but I think that is an instructional issue.  Perhaps if 
the validators were given access to a greater number of tiles to validate at a 
time. Maybe they could pick multiple tiles at once.

Long-term I'd like to see the workflow so that you can define the steps a task 
goes through. Meaning I could say I want all squares to go through the 
following phases. Map the roads -> map the buildings -> validate. Then another 
task could have a complete different set of phases. Map the residential areas 
-> map the water ways -> map the roads.

We haven't quite figured out the validation yet, but it is important.

-Kate

On Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 4:30 AM, Pierre GIRAUD  wrote:
> Ok, I've gone further with my experimentations.
> I'm really not satisfied with the validation workflow and I've tried 
> to change it completely.
>
> I'm convinced that it's not really a requirement to be able to "validate"
> tiles. It appears (looking at the statistics) that very few tiles have 
> been marked as valid in the past jobs. I suppose that's because 
> validation itself is not easy. It's easy to tell that a tile in 
> invalid though. Thus, it's really a requirement to be able to "invalidate" 
> tiles.
> In the version currently installed on dev server, the "validation" 
> button doesn't exist anymore. The tiles can now take only 2 statuses 
> "done" or "not done". Colors have been changed too. They're now more 
> "common" to people's habits and they match the buttons colors too.
> Also, there's no need to lock a tile to tell it's invalidate. I think 
> this should be a quick process.
>
> I intend to add a "message box". Users could for example receive 
> messages from the application to be informed that a tile they 
> previously worked on has been invalidated.
>
> One other thing I changed is the "users tab". I simplified things by 
> removing the numbers telling how much the users worked. As someone 
> already told me, this is not a race. We don't need a winner.
> What I added though is the availability to see which tiles the given 
> users worked on by highlighting them on the map. This feature has been 
> asked several times.
>
> Once again, feedbacks are welcome.
>
>
> On Sun, Jan 13, 2013 at 6:43 PM, Augustin Doury 
> 
> wrote:
>>
>> Sorry for this second email, I just want to add something about this 
>> point of my last email :
>>
>> 1) Limit how many times you could split the tasks, for a zoom level 
>> of 17, maybe not more than once.
>> > sometimes tasks are splitted twice or more, it really slows the mapping.
>>
>> On the "users" page,the number of tiles done by a contributor could 
>> depend on the size of the tiles he has done :
>> - if he did not split tiles, show "1" for one tile
>> - if he did, show "0,25" for one tile which is from a tile splitted once.
>>
>> Augustin
>>
>> On Sun, Jan 13, 2013 at 5:11 PM, Augustin Doury 
>>  wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi! Couple things I realized this morning using the Tasking Manager :
>>>
>>> 1) Limit how many times you could split the tasks, for a zoom level 
>>> of 17, maybe not more than once.
>>> > sometimes tasks are splitted twice or more, it really slows the 
>>> > mapping.
>>>
>>> 2) Make it easy to find which task you're working on, In the current 
>>> version all "current worked on" tasks are highlighted in orange, 
>>> maybe the task linked to your OSM account could be highlighted in an 
>>> other colour.
>>>
>>> 3) It's too easy to delete a task, it could be great to add one step 
>>> more for security checking
>>>
>>> Great to imagine how the new version will be!
>>>
>>> Augustin
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sat, Jan 12, 2013 at 9:39 PM, Augustin Doury 
>>>  wrote:

 Thanks for that Pierre! Here are some comments :

 On Sat, Jan 12, 2013 at 8:18 PM, Pierre GIRAUD 
 
 wrote:
>
>
>  - with this in mind, tiles url (in the address bar) can be used 
> to be shared to someone else. This might be useful to use a tile 
> as reference in

Re: [HOT] [Tasking Manager] enhancements - testers required

[Banick, Robert]

Hey Katrina,

Thinking on the low tech end, perhaps we could pull together a complementary 
workflow guide template? Drop picture here, place explanation here, intro 
paragraph here, etc? That way task managers who don't know Inkscape / 
Illustrator can still pull something together pretty easily? It took us a 
couple hours and hard copies of high-res imagery to pull together our workflow 
guide. It would be great if it was easier for others to follow in our footsteps.

Cheers,
Robert


Robert Banick | GIS Coordinator | International Services | Ì American Red 
Cross
2025 E Street NW, Washington, DC 20006
Tel 202-303-5017 | Cell 404-964-3451 | Fax 202-303-052 | Skype robert.banick

From: Katrina Engelsted [mailto:katrina.engels...@hotosm.org]
Sent: Sunday, January 13, 2013 10:34 PM
To: HOT Openstreetmap
Subject: Re: [HOT] [Tasking Manager] enhancements - testers required

Hey all,

To piggy-back on the workflow discussion, it would be nice if all tasks had 
specifics like the pdf that the Red Cross included in their task:

http://tasks.hotosm.org/job/50#workflow

  Therefore, new mappers can understand the process better and it makes 
digitizing much more clear for all mappers.  In the long run, it would probably 
help with speeding up the validation editing.

I am not sure what would be the best avenue for ensuring that task managers 
include information like that, but I think that it is worth mentioning.  
Ideally, there could be some sample screenshots and descriptions that task 
managers could quickly choose so that people understand what to look for and 
what the goals of the remote activation are.


On Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 7:09 AM, Kate Chapman 
mailto:k...@maploser.com>> wrote:
Hi Pierre,

I think it is a requirement to validate tiles. Yes we haven't figured
out how to get people to do it, but I think that is an instructional
issue.  Perhaps if the validators were given access to a greater
number of tiles to validate at a time. Maybe they could pick multiple
tiles at once.

Long-term I'd like to see the workflow so that you can define the
steps a task goes through. Meaning I could say I want all squares to
go through the following phases. Map the roads -> map the buildings ->
validate. Then another task could have a complete different set of
phases. Map the residential areas -> map the water ways -> map the
roads.

We haven't quite figured out the validation yet, but it is important.

-Kate

On Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 4:30 AM, Pierre GIRAUD 
mailto:pierre.gir...@gmail.com>> wrote:
> Ok, I've gone further with my experimentations.
> I'm really not satisfied with the validation workflow and I've tried to
> change it completely.
>
> I'm convinced that it's not really a requirement to be able to "validate"
> tiles. It appears (looking at the statistics) that very few tiles have been
> marked as valid in the past jobs. I suppose that's because validation itself
> is not easy. It's easy to tell that a tile in invalid though. Thus, it's
> really a requirement to be able to "invalidate" tiles.
> In the version currently installed on dev server, the "validation" button
> doesn't exist anymore. The tiles can now take only 2 statuses "done" or "not
> done". Colors have been changed too. They're now more "common" to people's
> habits and they match the buttons colors too.
> Also, there's no need to lock a tile to tell it's invalidate. I think this
> should be a quick process.
>
> I intend to add a "message box". Users could for example receive messages
> from the application to be informed that a tile they previously worked on
> has been invalidated.
>
> One other thing I changed is the "users tab". I simplified things by
> removing the numbers telling how much the users worked. As someone already
> told me, this is not a race. We don't need a winner.
> What I added though is the availability to see which tiles the given users
> worked on by highlighting them on the map. This feature has been asked
> several times.
>
> Once again, feedbacks are welcome.
>
>
> On Sun, Jan 13, 2013 at 6:43 PM, Augustin Doury 
> mailto:augustin.do...@hotosm.org>>
> wrote:
>>
>> Sorry for this second email, I just want to add something about this point
>> of my last email :
>>
>> 1) Limit how many times you could split the tasks, for a zoom level of 17,
>> maybe not more than once.
>> > sometimes tasks are splitted twice or more, it really slows the mapping.
>>
>> On the "users" page,the number of tiles done by a contributor could depend
>> on the size of the tiles he has done :
>> - if he did not split tiles, show "1" for one tile
>> - if he did, show "0,25" for one tile which is from a tile splitted once.
>>
>> Augustin
>>
>> On Sun, Jan 13, 2013 at 5:11 PM, Augustin Doury
>> mailto:augustin.do...@hotosm.org>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi! Couple things I realized this morning using the Tasking Manager :
>>>
>>> 1) Limit how many times you could split the tasks, for a zoom level of
>>> 17, maybe not more than once.
>>>

[HOT] HOT Activation WG meeting - January 2012

[Schuyler Erle]

The next HOT Activation WG meeting will be on Thursday 17 January 2013 at 1600 
UTC. Thanks to everyone who filled out the doodle.

The meeting will be held on the #hot IRC channel on irc.freenode.net. All are 
welcome. The meeting will last at most one hour. The agenda will be to review 
the current state of the working group's activities, to define immediate next 
tasks, and parcel those tasks out to volunteers.

Please let us know if you have any questions about how to join the meeting. See 
you then!

SDE
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Re: [HOT] Board Members

[Om G]

An Advisory Committee of members that represent other organizations sounds like 
a great idea.

Many of these networks exist informally, but OSM's real benefit I think has 
been worldwide access+focus & I really hope that continues to be a major 
priority in the selection of representative input.

The Board actually sounds like 'business-functionary' the way it has been 
described, mostly policy guidelines and the like. There are however, important 
decisions and directions that are made inadvertently when the 'inner circle' is 
meeting and things 'need to be done' out of a perception of time constraints. 
Without care, philosophical openness can be compromised, and the sense of 
community lost.

In addition to a more global demographic, I would like to see some very open 
process (dashboard?) created to allow at least the main priorities and 
direction of the board's thinking to always be visible. Even like a little 
vision statement coming out of their regular meetings that provides guidance 
until the next meeting would be helpful.

In terms of other communities.. wikimapia has an impressive crowd and the whole 
SBTF just found out that we will only deploy for "Natural Disasters" leaving 
quite a few people very interested to help in other ways.

Perhaps something like an "organizational API" can be brainstormed facilitating 
other groups to jump in more easily. I'm sure it would be trivial to include an 
RSS feed of the latest active projects over on the SBTF main Ning site. I have 
been trying to coordinate some similar type of collaboration with the wikimapia 
environment.

The biggest risk I see will be inadvertent ethnocentrism. It is worth taking 
fundamental steps to avoid this development IMO.

Steady on!  :)

Om
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Re: [HOT] [Tasking Manager] enhancements - testers required

[Mikel Maron]

Hi

I think validators need more help in this step. Integrate general QA tools 
(like Keep Right), and some basic, specific analysis. Take a before/after data 
view of the tile; simply analyse the number of new roads/buildings/trees/etc; 
visualize the change. 

Mikel
 
* Mikel Maron * +14152835207 @mikel s:mikelmaron


>
> From: Kate Chapman 
>To: Pierre GIRAUD  
>Cc: HOT Openstreetmap  
>Sent: Sunday, January 13, 2013 7:09 PM
>Subject: Re: [HOT] [Tasking Manager] enhancements - testers required
> 
>Hi Pierre,
>
>I think it is a requirement to validate tiles. Yes we haven't figured
>out how to get people to do it, but I think that is an instructional
>issue.  Perhaps if the validators were given access to a greater
>number of tiles to validate at a time. Maybe they could pick multiple
>tiles at once.
>
>Long-term I'd like to see the workflow so that you can define the
>steps a task goes through. Meaning I could say I want all squares to
>go through the following phases. Map the roads -> map the buildings ->
>validate. Then another task could have a complete different set of
>phases. Map the residential areas -> map the water ways -> map the
>roads.
>
>We haven't quite figured out the validation yet, but it is important.
>
>-Kate
>
>On Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 4:30 AM, Pierre GIRAUD  wrote:
>> Ok, I've gone further with my experimentations.
>> I'm really not satisfied with the validation workflow and I've tried to
>> change it completely.
>>
>> I'm convinced that it's not really a requirement to be able to "validate"
>> tiles. It appears (looking at the statistics) that very few tiles have been
>> marked as valid in the past jobs. I suppose that's because validation itself
>> is not easy. It's easy to tell that a tile in invalid though. Thus, it's
>> really a requirement to be able to "invalidate" tiles.
>> In the version currently installed on dev server, the "validation" button
>> doesn't exist anymore. The tiles can now take only 2 statuses "done" or "not
>> done". Colors have been changed too. They're now more "common" to people's
>> habits and they match the buttons colors too.
>> Also, there's no need to lock a tile to tell it's invalidate. I think this
>> should be a quick process.
>>
>> I intend to add a "message box". Users could for example receive messages
>> from the application to be informed that a tile they previously worked on
>> has been invalidated.
>>
>> One other thing I changed is the "users tab". I simplified things by
>> removing the numbers telling how much the users worked. As someone already
>> told me, this is not a race. We don't need a winner.
>> What I added though is the availability to see which tiles the given users
>> worked on by highlighting them on the map. This feature has been asked
>> several times.
>>
>> Once again, feedbacks are welcome.
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Jan 13, 2013 at 6:43 PM, Augustin Doury 
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Sorry for this second email, I just want to add something about this point
>>> of my last email :
>>>
>>> 1) Limit how many times you could split the tasks, for a zoom level of 17,
>>> maybe not more than once.
>>> > sometimes tasks are splitted twice or more, it really slows the mapping.
>>>
>>> On the "users" page,the number of tiles done by a contributor could depend
>>> on the size of the tiles he has done :
>>> - if he did not split tiles, show "1" for one tile
>>> - if he did, show "0,25" for one tile which is from a tile splitted once.
>>>
>>> Augustin
>>>
>>> On Sun, Jan 13, 2013 at 5:11 PM, Augustin Doury
>>>  wrote:

 Hi! Couple things I realized this morning using the Tasking Manager :

 1) Limit how many times you could split the tasks, for a zoom level of
 17, maybe not more than once.
 > sometimes tasks are splitted twice or more, it really slows the
 > mapping.

 2) Make it easy to find which task you're working on,
 In the current version all "current worked on" tasks are highlighted in
 orange, maybe the task linked to your OSM account could be highlighted in 
 an
 other colour.

 3) It's too easy to delete a task, it could be great to add one step more
 for security checking

 Great to imagine how the new version will be!

 Augustin


 On Sat, Jan 12, 2013 at 9:39 PM, Augustin Doury
  wrote:
>
> Thanks for that Pierre! Here are some comments :
>
> On Sat, Jan 12, 2013 at 8:18 PM, Pierre GIRAUD 
> wrote:
>>
>>
>>  - with this in mind, tiles url (in the address bar) can be used to be
>> shared to someone else. This might be useful to use a tile as reference 
>> in a
>> discussion between mappers,
>
>
> > this is a real enhancement, especially with new mappers who want to
> > have their work checked or to share it easily. I would use it like every
> > week.
>
>>
>>
>>  - comments are now required when marking a task as done or
>> (in)vali

Re: [HOT] Board Elections: another Personal Opinion

[Mikel Maron]

Hi

Good topics. These are important to keep in mind for the election, and 
definitely top issues for HOT in early 2013.

> considering the remaining candidates, the board would not include anymore any 
> member with GIS, humanitarian field skills and experience, though the HOT 
> field activities

A good Board brings a variety of skills to the table. For HOT, field experience 
is definitely one of those things. Among the candidates (that are not also paid 
by HOT), this is actually very well covered. Schuyler has trained OSM in 
Palestine, India, Afghanistan, Haiti. Joseph has been in Indonesia. John was on 
the ground for Sandy. Etc. 

>  Another concern: the HOT board would then be fully made of American, 
>Canadian and UK people, what would be less representative than before of a 
>worldwide community, IMHO. 

That's a concern. But we shouldn't risk our status as a charity in good 
standing, and an organization with proper accountability mechanisms, in order 
to meet this.

> people acting in various, sometimes close and almost competing organizations 
>might also be considered as another one, and this should also be fixed 
>somehow, in order any BBB or other organization could point out 
> potential conflict of interest. So do we consider this as OK and if not, how 
> do we solve this?

This is a common situation boards need to deal with, both in competition and 
cooperation. Qualified people are going to have other stakes in the same field. 
With OSM Foundation, every Board Member declares their potential conflicts of 
interest up front, and whenever items come up that might pose conflict, proper 
action is taking (ex. reclusion from that particular discussion). If necessary, 
MoU can be drawn up to guide this. This is exactly what has been happening 
already within HOT.

-Mikel

* Mikel Maron * +14152835207 @mikel s:mikelmaron


>
> From: Severin MENARD 
>To: hot@openstreetmap.org 
>Sent: Monday, January 14, 2013 3:00 AM
>Subject: [HOT] Board Elections: another Personal Opinion
> 
>
>Hi All,
>
>
>Nobody answered to this unorthodox email, so II feel I will do it, but I will 
>remain orthodox and not provide my own vote (and actually I did not choose 
>yet). I prefer to say I am debating positively without any irritation: for 
>those (and they are numerous I guess) who do not know it, Kate and I really 
>get well on work and I will have the same pleasure to discuss with her on 
>Thursday on our now regular meeting. 
>Basically, despite I already applied last year for this position, being a 
>board member is actually not a "must get once in my life" I feel I dream and 
>need to achieve. I am also aware about the concern regarding transparency 
>rules and I agree it should be this objective should be reached one day. But 
>my personal concern is that according this logic and considering the remaining 
>candidates, the board would not include anymore any member with GIS, 
>humanitarian field skills and experience, though the HOT field activities, if 
>they do not involve a lot of people (but this is growing), are one of the HOT 
>capacities and expertise and a key activity to involve both the authorities 
>and the citizen communities of the developing countries. The board will have 
>to discuss and decide about specific, technical things on these projects, and 
>I would like to know how these decisions would be handled: eg I would worry if 
>was in a board with people having my kind of
 background, mixing human sciences, GIS&cartography and humanitarian field 
would state about matters related to social medias or software development. 
Another concern: the HOT board would then be fully made of American, Canadian 
and UK people, what would be less representative than before of a worldwide 
community, IMHO. 
>One thing we should all decide over the next year is, as said recently, the 
>role of the membership. It is also what we want to get as a transparent 
>organization, and the flexibility of the good governance concepts. Compensated 
>people are one, but people acting in various, sometimes close and almost 
>competing organizations might also be considered as another one, and this 
>should also be fixed somehow, in order any BBB or other organization could 
>point out potential conflict of interest. So do we consider this as OK and if 
>not, how do we solve this?
>Other kind of flexibility we have to state is the example of Heather 
>potentially passing non HOT member to board member in one month: I actually 
>totally agree with Kate about Heather and would vote for her without any 
>problem and even pleasure; it just makes me smile after the din some did about 
>the nominations of field volunteers last month, and only as members. :) 
>
>
>Sincerely,
>
>
>
>
>Severin
>
>Message: 3
>>Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2013 06:57:40 +0700
>>From: Kate Chapman 
>>To: hot 
>>Subject: [HOT] Board Elections a Personal Opinion
>>Message-ID:
>>        
>>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859

Re: [HOT] Board Elections: another Personal Opinion

[Kate Chapman]

Hi Severin,

Thanks for your discourse.

On Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 4:00 PM, Severin MENARD
 wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> Nobody answered to this unorthodox email, so II feel I will do it, but I
> will remain orthodox and not provide my own vote (and actually I did not
> choose yet). I prefer to say I am debating positively without any
> irritation: for those (and they are numerous I guess) who do not know it,
> Kate and I really get well on work and I will have the same pleasure to
> discuss with her on Thursday on our now regular meeting.
Yes, we do work together well. Our public debate doesn't represent
anything other than differences in opinions. I think it is important
to have these discussions publicly so the community can be involved.
> Basically, despite I already applied last year for this position, being a
> board member is actually not a "must get once in my life" I feel I dream and
> need to achieve. I am also aware about the concern regarding transparency
> rules and I agree it should be this objective should be reached one day. But
> my personal concern is that according this logic and considering the
> remaining candidates, the board would not include anymore any member with
> GIS, humanitarian field skills and experience, though the HOT field
> activities, if they do not involve a lot of people (but this is growing),
> are one of the HOT capacities and expertise and a key activity to involve
> both the authorities and the citizen communities of the developing
> countries. The board will have to discuss and decide about specific,
> technical things on these projects, and I would like to know how these
> decisions would be handled:
So I think this is part of the difference in views. The board should
not be making technical decisions. Staff typically would implement the
projects. Board sets policy, so to me this is not an issue.

For example the board would make a policy that HOT hires people using
a certain procedure, the staff would then follow that procedure to
carry out the policy.

The same would work for technical implementation. For example it is in
HOT's mission to use open source software, there have been on
occasions where this is impractical at the moment. The board would
write a policy that the reasons for the exception need to be
documented and agreed on by the staff. The staff would then write the
exception.

Being a board member should be a 5-10 hour a week proposition. Having
people review all the technical proposals makes it more akin to a job
(hence why there are people that work for HOT full-time). I don't
think there is going to be a wall built between the wall and the staff
and they are never going to speak again. I view the reaction as that
the board is going to make decisions and then force everyone to do
them as some faceless group of unreasonable people. I don't believe
that is the case.

The only reason the board is included in technical decisions right now
is because of their individual expertise. It is never a board
decision. We are lucky to have that expertise available.


 eg I would worry if was in a board with people
> having my kind of background, mixing human sciences, GIS&cartography and
> humanitarian field would state about matters related to social medias or
> software development. Another concern: the HOT board would then be fully
> made of American, Canadian and UK people, what would be less representative
> than before of a worldwide community, IMHO.
There was opportunity to nominate more people previously. Hard to say
if it is less representative. There are currently only 3 countries
represented on the board and the lack of representation in areas we
work I think is even more problematic.  I personally hope we do not
end up with a board of entirely men, which could also happen.

> One thing we should all decide over the next year is, as said recently, the
> role of the membership. It is also what we want to get as a transparent
> organization, and the flexibility of the good governance concepts.
> Compensated people are one, but people acting in various, sometimes close
> and almost competing organizations might also be considered as another one,
> and this should also be fixed somehow, in order any BBB or other
> organization could point out potential conflict of interest. So do we
> consider this as OK and if not, how do we solve this?
The document from the BBB speaks to these types of conflicts as well
and could be a guideline. The staff issue is more clear than other
related organizations in the document.
(http://www.bbb.org/us/Charity-Evaluation/)
> Other kind of flexibility we have to state is the example of Heather
> potentially passing non HOT member to board member in one month: I actually
> totally agree with Kate about Heather and would vote for her without any
> problem and even pleasure; it just makes me smile after the din some did
> about the nominations of field volunteers last month, and only as members.
> :)
I don't see that as the same thing. H

[HOT] Board Elections: another Personal Opinion

[Severin MENARD]

Hi All,

Nobody answered to this unorthodox email, so II feel I will do it, but I
will remain orthodox and not provide my own vote (and actually I did not
choose yet). I prefer to say I am debating positively without any
irritation: for those (and they are numerous I guess) who do not know it,
Kate and I really get well on work and I will have the same pleasure to
discuss with her on Thursday on our now regular meeting.
Basically, despite I already applied last year for this position, being a
board member is actually not a "must get once in my life" I feel I dream
and need to achieve. I am also aware about the concern regarding
transparency rules and I agree it should be this objective should be
reached one day. But my personal concern is that according this logic and
considering the remaining candidates, the board would not include anymore
any member with GIS, humanitarian field skills and experience, though the
HOT field activities, if they do not involve a lot of people (but this is
growing), are one of the HOT capacities and expertise and a key activity to
involve both the authorities and the citizen communities of the developing
countries. The board will have to discuss and decide about specific,
technical things on these projects, and I would like to know how these
decisions would be handled: eg I would worry if was in a board with people
having my kind of background, mixing human sciences, GIS&cartography and
humanitarian field would state about matters related to social medias or
software development. Another concern: the HOT board would then be fully
made of American, Canadian and UK people, what would be less representative
than before of a worldwide community, IMHO.
One thing we should all decide over the next year is, as said recently, the
role of the membership. It is also what we want to get as a transparent
organization, and the flexibility of the good governance concepts.
Compensated people are one, but people acting in various, sometimes close
and almost competing organizations might also be considered as another one,
and this should also be fixed somehow, in order any BBB or other
organization could point out potential conflict of interest. So do we
consider this as OK and if not, how do we solve this?
Other kind of flexibility we have to state is the example of Heather
potentially passing non HOT member to board member in one month: I actually
totally agree with Kate about Heather and would vote for her without any
problem and even pleasure; it just makes me smile after the din some did
about the nominations of field volunteers last month, and only as members.
:)

Sincerely,


Severin

Message: 3
> Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2013 06:57:40 +0700
> From: Kate Chapman 
> To: hot 
> Subject: [HOT] Board Elections a Personal Opinion
> Message-ID:
>  xyjufknapia...@mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> Hi All,
>
> I was going to share who I am voting for and why for the board
> elections. Feel free to ignore me and this perhaps unorthodox email.
> I'm sending it though because it can be difficult sometimes to be
> intimately aware of the candidates. So this is my thoughts/strategy
> about who I think should be on the board and why.
>
> Firstly I think describing the role of the board is important. I view
> the board as necessary and important for the policy and strategy of
> HOT. What does that really mean? Well the board should not be involved
> in the day to day running of the organization, but should set the
> policies that allow those working for the organization to function.
> Meaning the board would set a policy on how the hiring works, but
> others would actually make sure people were hired using that policy.
> The same goes for strategy. That isn't to say the membership shouldn't
> be involved in these discussions, just that the board should be
> thinking about things from a high-level and ensuring such decisions
> are made.
>
> Joseph Reeves: Joseph has been involved in the majority of operation
> aspects of HOT's work. I think this allows him intimate knowledge of
> the problems and the solutions that the board could implement through
> policy.
> Mikel Maron: Mikel has been intimately involved in both the founding
> of HOT and the general OSM community for years. He has already proved
> himself as an asset to HOT through the development of the HOT strategy
> document, helping create partnerships and often providing advice.
> John Crowley: John's ability to connect informal communities to large
> organizations is core skill the HOT board needs in development of
> strategy.
> Harry Wood: Harry consistently makes sure we don't lose our connection
> to our OSM roots. Meaning OSM volunteers are core to the success of
> HOT, we cannot alienate them and need to make sure we are still inline
> with the community.
> Heather Leson: Heather has consistently been a great partner through
> her work at Ushahidi, CrisisCommons and Random Hacks of Kindness. She
> consiste