Re: [OSM-talk] We need a name!

[Rob Nickerson]

Yeah, I've been thinking OHM Buildings, but there's an ownership issue with
that. At the moment we are branding it as " an OpenHistoricalMap
project". However there is a lot of close work going on between the OHM and
Wikimaps communities at the moment with many folks looking for much tighter
integration. So then it becomes " an OpenHistoricalMap and Wikimaps
project".

I personally would have loved to see much more integration between OSM and
OHM. Over the next decade I'm sure more people will realise this when the
city landscape changes and they see themselves removing old buildings from
OSM. I'd also like to see more cooperation between Wikimaps (which is part
of Wikimedia) and OSM. So then the name becomes " an
OpenHistoricalMap, OpenStreetMap and Wikimaps (Wikimedia) project"!!

So really, the name shouldn't refer to any of these 3 projects, that way we
don't need to change the name as things evolve. :-)

Rob


On 19 June 2014 23:13, Clifford Snow  wrote:

> Open Historical Map which already has a website www.openhistoricalmap.org
>
>
> On Wed, Jun 18, 2014 at 1:04 PM, Rob Nickerson 
> wrote:
>
>> A few OSM members interested in historic maps are working on our own
>> version of the New York Public Library "Building Inspector". If you've not
>> yet tried it out, go take a look - it's a great site:
>>
>> http://buildinginspector.nypl.org/
>>
>> So, the core function they are asking contributors to do is to check
>> (inspect) and fix the rough building outlines produced by the computer
>> script. Our version will be the same but will cover any city and any
>> library we can get good maps for. But we need a name.
>>
>> Current names suggested are:
>>
>>- Historic Map Marker
>>- Old Map Marker
>>- OHM Buildings
>>- Historic Map Inspector
>>- Building Surveyor
>>- Historic Building Constructor
>>- Historic Building Fixer
>>- Ghost Mapper
>>- Ghost Building Mapper
>>- Ghost Brick
>>- Ghost Bricks and Mortar
>>- Houses and History
>>- Historic Map Booth
>>- Old Building Kiosk
>>- Historic Building Outliner
>>
>> We're after your thoughts - which name works best? Is there some amazing
>> name we haven't thought of yet?
>> Best,
>> Rob (RobJN)
>>
>> p.s. You're more than welcome to help in other ways. We're on the
>> historic mailing list if you want to follow the progress.
>>
>> ___
>> talk mailing list
>> talk@openstreetmap.org
>> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> @osm_seattle
> osm_seattle.snowandsnow.us
> OpenStreetMap: Maps with a human touch
>
___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Just facts?

[moltonel 3x Combo]

You cite a lot of good examples of OSM data that are not "pure binary
facts", and I could think of a few more. But I'm not sure what the
intent of this demonstration is. Open the eyes of the "OSM is pure
facts" crowd ? Debate whether this is a trait of OSM we want to
minimise ? Figure out ways to spot and/or limit subjective data ?

I think it's safe to say that the community wants the data to be as
factual as possible (ignoring the presumably rare intentionally biased
contributors here). Cue the endless discussions and docs that we write
to specify how to map this or that in ever greater details.

I'd love to improve the process of documenting interpretation margins
away, but I'm afraid it'll always remain very laborious.

It'd be arguably even more important to be able to spot "bias
vandalism" but, appart from the preventative measures that are being
discussed in another thread (declaring paid contributions, which is
important but weak in scope/enforcability), I can't think of a better
tool than our current "many eyes" strategy.

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] We need a name!

[Clifford Snow]

Open Historical Map which already has a website www.openhistoricalmap.org


On Wed, Jun 18, 2014 at 1:04 PM, Rob Nickerson 
wrote:

> A few OSM members interested in historic maps are working on our own
> version of the New York Public Library "Building Inspector". If you've not
> yet tried it out, go take a look - it's a great site:
>
> http://buildinginspector.nypl.org/
>
> So, the core function they are asking contributors to do is to check
> (inspect) and fix the rough building outlines produced by the computer
> script. Our version will be the same but will cover any city and any
> library we can get good maps for. But we need a name.
>
> Current names suggested are:
>
>- Historic Map Marker
>- Old Map Marker
>- OHM Buildings
>- Historic Map Inspector
>- Building Surveyor
>- Historic Building Constructor
>- Historic Building Fixer
>- Ghost Mapper
>- Ghost Building Mapper
>- Ghost Brick
>- Ghost Bricks and Mortar
>- Houses and History
>- Historic Map Booth
>- Old Building Kiosk
>- Historic Building Outliner
>
> We're after your thoughts - which name works best? Is there some amazing
> name we haven't thought of yet?
> Best,
> Rob (RobJN)
>
> p.s. You're more than welcome to help in other ways. We're on the historic
> mailing list if you want to follow the progress.
>
> ___
> talk mailing list
> talk@openstreetmap.org
> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
>
>


-- 
@osm_seattle
osm_seattle.snowandsnow.us
OpenStreetMap: Maps with a human touch
___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Just facts?

[Paul Johnson]

On Thu, Jun 19, 2014 at 2:47 PM, Pierre Béland  wrote:

> Mappers are surely influenced by the Map tools they are using. If they
> cannot see community related POI's, it wont convince them to add these.


This is why I was a fan of the Tiles@Home information overload,
render-everything osmarender we once had as a supplemental layer.  It was
wildly impractical for pretty much anything but at-a-glance data vetting;
it'd be nice if we had something similar to this once again...
___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Just facts?

[Pierre Béland]

There are various ways to influence what is mapped.

The Mapnik stylesheet itself has probably a significant impact on what is 
mapped. While it shows commercial businesses including fast-food, no 
mention of doctor clinics, social and community services.
Mappers
 are surely influenced by the Map tools they are using. If they cannot 
see community related POI's, it wont convince them to add these.
 
 
Pierre 




 De : Johan C 
À : Talk Openstreetmap  
Envoyé le : Jeudi 19 juin 2014 15h22
Objet : Re: [OSM-talk] Just facts?
 


On Thursday 19 June 2014, Frederik Ramm wrote:









At SOTM Birmingham a workshop was aimed at mappers who wanted to share their 
dreams for OSM in, say, 2020. Results can be found here: 
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Future/Dreams
On the aspect of technique, editing, tools some dreams were:
* Easy for non-techies to add data
* Consistent tagging format or rules (described)
* No federated tagging / worldwide consistency / no federational mappers
* Ability to move on from poor initial tagging conventions

In my work I have to deal with guidelines involving ultimately some billions of 
euros per year. As a professor I spoke about them wisely said: "you should 
always try to limit interpretation by improving the guidelines, but there will 
always remain room for interpretation no matter how strict the guidelines are". 
I think this combination can also work for OSM: continuously keep on improving 
the map features (as stated in the dreams), which are applicable to any mapper, 
paid or unpaid. Sometimes that leads to easy black-and-white situations: a 
motorway should not be mapped as a footway. But indeed, to a certain extent 
grey situations will remain. And the grey situations need interpretation. As a 
core value, respect will also mean mappers communicating about the reasons for 
their interpretation.

Cheers, Johan



2014-06-19 12:06 GMT+02:00 Frederik Ramm :

Hi,
>
>   this is an offspring from the discussion about whether or not we are
>well advised to follow Wikimedia's example of requiring the disclosure
>of paid contributions.
>
>The discussion has been led here on talk and on osmf-talk. A statement
>by Emilie Laffray on osmf-talk best summarizes the idea:
>
>"Ultimately, map data is pretty much fact and whether it exists or not
>is a binary statement. Now, could someone slip "advertisement" like
>places of all shops of a specific brand? Yes! Do we care? No, as long as
>the data is factual. I don't care if someone is being paid to put data
>in OpenStreetMap as long as this data is correct and valid..."
>
>Let us go back in time to when Wikipedia was started. I wasn't there
>then but I am pretty sure that there would have been many at the time
>who naively said something like: "An encyclopedia is a collection of
>facts and knowledge. We can argue how the facts are organised and
>presented but the content is verifiable and clear."
>
>I would probably have agreed. Where and when a composer was born and
>what their most famous work is - clearly a fact, no?
>
>Fast-forward to the present. Wikipedia has learned the hard way that
>there is much less fact and much more open to interpretation than
>initially believed. Meanwhile in OSM, people say: "We don't have the
>same kind of problems as Wikipedia because ours is effectively a
>database of verifiable facts."...
>
>This is undoubtedly true for a number of things in our database - but
>the number of exceptions is much higher than you would naively expect.
>
>Firstly, there are cultural issues mostly to do with names. We have edit
>wars about name tags (most recently, disputed islands in South East Asia
>and territories between Ukraine and Russia) - what is the "name on the
>ground" in an area with active movement of troops?
>
>Another very recent example is a long discussion-cum-edit-war in Germany
>about whether or not something really *has* a German name X
>("name:de=X") or if that is a thing of past occupation
>("old_name:de=X"). This is not a fact that you can simply check, it is
>something that requires research and brings us quite far into the
>"[citation needed]" terrain already.
>
>But there are other and much less obscure issues, starting with the
>highway classification. There are no hard and fast rules about what is,
>for example, a primary or a secondary road; this is mainly a distinction
>that we leave to the local mapping community, and yes, there are edit
>wars about that too, and there is potential for edits with an ulterior
>motive (someone who lives on a street might downgrade it from primary to
>secondary to have less vehicles routed there, or to make his property
>look more attractive to a potential buyer).
>
>We have many other situations in which we trust the mapper to do the
>right thing without being 100% verifiable. Track types are an example,
>or indeed the infamous "smoothness" tag. When we map which areas are
>"residential" and whi

Re: [OSM-talk] We need a name!

[Pierre Béland]

HistoriaiHistoria
 
Pierre 




 De : Alex Rollin 
À : Rob Nickerson  
Cc : OpenStreetMap  
Envoyé le : Jeudi 19 juin 2014 14h06
Objet : Re: [OSM-talk] We need a name!
 


History Viewer
World History Inspector
Grounded History
Historic Site Inspector


--
Alex


On Fri, Jun 20, 2014 at 12:49 AM, Rob Nickerson  
wrote:

I've had a couple of responses off list. These are:
>
>* Constructing the past
>* something with "crowd" in it?
>
>Thanks, for these good ideas. Any more suggestions?
>
>Rob
>
>
>
>
>On 18 June 2014 21:04, Rob Nickerson  wrote:
>
>A few OSM members interested in historic maps are working on our 
own version of the New York Public Library "Building Inspector". If 
you've not yet tried it out, go take a look - it's a great site:
>>http://buildinginspector.nypl.org/
>>So, the core function they are asking contributors to do is to check 
(inspect) and fix the rough building outlines produced by the computer 
script. Our version will be the same but will cover any city and any 
library we can get good maps for. But we need a name.
>>Current names suggested are:
>>  * Historic Map Marker
>>  * Old Map Marker
>>  * OHM Buildings
>>  * Historic Map Inspector
>>  * Building Surveyor
>>  * Historic Building Constructor
>>  * Historic Building Fixer
>>  * Ghost Mapper
>>  * Ghost Building Mapper
>>  * Ghost Brick
>>  * Ghost Bricks and Mortar
>>  * Houses and History
>>  * Historic Map Booth
>>  * Old Building Kiosk
>>  * Historic Building Outliner
>>We're after your thoughts - which name works best? Is there some amazing name 
>>we haven't thought of yet?
Best,
>>
>>Rob (RobJN)
>>
>>
>>p.s. You're more than welcome to help in other ways. We're on the historic 
>>mailing list if you want to follow the progress.
>>
>
>___
>talk mailing list
>talk@openstreetmap.org
>https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
>
>


___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] We need a name!

[Bryce Nesbitt]

Open Time Machine
___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Just facts?

[Johan C]

On Thursday 19 June 2014, Frederik Ramm wrote:






At SOTM Birmingham a workshop was aimed at mappers who wanted to share
their dreams for OSM in, say, 2020. Results can be found here:
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Future/Dreams
On the aspect of technique, editing, tools some dreams were:

   - Easy for non-techies to add data
   - Consistent tagging format or rules (described)
   - No federated tagging / worldwide consistency / no federational mappers
   - Ability to move on from poor initial tagging conventions


In my work I have to deal with guidelines involving ultimately some
billions of euros per year. As a professor I spoke about them wisely said:
"you should always try to limit interpretation by improving the guidelines,
but there will always remain room for interpretation no matter how strict
the guidelines are". I think this combination can also work for OSM:
continuously keep on improving the map features (as stated in the dreams),
which are applicable to any mapper, paid or unpaid. Sometimes that leads to
easy black-and-white situations: a motorway should not be mapped as a
footway. But indeed, to a certain extent grey situations will remain. And
the grey situations need interpretation. As a core value, respect will also
mean mappers communicating about the reasons for their interpretation.

Cheers, Johan


2014-06-19 12:06 GMT+02:00 Frederik Ramm :

> Hi,
>
>this is an offspring from the discussion about whether or not we are
> well advised to follow Wikimedia's example of requiring the disclosure
> of paid contributions.
>
> The discussion has been led here on talk and on osmf-talk. A statement
> by Emilie Laffray on osmf-talk best summarizes the idea:
>
> "Ultimately, map data is pretty much fact and whether it exists or not
> is a binary statement. Now, could someone slip "advertisement" like
> places of all shops of a specific brand? Yes! Do we care? No, as long as
> the data is factual. I don't care if someone is being paid to put data
> in OpenStreetMap as long as this data is correct and valid..."
>
> Let us go back in time to when Wikipedia was started. I wasn't there
> then but I am pretty sure that there would have been many at the time
> who naively said something like: "An encyclopedia is a collection of
> facts and knowledge. We can argue how the facts are organised and
> presented but the content is verifiable and clear."
>
> I would probably have agreed. Where and when a composer was born and
> what their most famous work is - clearly a fact, no?
>
> Fast-forward to the present. Wikipedia has learned the hard way that
> there is much less fact and much more open to interpretation than
> initially believed. Meanwhile in OSM, people say: "We don't have the
> same kind of problems as Wikipedia because ours is effectively a
> database of verifiable facts."...
>
> This is undoubtedly true for a number of things in our database - but
> the number of exceptions is much higher than you would naively expect.
>
> Firstly, there are cultural issues mostly to do with names. We have edit
> wars about name tags (most recently, disputed islands in South East Asia
> and territories between Ukraine and Russia) - what is the "name on the
> ground" in an area with active movement of troops?
>
> Another very recent example is a long discussion-cum-edit-war in Germany
> about whether or not something really *has* a German name X
> ("name:de=X") or if that is a thing of past occupation
> ("old_name:de=X"). This is not a fact that you can simply check, it is
> something that requires research and brings us quite far into the
> "[citation needed]" terrain already.
>
> But there are other and much less obscure issues, starting with the
> highway classification. There are no hard and fast rules about what is,
> for example, a primary or a secondary road; this is mainly a distinction
> that we leave to the local mapping community, and yes, there are edit
> wars about that too, and there is potential for edits with an ulterior
> motive (someone who lives on a street might downgrade it from primary to
> secondary to have less vehicles routed there, or to make his property
> look more attractive to a potential buyer).
>
> We have many other situations in which we trust the mapper to do the
> right thing without being 100% verifiable. Track types are an example,
> or indeed the infamous "smoothness" tag. When we map which areas are
> "residential" and which "commercial", there's quite a bit of leeway
> there as well - you can gloss over a supermarket in a residential area,
> or you can cut a hole in the area and mark it differently; you can map
> the whole supermarket parking lot as a parking lot or you can map the
> trees and the little bushes between the rows of cars and make it look
> almost like a park.
>
> Is something just a stream or already a river? Is something just a town
> or already a city? Does the office of a private music teacher count as a
> music school, thereby increasing the qua

Re: [OSM-talk] Organizational mapping policy

[Johan C]

< that conclusion is wrong because even if we were to
implement a measure that you have no clear picture of, it could still
solve a problem ...>

Even when shooting with hail one might miss the target :-)



Transparancy could be an explicit part of our core values ( draft:
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Talk:Future#Core_values ). But in my
opinion these would apply to any mapper regardless if they are paid for
mapping or not. I would for example prefer a paid mapper who is willing to
communicate (aspect of respect) over an unpaid mapper who is not open to
communicate to other mappers. I experience the latter too often, which does
hurt the data quality. Thát is a problem.




2014-06-19 11:11 GMT+02:00 Frederik Ramm :

> Hi,
>
> On 06/19/2014 12:26 AM, Johan C wrote:
> > Since there is still no clear picture on the exact nature of the
> > (potential) problem for OSM
>
> The problem that Wikipedia tries to solve is a lack of transparency;
> they want to make sure that, where compensation is involved, the
> potential motives of contributors are out in the open.
>
> They are not saying that it is bad to be paid for editing Wikipedia; nor
> are they saying that you have to request permission for paid Wikipedia
> editing. They just want the larger community, who might come to judge
> whether an edit has been made in good faith, to know the important facts.
>
> I think it was you who invoked comparisons to political processes and
> systems recently; you might compare this to rules that exist in many
> countries where members of parliament have to disclose any extra income
> they receive from other jobs. A member of parliament doesn't have to ask
> for permission if they earn money on the side but they have to disclose
> it, and the public can then decide whether they find this totally ok, or
> whether they believe that this flow of money could interfere with that
> person's contribution to parliament.
>
> I think that a similar transparency policy - disclose if you map for
> compensation - would make sense in OSM as well. (I also think - but that
> is more of a practical matter - that it would in some cases be very
> helpful to know that a group of seemingly separate accounts are actually
> controlled by the same corporate entity.)
>
> > it's indeed very wise not to implement a
> > solution, because logically that solution wouldn't solve the (potential)
> > problem.
>
> First of all, that conclusion is wrong because even if we were to
> implement a measure that you have no clear picture of, it could still
> solve a problem - on purpose for those who understood it, and
> accidentally for those who didn't understand it.
>
> But as I pointed out earlier, you do not need to wait until your house
> is on fire to solve the fire problem; you can try to *avoid* the problem
> occurring in the first place.
>
> A storm is forecast and your neighbour closes their windows; you are new
> to the area and you would really appreciate a more thorough analysis on
> if and how a storm would affect your house since it is built a little
> different than your neighbour's; maybe you won't even be affected by the
> weather... but would it really be considered "unwise" to close your
> windows?
>
> It has been said by some people in this discussion - and I don't
> remember if that was your particular position as well - that the
> motivation behind an edit is irrelevant to OSM because, in contrast to
> Wikipedia, we only collect verifiable facts, and why bother who enters
> these and why?
>
> I don't subscribe to that point of view, and I will discuss this in a
> different thread.
>
> I do maintain that the additional transparency requirements that
> Wikipedia have introduced would serve OSM well, and I fail to see a
> downside to them.
>
> Do you simply think that this additional transparency is "not proven to
> be necessary" and you are against any rule that is not proven to be
> necessary, or do you see an outright downside to transparency ("if we
> were to require this disclosure then there would be less good mapping"
> or so)?
>
> Bye
> Frederik
>
> --
> Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frede...@remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"
>
> ___
> talk mailing list
> talk@openstreetmap.org
> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
>
___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] We need a name!

[Alex Rollin]

History Viewer
World History Inspector
Grounded History
Historic Site Inspector

--
Alex


On Fri, Jun 20, 2014 at 12:49 AM, Rob Nickerson 
wrote:

> I've had a couple of responses off list. These are:
>
> * Constructing the past
> * something with "crowd" in it?
>
> Thanks, for these good ideas. Any more suggestions?
>
> Rob
>
>
> On 18 June 2014 21:04, Rob Nickerson  wrote:
>
>> A few OSM members interested in historic maps are working on our own
>> version of the New York Public Library "Building Inspector". If you've not
>> yet tried it out, go take a look - it's a great site:
>>
>> http://buildinginspector.nypl.org/
>>
>> So, the core function they are asking contributors to do is to check
>> (inspect) and fix the rough building outlines produced by the computer
>> script. Our version will be the same but will cover any city and any
>> library we can get good maps for. But we need a name.
>>
>> Current names suggested are:
>>
>>- Historic Map Marker
>>- Old Map Marker
>>- OHM Buildings
>>- Historic Map Inspector
>>- Building Surveyor
>>- Historic Building Constructor
>>- Historic Building Fixer
>>- Ghost Mapper
>>- Ghost Building Mapper
>>- Ghost Brick
>>- Ghost Bricks and Mortar
>>- Houses and History
>>- Historic Map Booth
>>- Old Building Kiosk
>>- Historic Building Outliner
>>
>> We're after your thoughts - which name works best? Is there some amazing
>> name we haven't thought of yet?
>> Best,
>> Rob (RobJN)
>>
>> p.s. You're more than welcome to help in other ways. We're on the
>> historic mailing list if you want to follow the progress.
>>
>
>
> ___
> talk mailing list
> talk@openstreetmap.org
> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
>
>
___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] We need a name!

[Rob Nickerson]

I've had a couple of responses off list. These are:

* Constructing the past
* something with "crowd" in it?

Thanks, for these good ideas. Any more suggestions?

Rob


On 18 June 2014 21:04, Rob Nickerson  wrote:

> A few OSM members interested in historic maps are working on our own
> version of the New York Public Library "Building Inspector". If you've not
> yet tried it out, go take a look - it's a great site:
>
> http://buildinginspector.nypl.org/
>
> So, the core function they are asking contributors to do is to check
> (inspect) and fix the rough building outlines produced by the computer
> script. Our version will be the same but will cover any city and any
> library we can get good maps for. But we need a name.
>
> Current names suggested are:
>
>- Historic Map Marker
>- Old Map Marker
>- OHM Buildings
>- Historic Map Inspector
>- Building Surveyor
>- Historic Building Constructor
>- Historic Building Fixer
>- Ghost Mapper
>- Ghost Building Mapper
>- Ghost Brick
>- Ghost Bricks and Mortar
>- Houses and History
>- Historic Map Booth
>- Old Building Kiosk
>- Historic Building Outliner
>
> We're after your thoughts - which name works best? Is there some amazing
> name we haven't thought of yet?
> Best,
> Rob (RobJN)
>
> p.s. You're more than welcome to help in other ways. We're on the historic
> mailing list if you want to follow the progress.
>
___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Just facts?

[Christoph Hormann]

On Thursday 19 June 2014, Frederik Ramm wrote:
>
> "Ultimately, map data is pretty much fact and whether it exists or
> not is a binary statement. [...]

This is IMO what mapping should aim at, as outlined by the verifiability 
rule - practical mapping and actual data is however often quite far 
away from this goal.

More importantly though i think the most significant way to take 
influence for a mapper is through selection of what to map and what 
not.  Since there is neither a policy nor a mechanism to enforce 
completeness of mapping and it is unrealistic to create such what is 
mapped and what is not represents a huge element of subjectivity and 
possibly bias in the data even if all the data itself is strictly 
factual and verifiable.

Imagine for example someone mapping all the buildings in a town but 
deliberately leaving one building unmapped.  It is much more likely 
then this building stays missing from the database than if the 
buildings had not been mapped systematically but over time by community 
efforts.  And there is nothing factually wrong with such mappping, it 
is just incomplete.

But even without deliberate attempts to influence the mapping like this 
it seems clear to me that paid mapping will focus on different things 
than normal community mapping.  Kind of 'where the money is' vs. 'where 
the people and their interests are'.  If suddenly half of the mapping 
in OSM would be paid mapping you can be certain that the thematic and 
regional focus of OSM would change - and again without any non-factual 
or non-verifiable elements in the data itself.

Getting back to the comparison with Wikipedia i think there are a number 
of important differences to keep in mind when comparing these two.

- In contrast to the data in Wikipedia the OSM data is normally not 
viewed directly, it is used in maps and other services which provide an 
additional layer of abstraction and interpretation and due to the 
diversity of map styles and services available the possibilities for 
someone editing OSM data to take influence in some form are much more 
indirect than in case of Wikipedia.

- One of the major mechanisms leading to bias in Wikipedia is the 
removal of data.  You can only effectively push a certain POV if you 
can actually remove information unfavourable to it.  For OSM this would 
mean simple additions of new data by paid mappers would probably be 
less critical than deletions and modifications like changing tags.

-- 
Christoph Hormann
http://www.imagico.de/

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

[OSM-talk] Celebrating Cartography

[Steve Chilton]

The Society of Cartographers is hosting a public lecture (and debate) entitled 
'Celebrating cartography'.
It is on Friday 25 July at UCL in central London.
The speaker is Ed Parsons, of Google and good friend of the Openstreetmap 
project.
There was a profile of Ed in yesterday's Independent:
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/features/the-man-whos-making-google-maps-smarter-9544478.html
However, he will not be talking about this Googly stuff.
His brief is to review the last 50 years of cartography and its changes and 
their impact (plenty of OSM scope there).
Afterwards there will a discussion panel, with myself, Ed and Gary Gale.
It should be a great evening, followed by the obligatory relaxed geobeers 
afterwards.
Details: http://soc.org.uk/
Booking is free and can be done at: 
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/celebrating-cartography-tickets-11696587809
Hope to see you there.

PS: you may also be interest in the SoC conf, in Sept in Glasgow: 
http://www.soc.org.uk/soc2014/

Cheers
Steve


---


Please note that Middlesex University's preferred way of receiving all 
correspondence is via email in line with our Environmental Policy. All incoming 
post to Middlesex University is opened and scanned by our digital document 
handler, CDS, and then emailed to the recipient.
 
If you do not want your correspondence to Middlesex University processed in 
this way please email the recipient directly. Parcels, couriered items and 
recorded delivery items will not be opened or scanned by CDS.  There are items 
which are "exceptions" which will be opened by CDS but will not be scanned a 
full list of these can be obtained by contacting the University.


___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

[OSM-talk] Just facts?

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

   this is an offspring from the discussion about whether or not we are
well advised to follow Wikimedia's example of requiring the disclosure
of paid contributions.

The discussion has been led here on talk and on osmf-talk. A statement
by Emilie Laffray on osmf-talk best summarizes the idea:

"Ultimately, map data is pretty much fact and whether it exists or not
is a binary statement. Now, could someone slip "advertisement" like
places of all shops of a specific brand? Yes! Do we care? No, as long as
the data is factual. I don't care if someone is being paid to put data
in OpenStreetMap as long as this data is correct and valid..."

Let us go back in time to when Wikipedia was started. I wasn't there
then but I am pretty sure that there would have been many at the time
who naively said something like: "An encyclopedia is a collection of
facts and knowledge. We can argue how the facts are organised and
presented but the content is verifiable and clear."

I would probably have agreed. Where and when a composer was born and
what their most famous work is - clearly a fact, no?

Fast-forward to the present. Wikipedia has learned the hard way that
there is much less fact and much more open to interpretation than
initially believed. Meanwhile in OSM, people say: "We don't have the
same kind of problems as Wikipedia because ours is effectively a
database of verifiable facts."...

This is undoubtedly true for a number of things in our database - but
the number of exceptions is much higher than you would naively expect.

Firstly, there are cultural issues mostly to do with names. We have edit
wars about name tags (most recently, disputed islands in South East Asia
and territories between Ukraine and Russia) - what is the "name on the
ground" in an area with active movement of troops?

Another very recent example is a long discussion-cum-edit-war in Germany
about whether or not something really *has* a German name X
("name:de=X") or if that is a thing of past occupation
("old_name:de=X"). This is not a fact that you can simply check, it is
something that requires research and brings us quite far into the
"[citation needed]" terrain already.

But there are other and much less obscure issues, starting with the
highway classification. There are no hard and fast rules about what is,
for example, a primary or a secondary road; this is mainly a distinction
that we leave to the local mapping community, and yes, there are edit
wars about that too, and there is potential for edits with an ulterior
motive (someone who lives on a street might downgrade it from primary to
secondary to have less vehicles routed there, or to make his property
look more attractive to a potential buyer).

We have many other situations in which we trust the mapper to do the
right thing without being 100% verifiable. Track types are an example,
or indeed the infamous "smoothness" tag. When we map which areas are
"residential" and which "commercial", there's quite a bit of leeway
there as well - you can gloss over a supermarket in a residential area,
or you can cut a hole in the area and mark it differently; you can map
the whole supermarket parking lot as a parking lot or you can map the
trees and the little bushes between the rows of cars and make it look
almost like a park.

Is something just a stream or already a river? Is something just a town
or already a city? Does the office of a private music teacher count as a
music school, thereby increasing the quarter's school density?

All these are judgment calls where we trust our mappers to make the
right decision. All these are a far cry from the "binary statement" and
the easy fact checking that people often ascribe to OSM.

I believe that it is still true that most of what we collect *is* facts,
and as long as we stick to the facts we're in the green. It may be
disputable whether something is tracktype=grade1 or tracktype=grade2 but
the fact that there is some kind of track in that location is not up for
discussion.

But this should not make ourselves blind to the fact that there's also
quite a lot of stuff in our database that is not as easy to fact-check.
I believe there is ample room to "interpret" reality in a way that is
not outright wrong, but has a "spin" on it - in OSM as in Wikipedia.

Bye
Frederik

-- 
Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frede...@remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Organizational mapping policy

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

On 06/19/2014 12:26 AM, Johan C wrote:
> Since there is still no clear picture on the exact nature of the
> (potential) problem for OSM

The problem that Wikipedia tries to solve is a lack of transparency;
they want to make sure that, where compensation is involved, the
potential motives of contributors are out in the open.

They are not saying that it is bad to be paid for editing Wikipedia; nor
are they saying that you have to request permission for paid Wikipedia
editing. They just want the larger community, who might come to judge
whether an edit has been made in good faith, to know the important facts.

I think it was you who invoked comparisons to political processes and
systems recently; you might compare this to rules that exist in many
countries where members of parliament have to disclose any extra income
they receive from other jobs. A member of parliament doesn't have to ask
for permission if they earn money on the side but they have to disclose
it, and the public can then decide whether they find this totally ok, or
whether they believe that this flow of money could interfere with that
person's contribution to parliament.

I think that a similar transparency policy - disclose if you map for
compensation - would make sense in OSM as well. (I also think - but that
is more of a practical matter - that it would in some cases be very
helpful to know that a group of seemingly separate accounts are actually
controlled by the same corporate entity.)

> it's indeed very wise not to implement a
> solution, because logically that solution wouldn't solve the (potential)
> problem.

First of all, that conclusion is wrong because even if we were to
implement a measure that you have no clear picture of, it could still
solve a problem - on purpose for those who understood it, and
accidentally for those who didn't understand it.

But as I pointed out earlier, you do not need to wait until your house
is on fire to solve the fire problem; you can try to *avoid* the problem
occurring in the first place.

A storm is forecast and your neighbour closes their windows; you are new
to the area and you would really appreciate a more thorough analysis on
if and how a storm would affect your house since it is built a little
different than your neighbour's; maybe you won't even be affected by the
weather... but would it really be considered "unwise" to close your windows?

It has been said by some people in this discussion - and I don't
remember if that was your particular position as well - that the
motivation behind an edit is irrelevant to OSM because, in contrast to
Wikipedia, we only collect verifiable facts, and why bother who enters
these and why?

I don't subscribe to that point of view, and I will discuss this in a
different thread.

I do maintain that the additional transparency requirements that
Wikipedia have introduced would serve OSM well, and I fail to see a
downside to them.

Do you simply think that this additional transparency is "not proven to
be necessary" and you are against any rule that is not proven to be
necessary, or do you see an outright downside to transparency ("if we
were to require this disclosure then there would be less good mapping"
or so)?

Bye
Frederik

-- 
Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frede...@remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

[OSRM-talk] Non-routing places

[John Aherne]

Thanks everyone for the info.

I am sure I tried the zoom levels some while ago. But I will give it
another go sometime tomorrow.

I'll also dig up the examples I was working with to show what is happening.

Thanks again

-- 
*John Aherne*




*www.rocs.co.uk *
020 7223 7567
___
OSRM-talk mailing list
osrm-t...@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/osrm-talk

Re: [OSM-talk] UK is turning blue?

[Nick Whitelegg]

Must be becoming a political map (Europe rather than US colour scheme).

;-)

-Michael Kugelmann  wrote: -
To: talk@openstreetmap.org
From: Michael Kugelmann 
Date: 18/06/2014 12:15AM
Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] UK is turning blue?

Am 18.06.2014 00:41, schrieb Colin Smale:
>
> why the UK is turning blue on openstreetmap.org?
>
Flood due to massive rain? Heavy tide?    ;-)

Maybe the coastline is broken (or was changed) or something like that...


Cheers,
Michael.


___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk