Re: [Talk-us] [OSM-talk] Audio mapping experiences

[Martijn van Exel]

That is a really interesting map! Even though it may not fit within OSM it is 
intriguing to hear sounds from all over the world.


> On Oct 21, 2015, at 8:13 AM, Max  wrote:
> 
> For a second I thought you meant mapping audio events/soundscapes to ad
> them to the database.
> 
> Like this: http://aporee.org/maps/
> 
> 
> On 2015년 10월 21일 11:39, Martijn van Exel wrote:
>> Hi all, 
>> 
>> I wrote up my first experiences with audio mapping. I finally made some time 
>> to try it. It’s on my diary: 
>> http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/mvexel/diary/36154 . I am curious to hear 
>> your experiences with this kind of mapping, and if you read the post, if you 
>> have any tips for me to improve my strategy.
>> 
>> Martijn
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>> 
> 


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Re: [Talk-us] Highway tagging sort-of-dispute

[Greg Troxel]

Bradley White  writes:

> In urban areas, I would consider secondary to usually mean 4 lanes, 35
> mph(ish), maybe divided maybe not, with not much in the way of access
> control. Primaries are faster, more controlled and usually wider - more
> important roads in the area than secondary. Under the scheme that this
> contributor recently tagged the city with, there is no distinction between
> these roads.

This is messy.As I have read the norms, primary is for US highwways,
and secondary for state highways.  Then, classifications are adjusted
based on importance, so that a state highway that is as important as a
US highway (e.g MA 2 in massachusetts, which is as big a deal as US 20,
if not more so, is tagged as primary).

Just because a road has 4 lanes doesn't make it like a US highway.

The root of the problem is that the view of what's important in the city
is different than outside, and these have to sort of meet up.   Outside
of cities, important roads take you from one place to another place, not
across town.

> -- Secondly, in other areas, roads which were set to primary were then
> upgraded to trunk in ways I find strange next to my understanding of what a
> trunk road means in the U.S. I am under the impression that 'trunk' implies
> that the road has some sort of high-performance element to it, in that if
> the road is undivided, low-speed, and maintains access to all adjacent
> properties, it cannot possibly be a trunk road, even if it is very
> important in navigation. In Carson City (

I haven't looked, but I agree.  A trunk road is heading towards being a
motorway: it needs to be more or less three out of 4 of: mostly divided,
mostly multilane, mostly not having at-grade intersections, and mostly
limited access.  If it has driveways everywhere and lights more often
than once every mile, it's definitely not trunk.  There's a section of
MA 2 near me that is trunk, even though there are a few driveways and
side roads.  But it's like 4 things in 4 miles, and it's posted 45 with
prevailing speeds of 65-70, jersey barrier, two lanes plus breakdown,
and no light for 4 miles.   So you almost don't notice it's not a
motorway.

> http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=13/39.1442/-119.7566), the US 50 & US 395
> temporary route is tagged trunk despite that the road is 4 lanes undivided,
> dropping as low as 25 mph and maintaining all adjacent access. It is a very

You have convinced me trunk is totally inappropriate.

> -- Finally, I have a bit of concern with some weirdness and in some cases
> sloppiness of these recent edits. In South Lake Tahoe, CA (
> http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=13/38.9292/-119.9700), the trunk tag
> seems to start and stop arbitrarily at the end of the residential areas. I
> could see the case being made that it is a trunk road up until it reaches
> SLT since it is fast and relatively  unobstructed, but in town the road is
> low speed, 4-5 lanes, undivided, maintains direct access to property, which
> again says to me 'primary'. It is clearly the most important route, but has
> no 'high-performance' elements other than lanes. The same thing happens in
> Minden, NV (http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=13/38.9445/-119.7417), where
> NV 88 is tagged as a trunk for a short length, as well as 395 through the
> town despite being 25 mph with no access control whatsoever. Further south,
> it seems like there was an attempt made to tag the rest of 395 as a trunk,

I think trunk/primary transitions should be more or less where you have
to slow down, where the driveways start, or the first light.  Usually
this is pretty obvious physically as your are driving.  It's also not
appropriate to have a short section be trunk.  More or less by
definition, a trunk has to have an extended period without at-grade
intersections and lights, so a section primary-trunk-primary where it's
only 0.5 miles just doesn't make sense, even if that little section is
better.

> I don't want to get into a miniature 'edit war' flipping these tags back
> and forth (the history on some of the segments of US 395 south of minden
> show that it has gone between primary and trunk a number of times since the
> creation of the way) since that is considered vandalism. I would like to
> hear some more thoughts about this though. I know that 'trunk' is a pretty
> vague term in the US, but under the assumption that it implies in some way
> a 'high-performance motorway', I don't think it's being used correctly
> here. I could be totally wrong though, which is why I'm asking for some
> opinion about what to do here. Thanks for bearing with me, I know this was
> pretty long.

Have you messaged the mapper?  I would encourage you to do that and
start up a local mailinglist.  Then you could get to the situation where
you have the consensus of the active mappers who choose to participate
in the local mapping community.  An edit labeled as such should carry a
lot more weight.

One of the broken things about 

Re: [Talk-us] Legislative districts, Land-use zoning, etc.

[Ray Kiddy]

On Wed, 21 Oct 2015 08:19:20 +0200
Frederik Ramm  wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> On 10/21/2015 04:46 AM, Ray Kiddy wrote:
> > To me, OSM is a tool which is ideal for relating various information
> > layers across a multi-dimensional substrate. This substrate is a
> > two-dimensional geography, which is defined geographically. To me,
> > it seems perfect for things like borders.
> 
> OSM is first and foremost a community of people curating a data set.
> This process works best with data that is verifiable on the ground,
> because if two community members disagree over something, the dispute
> can be resolved by simply looking at the place. Also, the mapper
> (surveyor) is the ultimate authority in OSM; we map what *is*, not
> what some government says should be.
> 
> We do have a few items that go against these principles, most notably
> borders. They are not easily verifiable, and they are items where the
> authority lies elsewhere - where OSM can only ever be a copy of some
> master data being defined by a government, instead of being the
> authoritative source. OSM is certainly not "perfect" for collecting
> and curating such information; this is a fact and not a matter of
> personal opinion. Having these borders in OSM is already a compromise
> where the usefulness (high) has been weighed against the suitability
> of OSM as a medium (low).

I am seeing the truth in what you are saying now.

First, I am still somewhat new to the OSM game. But also I am
interested in the use of it for borders for, for example, school
districts in the US. And I am seeing that (in line with Richard's
suggestion, different e-mail), I may want to investigate doing that in
a separate database connected to OSM. And I created just such a
database several weeks ago, so yes, that makes sense. I am currently
writing software which keeps track of the relations and which
periodically checks their integrity.

> > It is very true that, as you say, OSM "excels at holding information
> > that users can see, verify and update." I think it is also true that
> > OSM excels at relating abstract themes in a multi-dimensional space.
> 
> I can't process the use of "multi-dimensional" in this context. OSM is
> not multi-dimensional, it is 2.5-dimensional at best, and affixing
> bits and bobs of extra information to some objects doesn't make it
> multi-dimensional. OSM certainly does not excel at relating abstract
> themes - the contrary is true, OSM is about concrete stuff. As soon as
> we veer into the less concrete - for example, public transport
> relations instead of steel tracks on the ground - we hit the limits
> of our editing tools, and of most people working with OSM too. Yes we
> do that (public transport relations) but we certainly don't "excel"
> at it.

I meant "dimension" in terms of themes. So a map (2 d) with a layer for
average family income, a layer for electricity usage and a layer for
foliage coverage is a 5-dimensional map. Like that.

> > And OSM is many, many others things as well. Many others would
> > define it differently and all of those would also be valid and
> > useful.
> 
> > All of our viewpoints are valuable, and it is more clear that this
> > is true when we describe our viewpoints as viewpoints, not as norms.
> 
> I think this lovey-dovey relativism doesn't go anywhere. To me, it
> smacks of "well, the scientific method is one way to look at physics
> but of course there are many others that are equally valid and
> useful". OSM is certainly not whatever anyone sees in it, and
> certainly not all these views are equally valid and useful.
> 
> Bye
> Frederik
> 

"Lovey-dovey" :-) I like that. I usually have been accused of not
being, shall we say, "lovey-dovey". Perhaps I am just trying to be
politic and have sung the pendulum too far.

The points I am seeing from you all make sense, so I stand corrected.

thanx - ray


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Re: [Talk-us] Highway tagging sort-of-dispute

[Paul Johnson]

On Wed, Oct 21, 2015 at 8:27 AM, Greg Troxel  wrote:

>
> Bradley White  writes:
>
> > In urban areas, I would consider secondary to usually mean 4 lanes, 35
> > mph(ish), maybe divided maybe not, with not much in the way of access
> > control. Primaries are faster, more controlled and usually wider - more
> > important roads in the area than secondary. Under the scheme that this
> > contributor recently tagged the city with, there is no distinction
> between
> > these roads.
>
> This is messy.As I have read the norms, primary is for US highwways,
> and secondary for state highways.  Then, classifications are adjusted
> based on importance, so that a state highway that is as important as a
> US highway (e.g MA 2 in massachusetts, which is as big a deal as US 20,
> if not more so, is tagged as primary).
>

True, but on the other hand, an eight lane city boulevard's probably going
to be considered a more major route than a two lane county road
intersecting it (or even parallel a few blocks over), even though the
network hierarchy would consider the county road more major.


> Just because a road has 4 lanes doesn't make it like a US highway.
>

Right, that's what the network tag on the route relation that the way
should already be a part of means.  (Have I mentioned yet, it's time to
kill ref=* on ways and go exclusively to relations for this information?)


> The root of the problem is that the view of what's important in the city
> is different than outside, and these have to sort of meet up.   Outside
> of cities, important roads take you from one place to another place, not
> across town.
>

In more rural areas, these do more or less line up.  Major cities tend to
be their own beast when it comes to this sort of thing.
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Re: [Talk-us] Legislative districts, Land-use zoning, etc.

[stevea]

Ray Kiddy writes:

 > It is very true that, as you say, OSM "excels at holding information

 that users can see, verify and update." I think it is also true that

 > OSM excels at relating abstract themes in a multi-dimensional space.


I agree.  There are hundreds or thousands of clearly themed maps 
based upon OSM data, all and any of which are useful for that 
particular narrow slice of query that a map consumer wishes to see 
(literally, visualize).  Building hundreds, thousands or millions of 
these visualizations based upon the rich data found in OSM truly is 
what OSM is about:  the ends DO justify the means in this case!  In 
short:  why bother building a rich database or don't bother to ask it 
to provide beautiful answers?  That would be silly!  We can, and we 
do.


And Frederik Ramm replies:

I can't process the use of "multi-dimensional" in this context. OSM is
not multi-dimensional, it is 2.5-dimensional at best, and affixing bits
and bobs of extra information to some objects doesn't make it
multi-dimensional. OSM certainly does not excel at relating abstract
themes - the contrary is true, OSM is about concrete stuff. As soon as
we veer into the less concrete - for example, public transport relations
instead of steel tracks on the ground - we hit the limits of our editing
tools, and of most people working with OSM too. Yes we do that (public
transport relations) but we certainly don't "excel" at it.


On the contrary, OSM is absolutely multi-dimensional:  "bobs of extra 
information" (in the form of our super tool, free-form tagging) DO 
make it multi-dimensional.  That's the beauty of an abstract 
dimension:  it can be defined to be what you want it to be.  Often we 
start with the two dimensions of "earth's surface" then we choose a 
richly-defined theme to be the third (or include a fourth or fifth). 
This is simply abstract thinking applied, and to say that a dimension 
must be "space" (as in 2-space or 3-space or "2.5-space at best") and 
space ONLY is so very limiting.  Space is a good place to BEGIN using 
the 2 dimensions of "earth's surface," but after that, OSM is so 
wonderfully useful PRECISELY because we use it in "creative, 
productive, or unexpected ways" (just like our Main Page says). 
Those other ways might be abstractly defined as "multi-dimensional 
extensions of a geographically-defined database."  After that, as it 
is said, "the sky is the limit."


We COULD excel at public transport relations (real things, "findable 
on the ground"), we just don't quite yet.  OSM only having 
partially-implemented or not-quite-perfect public transport routes is 
not an existence proof that public transport routes don't belong in 
OSM or that they overly challenge the editing skills (or tools) of 
the project or its participants.


I reject the assertion that a public transport route is "less 
concrete" than, say, a drinking fountain.  Public transport routes 
have platforms, signs which display their timepoints, schedules, a 
beginning and end, etc.  They are a real, not abstract things, and 
OSM not only reflects this, we have done so with sane growth from 
public_transport=v1 to v2 in a way we should be proud of.  Sure, we 
have much more growth and data to enter to be an impressive and 
definitive source -- we are still a growing project.  Let us not 
dismiss this real, useful and actively growing subset of our data as 
"less concrete" or even its only faintly-hinted-at next logical 
conclusion of "these are unworthy data, so let's purge them."  This 
smacks of "changing the rules of the game in the middle of the game." 
Yes, we've done this before (e.g. old license to ODBL), but the 
process is painful, only works when we are honest and forthright that 
that's what we're doing, and most of us agree to do so.



 > And OSM is many, many others things as well. Many others would define

 it differently and all of those would also be valid and useful.



 All of our viewpoints are valuable, and it is more clear that this is
 true when we describe our viewpoints as viewpoints, not as norms.


I think this lovey-dovey relativism doesn't go anywhere. To me, it
smacks of "well, the scientific method is one way to look at physics but
of course there are many others that are equally valid and useful". OSM
is certainly not whatever anyone sees in it, and certainly not all these
views are equally valid and useful.


I don't want to put words in Frederik's mouth, but what I think he is 
getting at is that OSM is not a dumping ground for whatever we want 
it to be.  Yes, that is true, and a good point.  Do we need to manage 
what goes into and doesn't go into OSM?  Yes, of course.  Our core 
tenets (e.g. "on the ground verifiable") guide us well here.  But if 
we are going to change the rules mid-stream, let us say so and not 
pretend we are not.


SteveA
California

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[Talk-us] OpenStreetMap US chapter board elections

[Paul Norman]

As one of the independent scrutineers for the OSM US Election, I have 
completed counting votes, and Ian Dees, Alex Barth, Alyssa Wright, 
Martijn van Exel, and Drishtie Patel have been elected to the 
OpenStreetMap US board.


The full announcement with a table of numbers is at 
https://openstreetmap.us/2015/10/election-results/. There were 165 
responses, but 8 uncompleted ballots for a total of 157 people voting.


Vote tallies were obtained from the online service used for votes. Voter 
information was spot-checked against the membership list provided by 
OpenStreetMap US.


An average of 4.28 votes were cast per completed ballot.

Thanks to everyone who ran and was involved in the election, including 
the other scrutineer, Henk Hoff.


--
Paul Norman

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Re: [Talk-us] OpenStreetMap US chapter board elections

[Richard Welty]

On 10/21/15 5:28 PM, Paul Norman wrote:
> As one of the independent scrutineers for the OSM US Election, I have
> completed counting votes, and Ian Dees, Alex Barth, Alyssa Wright,
> Martijn van Exel, and Drishtie Patel have been elected to the
> OpenStreetMap US board.
congratulations to the new and returning board members!

i'm looking forward to another excellent year.

richard

-- 
rwe...@averillpark.net
 Averill Park Networking - GIS & IT Consulting
 OpenStreetMap - PostgreSQL - Linux
 Java - Web Applications - Search




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Re: [Talk-us] OpenStreetMap US chapter board elections

[Steven Johnson]

Thank you, Paul & Henk and congratulations to the board. It's going to be a 
good year. 

--SEJ

Sent from my electronic tether. 

> On 2015年10月21日, at 17:28, Paul Norman  wrote:
> 
> As one of the independent scrutineers for the OSM US Election, I have 
> completed counting votes, and Ian Dees, Alex Barth, Alyssa Wright, Martijn 
> van Exel, and Drishtie Patel have been elected to the OpenStreetMap US board.
> 
> The full announcement with a table of numbers is at 
> https://openstreetmap.us/2015/10/election-results/. There were 165 responses, 
> but 8 uncompleted ballots for a total of 157 people voting.
> 
> Vote tallies were obtained from the online service used for votes. Voter 
> information was spot-checked against the membership list provided by 
> OpenStreetMap US.
> 
> An average of 4.28 votes were cast per completed ballot.
> 
> Thanks to everyone who ran and was involved in the election, including the 
> other scrutineer, Henk Hoff.
> 
> -- 
> Paul Norman
> 
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Re: [Talk-us] OpenStreetMap US chapter board elections

[Elliott Plack]

Thanks Paul and Henk for the counting. I appreciated the opportunity to run
and will continue to stay involved! See you all at SOTMUS 2016.

Elliott

Sent by a device more powerful than the computer systems that put a man on
the moon

On Wed, Oct 21, 2015 at 7:12 PM Steven Johnson  wrote:

> Thank you, Paul & Henk and congratulations to the board. It's going to be
> a good year.
>
> --SEJ
>
> Sent from my electronic tether.
>
> > On 2015年10月21日, at 17:28, Paul Norman  wrote:
> >
> > As one of the independent scrutineers for the OSM US Election, I have
> completed counting votes, and Ian Dees, Alex Barth, Alyssa Wright, Martijn
> van Exel, and Drishtie Patel have been elected to the OpenStreetMap US
> board.
> >
> > The full announcement with a table of numbers is at
> https://openstreetmap.us/2015/10/election-results/. There were 165
> responses, but 8 uncompleted ballots for a total of 157 people voting.
> >
> > Vote tallies were obtained from the online service used for votes. Voter
> information was spot-checked against the membership list provided by
> OpenStreetMap US.
> >
> > An average of 4.28 votes were cast per completed ballot.
> >
> > Thanks to everyone who ran and was involved in the election, including
> the other scrutineer, Henk Hoff.
> >
> > --
> > Paul Norman
> >
> > ___
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Re: [Talk-us] Legislative districts, Land-use zoning, etc.

[Mike Thompson]

Many borders, particularly international borders, are prominently marked
("monumented") (e.g. [1]), and thus are verifiable on the ground (and
sometimes the monumentation is so prominent it is visible from imagery).
It is what is physically monumented on the ground that is the legal border,
from [1]: "If some of the original markers were off by a few dozen -- or a
couple of hundred -- feet here and there, which was inevitable given the
conditions in which the crews worked and the technology of the time, it
doesn’t matter because it is the position of the monuments on the ground,
not the 141st meridian, that is the de facto boundary by treaty."

Legislative districts on the other hand, because they can change (every 10
years in US), are not monumented directly, and therefore would be very
difficult to verify on the ground.  In the US one would have to look up the
official text description of the district, then look up the census blocks
it references (" most redistricting was based on whole census blocks.
Kentucky was the only state where congressional district boundaries split
some 2010 Census tabulation blocks." [2]), and then head out to the field
to observe the features that the census blocks reference. Census blocks are
generally defined by streets, rivers and other physical features [3].

Mike

[1]
http://www.adn.com/article/20140727/trail-monuments-men-border-crews-cut-20-foot-swath-alaska-yukon-line
[2] https://www.census.gov/geo/maps-data/data/aboutcd.html
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Census_block
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Re: [Talk-us] Legislative districts, Land-use zoning, etc.

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

On 10/21/2015 04:46 AM, Ray Kiddy wrote:
> To me, OSM is a tool which is ideal for relating various information
> layers across a multi-dimensional substrate. This substrate is a
> two-dimensional geography, which is defined geographically. To me, it
> seems perfect for things like borders.

OSM is first and foremost a community of people curating a data set.
This process works best with data that is verifiable on the ground,
because if two community members disagree over something, the dispute
can be resolved by simply looking at the place. Also, the mapper
(surveyor) is the ultimate authority in OSM; we map what *is*, not what
some government says should be.

We do have a few items that go against these principles, most notably
borders. They are not easily verifiable, and they are items where the
authority lies elsewhere - where OSM can only ever be a copy of some
master data being defined by a government, instead of being the
authoritative source. OSM is certainly not "perfect" for collecting and
curating such information; this is a fact and not a matter of personal
opinion. Having these borders in OSM is already a compromise where the
usefulness (high) has been weighed against the suitability of OSM as a
medium (low).

> It is very true that, as you say, OSM "excels at holding information
> that users can see, verify and update." I think it is also true that
> OSM excels at relating abstract themes in a multi-dimensional space.

I can't process the use of "multi-dimensional" in this context. OSM is
not multi-dimensional, it is 2.5-dimensional at best, and affixing bits
and bobs of extra information to some objects doesn't make it
multi-dimensional. OSM certainly does not excel at relating abstract
themes - the contrary is true, OSM is about concrete stuff. As soon as
we veer into the less concrete - for example, public transport relations
instead of steel tracks on the ground - we hit the limits of our editing
tools, and of most people working with OSM too. Yes we do that (public
transport relations) but we certainly don't "excel" at it.

> And OSM is many, many others things as well. Many others would define
> it differently and all of those would also be valid and useful.

> All of our viewpoints are valuable, and it is more clear that this is
> true when we describe our viewpoints as viewpoints, not as norms.

I think this lovey-dovey relativism doesn't go anywhere. To me, it
smacks of "well, the scientific method is one way to look at physics but
of course there are many others that are equally valid and useful". OSM
is certainly not whatever anyone sees in it, and certainly not all these
views are equally valid and useful.

Bye
Frederik

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

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