Re: [Talk-us] Hostility towards US mappers
On Wednesday 25 July 2018, Bryan Housel wrote: > Hey Christoph, you make a good point, and I apologize for the > flippant subject line. I realize that changing “Senseless sidewalks” > to “Senseless Germans” distracts from the overall point that I was > trying to make. In truth, most sidewalks are fine and most Germans > are sensible people. Thanks, that is much appreciated. -- Christoph Hormann http://www.imagico.de/ ___ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
Re: [Talk-us] Senseless Germans, again.
I am somewhat amazed by the fact that hardly anyone from the US community (where a lot of mappers routinely map abroad and should be able to empathize with Frederik being concerned about an area where he has no first hand knowledge of) seems to find it necessary to speak up against this. I cannot imagine someone coming to talk-de, getting a "Senseless Americans" in reply and this not being immediately rejected by many others - no matter how inappropriate or unfunded the original message might have been. This is talk-us of course so you are free to be as hostile and dismissive towards Germans here as you like. Still i am watching the discussion with some bewilderment because in large parts (and in particular in statements from representatives of OSM US) it contrasts quite sharply with what i am used to in terms of American culture and communication styles. What saddens me is that those with constructive and reflective commentary (Rihards and Kevin) get caught in the rage against the "Senseless Germans". Side note: I also have my doubts if Bryan's German colleagues at work appreciate this kind of remark. -- Christoph Hormann http://www.imagico.de/ ___ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
Re: [Talk-us] [OSM-talk] Undiscussed mass-revert by user Nakaner-repair
On Friday 20 April 2018, Clifford Snow wrote: > [...] > > Nakaner post a changeset comment which impart said: > > you seem to be part of a paid/organized/commercial editing activity. > We have been telling your workmates for more than one week that you > must add a note to your profile page at openstreetmap.org which > states which company/organisation you belong to, who pays you for > editing and which software, technology and rules you use to determine > which roads you edit. You can edit the content of your user profile > page via your user settings at openstreetmap.org. > > > Please add that information and answer all questions before you > upload any further edits to OpenStreetMap! Otherwise I will revert > all your edits! Yes, i saw that. Note however none of this played a role in the discussion on the German forum. IMO in cases where mappers do not react to attempts at communication at all this is a general problem not specific to organized/directed editing activities. -- Christoph Hormann http://www.imagico.de/ ___ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
Re: [Talk-us] [OSM-talk] Undiscussed mass-revert by user Nakaner-repair
On Friday 20 April 2018, Mikel Maron wrote: > > [...]Nakaner seems to be > applying an organized editing policy here without grounds. While you might think this is a good example for why such a policy is needed it seems to me that the motivation for both the user blocks by the DWG and the main argument that led to the conclusion in the German forum that the edits should be reverted was that the mappers in question did not react to attempts to contact them. > While you are probably correct that the US community does not want > this kind of behavior,, as far as I can tell no one was consulted > outside of the German forum discussion, where the US community does > not tend to hang out -- so I'm not sure you should just make this > assumption. [...] As said i don't want to assess Nakaners actions here. If the edits in question have a clear focus on or are limited to the US is would probably have been a good idea to approach the US community about them. But keep in mind that the thread in the German forum was started because a German speaking mapper came across questionable edits. It is completely all right to start a discussion on the German forum on that - after all we do not even have a German language channel with global scope which might have been a better place for that. -- Christoph Hormann http://www.imagico.de/ ___ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
Re: [Talk-us] Undiscussed mass-revert by user Nakaner-repair
On Friday 20 April 2018, Ian Dees wrote: > > I'd be interested in seeing all of these reverts reverted (at least > in the US) until discussion can take place. I don't know about these changes or the reverts of them in detail but on a general note here: If mappers find edits they consider questionable - either factually or methodologically - and attempts to get in contact with the mapper making those edits fail it is commonly accepted practice that mappers can revert such changes. This happens every day many times all over the world and is a good way to reduce the workload of the DWG by not getting them involved in all the small matters mappers can resolve between each other. OTOH reverting an edit, even if that edit itself is a revert, without trying to discuss it with the mapper making it, is generally not considered to be acceptable. I don't want to assess Nakaner's edits with that but your call for a blanket revert of them without a previous discussion giving him the chance to explain his intentions with those edits and their merit would not be in line with established practice in OSM. If what the discussion on the German forum indicates is accurate, i.e. that there is a group of mappers performing organized edits which reject attempts to contact them and evade blocks established to ensure they do not continue without getting in contact with the community by creating sockpuppet accounts, i am pretty sure the local US community does not want this to continue in their domain and how to best accompish that would be a good subject of discussion. -- Christoph Hormann http://www.imagico.de/ ___ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
Re: [Talk-us] hydrology Alaska
On Wednesday 18 October 2017, Andy Townsend wrote: > > https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=17/69.94271/-152.49898 > > isn't the result of simplification, though, is it? You can see the > pixels... Like others here i have no practical experience with scanaerial but it seems the vectorization algorithm used is very non-sophisticated leading to the geometries shown. Tracing higher resolution images at higher resolution and running Douglas-Peucker over it will likely not produce good results either (you will get the typical jagged corners). Those cases where good results were achieved with scanaerial seem to be using relatively low resolution images processed at a much higher resolution - like here: http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=12/68.8084/160.9188 -- Christoph Hormann http://www.imagico.de/ ___ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
Re: [Talk-us] hydrology Alaska
On Tuesday 17 October 2017, ANT Berezhnyi wrote: > > so on the question ... > > Is it possible to vectorize the USGS on the OSM if there is no > Landsat, and everything else in the clouds, or in the snow, or the > quality is bad ... There are no parts of the US where there is no better imagery available than the 15 year old Landsat Geocover background image in Bing. Most of Alaska is now covered by high resolution images in at least one of the available imagery layers (Bing/Mapbox/DG/ESRI). And where this is not the case or images are unsuitable you will be able to find newer Landsat or Sentinel-2 images. If you have troubles finding a suitable image for a specific area just ask - someone will likely be able to point you to them. The Russian community has used open data images for quite some time in remote areas of the north. But no image, no matter how suitable it is for the mapping task at hand, absolves you from carefully verifying what you map. Tracing helper tools like scanaerial do not do this for you. Old USGS maps are useful for names and as hints to interpreting imagery but should never be used for tracing geometries - they are just too old for that in most cases. And as Ben Discoe pointed out you need to adjust your methods of tracing water areas, Something like https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/532622119 is just not a good geometry representation (lots of nodes but with coordinates rounded to an arbitrary pixel grid is just wasteful). -- Christoph Hormann http://www.imagico.de/ ___ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
Re: [Talk-us] Low-quality NHD imports
On Friday 13 October 2017, Kevin Kenny wrote: > > I remain unconvinced that importing or not importing has had any > significant impact on whether people improve the map manually. In case of NHD imports in the US there are certainly significant parts of the country where no NHD data has been imported and there is also no manual waterbody mapping worth mentioning - which would allow you to conclude there are likely also areas of NHD imports where at least so far this did not have a negative effect. But in areas of significant interest, in particular popular outdoor destinations, i am pretty sure you can observe this - i showed an example from southern Montana where the limit of the detailed and accurate manual mapping clearly matches the limit of the previous NHD import or in other words: The mapper mapping that clearly did not feel like bringing the NHD data to the same level of quality as the manually mapped area. This is just one case and you cannot simple conclude it is the same everywhere else but i would not simply dismiss the idea that there is a discouraging effect of imports on manual mapping in some cases. There are a number of possible measures that could be considered for improving old NHD imports: * removal of unnecessary tags to reduce the baggage mappers would have to deal with when working on the data. * removal of small unnamed streams which are not necessary for the overall river network connectivity in areas where the geometric accuracy is poor by current standards (and it is therefore usually easier for mappers to newly trace those streams instead of trying to improve the inaccurate data) * creating maproulette challenges for fixing inaccurate waterway classifications - in particular waterways tagged 'waterway=stream' but with a name containing 'Creek' or 'River' will often qualify as waterway=river. Same for artificial waterways with 'waterway=ditch' but names containing 'Canal' or ther other way round. * creating maproulette challenges for unconnected waterways. * adding missing 'intermittent=yes' to waterways in imports where this was not properly set based on the feature codes. -- Christoph Hormann http://www.imagico.de/ ___ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
Re: [Talk-us] Low-quality NHD imports
On Friday 13 October 2017, Frederik Ramm wrote: > > I haven't researched who added them and when, but they would > certainly not clear the quality standards we have for imports today. > Most of this information can be properly modelled in usual OSM tags, > and where it cannot, it probably shouldn't be in OSM in the first > place. Those are several regional imports made by different people, see https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/keys/NHD%3AFCode#map to get an idea of the distribution. In general the NHD water line features are next to impossible to properly model in OSM since the natural waterway lines (feature codes 46000-46007) and the artificial waterway lines (feature codes 33600-33603) include all sizes of waterways. They were usually all imported as waterway=stream and waterway=ditch which is incorrect in many cases. The geometries in the NHD source data are usually fine (at least in recent NHD versions) - though conflation is often poor, lacking connectivity to pre-existing data - like here: https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=16/45.8945/-111.3596=D And there are of course also obvious errors like this: https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/39263506 or this: https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=13/38.9733/-108.4790 > Is there any systematic (or even sporadic) effort of cleaning up > these old imports? Is there reason to believe that the neglect > extends to more than just the tags - do geometry and topology usually > work well on these, or are the funny tags a huge "this whole area > hasn't had any love in a long time" sign? I think this is probably a good example for imports discouraging manual mapping. If this data was not there mappers would probably meanwhile have added at least the larger rivers but with the dense network of NHD geometries with a lot of cryptic tags and all flatly tagged as waterway=stream it is quite hard for mappers to identify the larger rivers and improve mapping there. Like here (NHD import on the left, newer manual mapping on the right): https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=13/45.2453/-110.1321 -- Christoph Hormann http://www.imagico.de/ ___ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
Re: [Talk-us] Choptank River
On Sunday 15 January 2017, Simon Poole wrote: > > Given that Washington is supposedly the global centre of mapping > goodness, I hope we might be able to find somebody there that perhaps > is interested in fixing the, I must say with 120km really far away, > area a bit. Note the phenomenon that we have well mapped urban centres immediately next to extremely poorly mapped areas is something not specific to the US at all. My favorite example for this is usually Singapore where you can find some extremely badly mapped areas less than 50km to the south: http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=12/0.9099/103.8064 Often this has a lot to do with the fact that attraction of new mappers usually is most efficient in urban centres and less so in rural areas. And best mapping always comes from local mappers so for well mapped rural areas you need rural mappers. The difference in central Europe is not only that we have a much larger number of active mappers compared to the population in total, we also have much less contrast between urban and rural areas overall. So I am not so sure if the advise to DC mappers to drive out to the country to map is really a sustainable approach. The better way might be to think about making OSM more welcoming and more attractive to rural communities. -- Christoph Hormann http://www.imagico.de/ ___ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
Re: [Talk-us] [Imports] Proposed import cleanup: Olympic peninsula streams
On Thursday 19 May 2016, Paul Norman wrote: > - Simplifies them with JOSM, set to 2.5m threshold That's not a good idea - incidently that is *never* a good idea for a meachanical edit, especially not with an absolute threshold. I also don't see significant meaningless detail in the data so even if this was an original import i would not think this to be a wise measure. Even if you decide to do this none the less you would have to make sure not to touch nodes that have been manually moved after the original import. > - Changes source=US-NPS_import_... to source=US NPS This should be completely removed from the nodes and only retained on ways. -- Christoph Hormann http://www.imagico.de/ ___ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
Re: [Talk-us] [OSM-talk] Old Aerodromes
On Tuesday 12 April 2016, Paul Norman wrote: > > > > I am not sure here. For small airfields the aeroway=aerodrome > > feature is a fairly abstract thing essentially indicating only that > > this is a place where aircrafts start or land. This is not > > generally something that can be reliably determined from imagery. > > You can't reliably find small airfields from imagery, but I've found > it possible to verify a lack of airfields from it. I agree this can be possible based on the considerations that it would be impossible to properly land an aircraft there (i.e. identification of the lack of possibility for an airfield to exist). But it should be made clear to the mappers that with something as abstract as an airfield the lack of positive indications for the presence of a feature is not generally sufficient basis for removing data without local knowledge or identifying the original source of the data, for example a certain import, as unreliable. For example i'd consider a stretch of road in a remote area that is frequently used for landing small aircraft a valid case of aeroway=aerodrome - likewise for a dry riverbed or lakebed, all of which will usually lack any visual signs for being used for this purpose unless an aircraft happens to be there the moment you look. -- Christoph Hormann http://www.imagico.de/ ___ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
Re: [Talk-us] [OSM-talk] Old Aerodromes
On Tuesday 12 April 2016, Martijn van Exel wrote: > Hi, > > I was mapping some rural area in the U.S. and noticed, not for the > first time, an aerodrome node in the middle of a field where there is > obviously no airport or airfield. I am not sure here. For small airfields the aeroway=aerodrome feature is a fairly abstract thing essentially indicating only that this is a place where aircrafts start or land. This is not generally something that can be reliably determined from imagery. This is also a problem for map rendering - map styles use these features to place labels and icons but these features are generally too ill-defined and undifferentiated to do this properly. The real observable feature of an airfield is the perimeter fence or other form of delineation which then makes it a landuse mapping but this only works for actively maintained airfields with a clearly visible outline. Otherwise the observable feature of an airfield is the runway - mapping this is much better defined and more useful information-wise than the airfield itself. So the challenge would IMO make more sense if it would encourage mapping runways if they are visible rather than removing an aerodrome based on the fact that it is not visible on imagery. See also here for a different angle on the problems of aeroway=aerodrome as it is currently mapped: https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/issues/1143 -- Christoph Hormann http://www.imagico.de/ ___ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
Re: [Talk-us] Best practices for coastline to Inland Bay / River transition
On Thursday 07 January 2016, Elliott Plack wrote: > > What are the current accepts best practices for determining where to > "cut off" the coastline and to begin a river or bay type feature? The > wiki seems to be in disagreement about this, and I've read chatter > about switching to ocean polygons. > > Let's take the mighty Potomac River. It is tidal from the mouth to > points upstream from Washinton, DC, yet at some point it switches to > waterway areas and relations. See: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Proposed_Features/Coastline-River_transit_placement Current placement at the Potomac is completely fine - i would see room for moving it both downstream to near the bridge north of Colonial Beach or upstream to Alexandria but no particular need for either. I would strongly suggest keeping Chesapeake Bay mapped as coastline. While this is very shallow ecologically it has largely maritime characteristics. -- Christoph Hormann http://www.imagico.de/ ___ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests
On Monday 17 August 2015, Martijn van Exel wrote: I removed the landuse=forest from the national forest relations in Utah: http://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/33392465. To find further occurances you can use: http://overpass-turbo.eu/s/aZs You will also see there that many national forests are mapped as multiple separate areas each with tags and the same name - like http://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/2658152 http://www.openstreetmap.org/way/30268500 http://www.openstreetmap.org/way/30268493 It would be a good idea to consolidate those into one multipolygon relation so someone searching for a national forest for example will find the whole forest and not only the largest subarea. The map will look very white :( but at least it's not wrong anymore. It will also encourage mapping of actual forested areas as well as other vegetation and natural features. -- Christoph Hormann http://www.imagico.de/ ___ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests
On Monday 17 August 2015, Charlotte Wolter wrote: And, Christoph, the forests are divided into subunits because that's how they are administered and because many national forests are made up of physically separate subunits. They can be as much as 100 miles apart. For example, the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest has five such units. If you want information or a permit, you have to go to the local subunit. I am aware of this, however a national forest with a certain name is still one entity that is administered as such by the national forest service. So the national forest as a named feature with proper tags indicating a protected area, operator tag etc. should be one entity in OSM. There is nothing wrong with mapping the different subunits on their own, but not as a national forest (since they are only parts of a national forest). So, no, they should not be combined into one multipolygon, because, in reality, they are not a single multipolygon. So, while mapping principles are important, so are the physical, natural and administrative realities of a place. The term multipolygon might be confusing here - a multipolygon can have multiple separate areas. This is common for example for archipelagos: http://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/3705990 but also for national forests in the US: http://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/335140 When you map it as such programs can better interpret the data like Nominatim where you get just one result representing the whole forest: www.openstreetmap.org/search?query=Dixie%20National%20Forest instead of a whole bunch of features here: www.openstreetmap.org/search?query=Apache-Sitgreaves%20National%20Forest -- Christoph Hormann http://www.imagico.de/ ___ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
Re: [Talk-us] [OSM-talk] Broken coastline
On Sunday 10 May 2015, Jochen Topf wrote: For about 10 days the coastline has been broken and no updates have been going through. This is largely due to some broken mapping in North America where coastlines overlap I fixed the error in the Laguna Madre - making it a multipolygon. There is however still a lot of strange stuff with the mapping of the various lagoons and inlets along the gulf coast - the US community should have a more thorough look there and make some decisions about sensible divisions between the different waterbodies. And when you implement that be careful with the coastline please. -- Christoph Hormann http://www.imagico.de/ ___ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
