Re: [Talk-us] mapRe: (Second attempt) Potential data source: Adirondack Park Freshwater Wetlands

[Adam Franco]

Kevin, as a Vermont resident who is planning several canoe and hiking trips
to the Adirondacks (with data collection for OSM), I look forward to having
this import as context. Especially when exploring the Saint Regis canoe
wilderness, which has a few lakes in OSM, but is otherwise pretty devoid of
any sort of detail. Thanks for doing this work!

Best,
Adam

On Sat, Mar 26, 2016 at 9:58 AM, Kevin Kenny  wrote:

> On 03/26/2016 02:06 AM, Russ Nelson wrote:
>
>> Frederik Ramm writes:
>>   > I have zero knowledge about the Adirondack[s]
>>
>> I live here. Imagine a park half the size of Austria, with about 130K
>> people living in it, and 200K people visiting it. Give about 30K of
>> those people Internet access. Oh, and there are practically no nerds
>> living in the park, because there are no high-tech jobs.
>>
>> It's unlikely that anybody will do much in the Adirondacks whether
>> there's an import or not. If there's an import, at least there will be
>> something. Something is better than nothing, because at least it's
>> less wrong.
>>
>> Just do the import, Kevin.
>>
>> I do see an emerging consensus here, and Frederik (to whose opinion I
> ordinarily defer) appears to be something of an outlier. I do plan to
> go ahead with this, with appropriate warnings, wikification, and a
> quick request to the APA's GIS coordinator to confirm that we have
> permission to import (we do already, but I want to get the specific
> plan blessed).
>
> It may be some time in coming. Those who know me know that I'm pretty
> obsessive about data quality. This job is extremely likely to be a
> three-way conflation: what's already there (which, it appears, is
> mostly a 'lakes and ponds' file that you imported), the APA data set,
> and NHD. Each source has its unique properties.
>
> What's already there has all the tagging that mappers have done - and
> must not be damaged! Nevertheless, there simply is not much in OSM for
> the Adirondacks. I'm really working with a big blank spot in the map
> here!
>
> NED has the greatest detail (it was digitized at 1:24000 scale or
> finer, for the most part) and has the GNIS names of features. It also
> has feature classes that nothing else has, such as rapids, artificial
> shorelines, flumes, and so on. Its chief drawback is that there are
> objects that are unaccountably missing, in such a way that I suspect a
> database glitch happened at the USGS. For instance, the Cedar River
> Flow, a fairly sizable lake impounded by the Wakely Dam, is not in
> NHD - but the river becomes an 'artificial path' there, which is
> typically a flow line drawn through an area feature to keep the flow
> lines contiguous.
>
> The wetlands inventory lacks feature names, and is less detailed (it
> was digitized from orthophotos at 1:4 scale), but has many ponds
> and streams that NHD misses. It also has the intermittent or ephemeral
> water limits of many waterbodies. In the Adirondacks, these are
> important to a hiker. Many trails go through beaver meadows. In years
> when the beavers are in residence, the trails may be underwater, and
> the hiker must find a route around the pond. Having the high-water
> extent mapped is valuable information. The streams that it identifies,
> in the few places that I've checked, are there in the field. Alas, it
> does not have flowline topology, so conflation with NHD will need a
> little bit of patching.
>
> One bright spot is that the three data sets are well aligned (once the
> differences in datum are accounted for). A simple collision check
> identifies areal features to conflate. There may be a tiny bit of
> manual work for a few places (Indian Lake/Lewey Lake; Long Lake/Park
> Lake; Kiwassa Lake/Oseetah Lake/Lake Flower, and so on) where the
> boundaries between lakes are indefinite, in that you can take a canoe
> from one to another without noticing that you are on a 'different'
> lake.
>
> I'm still working on appropriate heuristics for conflating the linear
> features (flowlines, mostly). Again, I have the advantage that there
> is very little already in OSM to collide with - at most a few dozen
> rivers. What may turn out to be easiest is simply to lift the tags off
> the OSM features and apply them to the NHD ones.
>
> Then there's the area surrounding Duck Hole, which was permanently
> changed in Hurricanes Irene and Lee. Now that there is a few years'
> worth of orthophoto data available in all seasons, I think the best
> thing we could do there is to trace the shoreline from the orthophotos
> and add notes that our data reflect the shoreline and river channel
> from after the failure of the dam.
>
> Whatever I do, I plan to leave the features in OSM tagged with enough
> information to identify data provenance. This would mean, at the very
> least, NHD reachcode and permanent ID, APA object ID, and NWI label,
> where these are known, together, of course, with whatever tagging is
> present on the features that are already there.
>
> 

Re: [Talk-us] mapRe: (Second attempt) Potential data source: Adirondack Park Freshwater Wetlands

[Kevin Kenny]

On 03/26/2016 02:06 AM, Russ Nelson wrote:

Frederik Ramm writes:
  > I have zero knowledge about the Adirondack[s]

I live here. Imagine a park half the size of Austria, with about 130K
people living in it, and 200K people visiting it. Give about 30K of
those people Internet access. Oh, and there are practically no nerds
living in the park, because there are no high-tech jobs.

It's unlikely that anybody will do much in the Adirondacks whether
there's an import or not. If there's an import, at least there will be
something. Something is better than nothing, because at least it's
less wrong.

Just do the import, Kevin.


I do see an emerging consensus here, and Frederik (to whose opinion I
ordinarily defer) appears to be something of an outlier. I do plan to
go ahead with this, with appropriate warnings, wikification, and a
quick request to the APA's GIS coordinator to confirm that we have
permission to import (we do already, but I want to get the specific
plan blessed).

It may be some time in coming. Those who know me know that I'm pretty
obsessive about data quality. This job is extremely likely to be a
three-way conflation: what's already there (which, it appears, is
mostly a 'lakes and ponds' file that you imported), the APA data set,
and NHD. Each source has its unique properties.

What's already there has all the tagging that mappers have done - and
must not be damaged! Nevertheless, there simply is not much in OSM for
the Adirondacks. I'm really working with a big blank spot in the map
here!

NED has the greatest detail (it was digitized at 1:24000 scale or
finer, for the most part) and has the GNIS names of features. It also
has feature classes that nothing else has, such as rapids, artificial
shorelines, flumes, and so on. Its chief drawback is that there are
objects that are unaccountably missing, in such a way that I suspect a
database glitch happened at the USGS. For instance, the Cedar River
Flow, a fairly sizable lake impounded by the Wakely Dam, is not in
NHD - but the river becomes an 'artificial path' there, which is
typically a flow line drawn through an area feature to keep the flow
lines contiguous.

The wetlands inventory lacks feature names, and is less detailed (it
was digitized from orthophotos at 1:4 scale), but has many ponds
and streams that NHD misses. It also has the intermittent or ephemeral
water limits of many waterbodies. In the Adirondacks, these are
important to a hiker. Many trails go through beaver meadows. In years
when the beavers are in residence, the trails may be underwater, and
the hiker must find a route around the pond. Having the high-water
extent mapped is valuable information. The streams that it identifies,
in the few places that I've checked, are there in the field. Alas, it
does not have flowline topology, so conflation with NHD will need a
little bit of patching.

One bright spot is that the three data sets are well aligned (once the
differences in datum are accounted for). A simple collision check
identifies areal features to conflate. There may be a tiny bit of
manual work for a few places (Indian Lake/Lewey Lake; Long Lake/Park
Lake; Kiwassa Lake/Oseetah Lake/Lake Flower, and so on) where the
boundaries between lakes are indefinite, in that you can take a canoe
from one to another without noticing that you are on a 'different'
lake.

I'm still working on appropriate heuristics for conflating the linear
features (flowlines, mostly). Again, I have the advantage that there
is very little already in OSM to collide with - at most a few dozen
rivers. What may turn out to be easiest is simply to lift the tags off
the OSM features and apply them to the NHD ones.

Then there's the area surrounding Duck Hole, which was permanently
changed in Hurricanes Irene and Lee. Now that there is a few years'
worth of orthophoto data available in all seasons, I think the best
thing we could do there is to trace the shoreline from the orthophotos
and add notes that our data reflect the shoreline and river channel
from after the failure of the dam.

Whatever I do, I plan to leave the features in OSM tagged with enough
information to identify data provenance. This would mean, at the very
least, NHD reachcode and permanent ID, APA object ID, and NWI label,
where these are known, together, of course, with whatever tagging is
present on the features that are already there.

It would be good to point out that even the 'authoritative' data for
this part of the country is far from the standard that is usually
expected in the developed world. There are even a fair number of
county lines in the Adirondacks that have never been surveyed on the
ground and are marked as 'INDEFINITE BDY.' on the topo maps.

--
73 de ke9tv/2, Kevin


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Re: [Talk-us] mapRe: (Second attempt) Potential data source: Adirondack Park Freshwater Wetlands

[Russ Nelson]

Frederik Ramm writes:
 > I have zero knowledge about the Adirondack[s]

I live here. Imagine a park half the size of Austria, with about 130K
people living in it, and 200K people visiting it. Give about 30K of
those people Internet access. Oh, and there are practically no nerds
living in the park, because there are no high-tech jobs.

It's unlikely that anybody will do much in the Adirondacks whether
there's an import or not. If there's an import, at least there will be
something. Something is better than nothing, because at least it's
less wrong.

Just do the import, Kevin.

-- 
--my blog is athttp://blog.russnelson.com
Crynwr supports open source software
521 Pleasant Valley Rd. | +1 315-600-8815
Potsdam, NY 13676-3213  | Sheepdog   

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Re: [Talk-us] mapRe: (Second attempt) Potential data source: Adirondack Park Freshwater Wetlands

[Kevin Kenny]

On 03/16/2016 06:50 PM, Mike Thompson wrote:



On Wed, Mar 16, 2016 at 4:12 PM, Andy Townsend > wrote:



Another question - if not OSM, what maps do hikers in the area use
now?  Something from the US Forest Service, or something else? 


Answering the question for the US in general:
1) National Geographic Trails Illustrated [1] - Not as detailed as I 
would like, but shows the official trails and is good enough for most 
folks.
2) USGS 7.5 minute topo quad maps (the old ones). Some of the trails 
have changed since these were published, but if you are interested in 
topography for off trail navigation, these are still a great resource.
3) National Parks hand out rather general maps, and for a lot of folks 
this is all they need.
4) There are also a number of websites that show trails that have been 
GPS'ed overlaid on a commercial (unfortunately) map source. e.g. [2]


Mike already gave a very good answer. Since I'm a hiker in the area, 
I'll confirm that Trails Illustrated maps are what I carried on my 
Northville-Lake Placid trip. I didn't like it very much - the 1:75 000 
scale at which it's printed is just too rough. I also had the relevant 
USGS 7.5-minute topo quads and the relevant portions of my OSM-derived 
map on my smartphone. The old topos are no longer available as 
inexpensive paper copies, alas.


When I hike in New York south of the Mohawk, I carry the much 
higher-quality trail maps produced by the New York-New Jersey Trail 
Conference. http://nynjtc.org/files/JohnBoydThacherTrailMap_2008.pdf is 
a representative example (one of a handful that are free of charge).


--
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Re: [Talk-us] mapRe: (Second attempt) Potential data source: Adirondack Park Freshwater Wetlands

[Mike Thompson]

On Wed, Mar 16, 2016 at 4:12 PM, Andy Townsend  wrote:

>
> Another question - if not OSM, what maps do hikers in the area use now?
> Something from the US Forest Service, or something else?

Answering the question for the US in general:
1) National Geographic Trails Illustrated [1] - Not as detailed as I would
like, but shows the official trails and is good enough for most folks.
2) USGS 7.5 minute topo quad maps (the old ones). Some of the trails have
changed since these were published, but if you are interested in topography
for off trail navigation, these are still a great resource.
3) National Parks hand out rather general maps, and for a lot of folks this
is all they need.
4) There are also a number of websites that show trails that have been
GPS'ed overlaid on a commercial (unfortunately) map source. e.g. [2]


[1]
http://shop.nationalgeographic.com/ngs/category/maps/travel-and-hiking-maps/trails-illustrated-hiking-and-recreation-maps
[2] http://www.hikingproject.com/
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Re: [Talk-us] mapRe: (Second attempt) Potential data source: Adirondack Park Freshwater Wetlands

[Kevin Kenny]

On 03/15/2016 12:28 PM, Frederik Ramm wrote:

I have zero knowledge about the Adirondack; I just echoed your own
words: You said that there are "difficulties inherent in getting changes
made by local mappers working independently", and I said if that's the
case then the import is not likely to be useful for a long time as it
will just "echo" third party data.

Brian May in his encouraging message talks about laying "the groundwork
for others to build on" and says "You will also no doubt spark interest
from more active contributors who will notice that there's major quality
improvements in your area and pitch in to help - potentially a lot."

There is a bit of miscommunication here, because you and Brian
are both right.

I don't really foresee that a great amount of change will happen
to the hydrography. As I said, it's pretty stable, with the exception
of where the beavers have chosen to build this year. Even that
is repeatable. There are areas in the wetland inventory that are
marked as sporadically inundated, and our friend Castor canadensis
is responsible for much of that inundation.

Nevertheless, I do see this import as being a potential catalyst for
getting other types of data mapped in the field. The alignments of
hiking trails, the locations of trail shelters, abandoned fire towers,
archaeologic sites, and the like are going to come only from citizen
mappers like myself. With the paucity of data in the area, several
hikers that I've tried to recruit to the project have seen it as a
hopeless task. With a background of the natural features, laying in
trail alignments and lean-to locations is a much more manageable
task, and people can see where it would lead to a usable map.
Arguably, we could do the same thing if we had a displayed map that
augmented OSM with the public data sets that we choose not to
import, but there doesn't seem to be a great amount of interest
in that sort of project, either!

So, it's not about importing the hydrography to get mappers working
on the hydrography. It's about importing the hydrography to encourage
mappers to work on the things that the government does not and
is not likely to map. The USGS no longer does so. New York State
has a database of roads and trails in the park, but it is of questionable
quality. The Adirondack Mountain Club, which maintains the Northville-
Placid Trail (at 222.7 km, the longest single trail in the park),
its official distance table for the trail 
(http://www.nptrail.org/?page_id=59)

largely from OSM and my field notes, and most of the trail is in OSM
only because I put it there. (Incidentally, let me observe that a 200+
kilometre walk, some of it as much as 30 km from the nearest road
you can drive on, makes for an interesting mapping expedition!)

While Brian seems to disagree with my "one strong negative comment", he
also seems to disagree with your very own judgement that it is very
unlikely that the data is going to be edited and improved; he seems to
believe that the import can be a viable foundation for original
surveying by volunteers in the Adirondack. I don't know if that's just
wishful thinking or if he has first-hand experience of the area that
goes against yours.

I'd say that his experience agrees with mine. A hiker sees the map at
openstreetmap.org as it stands, and says, "Why should I bother? There's
nothing there!" I've found that my own map - a typical view is
http://kbk.is-a-geek.net/catskills/test3.html?la=43.2196=-74.2107=14
is a much better recruiting tool, because people can see what's
already available and what needs to be added. I can say to a friend,
"Oh, you're going to Cathead Mountain? Would you mind getting a GPS
waypoint for the fire tower and a track for the trail up to it, and push 
them

to OSM? You don't even need to add them to the map, if you don't want
to, just send me a link to where you uploaded the track and I'll do the
rest!" (And hopefully Rob will actually do that trip at some point...)

--
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Re: [Talk-us] mapRe: (Second attempt) Potential data source: Adirondack Park Freshwater Wetlands

[Tod Fitch]

> On Mar 16, 2016, at 3:12 PM, Andy Townsend  wrote:
> 
> . . . Another question - if not OSM, what maps do hikers in the area use now? 
>  Something from the US Forest Service, or something else?  The reason I ask 
> is that in GB the generally excellent "Ordnance Survey" mapping has been used 
> by hikers' clubs as a reason not to need OSM. My limited experience with US 
> outdoor maps suggests that they're not generally of the same quality.
> 
Don’t know about the eastern mountains, but in the western U.S. the old USGS 
7.5 minute (and decades ago the 15 minute) series of maps were the gold 
standard for anyone venturing out hiking or backpacking. For the search and 
rescue work I do, they are often still the base for any maps handed out to team 
members.

smime.p7s
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Re: [Talk-us] mapRe: (Second attempt) Potential data source: Adirondack Park Freshwater Wetlands

[Kevin Kenny]

On 03/16/2016 06:12 PM, Andy Townsend wrote:
What I am a bit surprised about is that in the Adirondacks there's 
relatively little track data in OSM.  Sure, New York State is big, but 
it's not _that_ big.  It's roughly twice the size of Scotland and 
(excluding New York City) about twice the population.  Parts of the 
Adirondacks are about as far from major centres of population as parts 
of the Cairngorms in Scotland are, and the Cairngorms seem to have 
many more hiking trails mapped*.
Some areas of the Adirondacks, like Eastern High Peaks, are starting to 
have decent coverage (there are still trails missing, but there's 
enough, say, to complete a traverse of the Great Range or a trip over 
Cascade and Porter). With the default renderer, you have to zoom in 
pretty tight to see them. 
http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=15/44.1196/-73.8963=N is an 
example.


There are some other parts of the park that really are trackless 
wilderness; there are no tracks shown because there are none in the 
field! The Oswegatchie River, for instance, is best explored with a 
canoe. There are a fair number of marked campsites, but no trails other 
than portage routes. Even about half of the 46'ers (a list of high peaks 
- similar to the Munros) have no established trails. The would-be 
climber must find his own way among the dense vegetation, sucking mud 
and rock slides.
One thing to be said in favour of a wetlands import is that these are 
features that by definition it's difficult to map the entirety of from 
the ground (it's a problem I'm familar with as it's the same reason 
I'm only able to map the western part of the Derbyshire Peak District 
in late summer when it's been dry enough for long enough). However a 
worry is that because there's so little surveying done here no-one's 
going to be able to sense-check the data so there's a worry that it'll 
just "sit there" without any future modification. When I've done 
stream and river mapping in e.g. South Wales I've always found it 
useful to compare all of survey, government open data and imagery to 
see what things should be mapped as, where imagery (or GPS data) is 
offset and where government open data is inaccurate.  Do you have any 
way of sense-testing any of the data to be imported?  Maybe it might 
be useful to create e.g. a umap overlay of some of it that's 
immediately usable and you can start collecting feedback from hikers 
about what they'd categorise the features you're suggesting be imported.
Indeed. The APA wetlands inventory also includes all the open-water 
features (lakes, rivers, streams), which also appear in the existing 
"lakes and ponds" import, in the National Hydrographic Dataset, and, of 
course, in imagery. There are therefore at least three or fojr sources 
for cross-checking the more significant features. In the map that I keep 
referring to, I have all three overlaid, which is why you see multiple 
tracings of the shoreline on some of the lakes, as in 
http://kbk.is-a-geek.net/catskills/test3.html?la=43.2196=-74.2107=14. 
There are a few areas that look quite the mess - 
http://kbk.is-a-geek.net/catskills/test3.html?la=43.5688=-74.5912=15 comes 
to mind, but... with that particular one, I've been to that bog. Even in 
the field, it's hard to tell water from land. An unwary step on 
apparently dry ground might plunge you into knee-deep quicksand. The 
disagreement of the data sources there doesn't worry me in the least.


In fact, I think the best approach might be to confine the initial 
import to the open water features (appropriately conflated with what is 
already in OSM), with the other wetland features being added later. 
Doing the open water in small sections and conflating as we go would 
give us confidence in the alignment.


I can say that in several hundred km of walking on- and off-trail in the 
Adirondacks, I've quite reliably gotten my boots muddy right where the 
data set says to expect such a thing. I also, on examining the data, do 
not see contour lines drawn from NED crossing into open water. It's 
pretty well aligned with reality.


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Re: [Talk-us] mapRe: (Second attempt) Potential data source: Adirondack Park Freshwater Wetlands

[Martijn van Exel]

Archaeologists leave most of what they find in the ground, because better 
excavation / extraction methods may be available in the future that may allow 
them to preserve the artifacts better. 

Should we be more like archaeologists? Perhaps. We may have known that TIGER 
2010 was on its way. That would have given us much better data to start out 
with. But we also would not have had many of the interesting discussions around 
the TIGER data that we have now. We may not have had as many mappers as we have 
now. 

If you ask me, we just have to be as thoughtful and thorough as possible in the 
moment. If an opportunity arises to enhance OSM with outside data, there is 
also an opportunity for other things to evolve with that. Involve the data 
owner, they may be excited to contribute and use OSM. There is an opportunity 
to (re)connect with local mappers. To (re)kindle a discussion around tagging. 

If any of these opportunities are not explored or taken, I think an essential 
aspect of ‘importing data’ is missed. Thinking about it, ‘import’ is perhaps a 
misnomer. Why don’t we call it ‘OSM enhancement projects’. That would make it 
sound less technical, less focused on the technical process and more on the 
comprehensive process that involves both data and people.

Martijn

> On Mar 15, 2016, at 3:00 PM, Nathan Mills  wrote:
> 
> Personally, I think using TIGER as an example of an import gone wrong is not 
> accurate. Knowing what we know now, things certainly could have been done 
> better. If nothing else, waiting for TIGER 2010 would have been prudent, as 
> the accuracy was much improved. But that wasn't something that was knowable 
> at the time, so it makes no sense to second guess based on that.
> 
> That said, without TIGER, OSM would have been useless (and still would be!) 
> in large swaths of the US. Thanks to the import, routing clear across the US 
> was possible many years before it otherwise would have been. I was able to do 
> a lot more work in Tulsa than would have been possible from GPS traces alone 
> thanks to the import. As a newbie at the time, correcting geometry was much 
> more doable than mapping completely from scratch.
> 
> If you want an example of a bad import, GNIS is a much better example, IMO. 
> The data was largely 30 years out of date at the time of the import. I still 
> find myself outright deleting many of those nodes when I come across them. 
> (On the rare occasion I have the time and motivation to map these days, 
> anyway)
> 
> By no means is this to say that any data set one comes across is appropriate 
> for OSM or that many of the controls or improved processes put in place in 
> the last several years are in any way a bad thing. However, I feel like some 
> people want to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
> 
> -Nathan
> 
> On March 14, 2016 11:57:19 PM EDT, Tod Fitch  > wrote:
>> Ditto to Mike’s comments.
>> 
>> I’ve been dealing with the clean up of bad imports, usually TIGER but
>> others too, where ever I map so I think I understand where people like
>> Frederick are coming from.
>> 
>> But I also see the reality in the U.S. of huge geographical areas with
>> very few OSM mappers. An all volunteer map will always be years behind
>> other offerings here unless we allow and even encourage carefully
>> importing high quality data.
>> 
>> The U.S. might be unique in that there are vast quantities of excellent
>> geographical data that are public domain. Unfortunately there is also a
>> vast quantity of public domain map data of, shall we say, lesser
>> quality. Had the original U.S. highway import data come from the USGS
>> rather than the census bureau, people probably would have a very
>> different opinion about imports.
>> 
>> At least the experience with bad imports has shown there can be issues.
>> And there is now a lot better understanding of how the data and import
>> procedures need to be vetted. So we are in a better place to do imports
>> and we should not shy away from importing high quality data when the
>> stars line up (good data, appropriate copyright, competent OSM mappers
>> available, documented and tested work flows, etc.).
>> 
>> Tod
>> 
>>> On Mar 14, 2016, at 8:36 PM, Mike Thompson 
>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> I support the careful import of high quality data whose license is
>> compatible with OSM. Those appears to be one of those cases. I believe
>> the existence of high quality data will aid in the recruitment of new
>> mappers and will encourage high quality contributions from those
>> mappers. It is much easier, and less daunting,  to add additional
>> detail from an on-the-ground  survey to some high quality data than it
>> is to start from scratch. People also like to be associated with
>> successful projects, and the more high quality data we have the more
>> successful we will be in the eyes of potential new mappers.
>>> 
>>> Mike
>>> 
>>> 

Re: [Talk-us] mapRe: (Second attempt) Potential data source: Adirondack Park Freshwater Wetlands

[Andy Townsend]

On 15/03/2016 19:00, Nathan Mills wrote:

That said, without TIGER, OSM would have been useless (and still would be!) in 
large swaths of the US.


(stating the bleeding obvious) there are divided opinions on this - when 
exactly this topic has come up previously people have said both "I only 
felt able to start because there was something already there" and "I was 
only able to start because there was nothing there - the map was blank 
so I couldn't affect anyone else's work".


Obviously with the imports that have happened we are where we are (as 
Edward O Wilson said in a very different context we have "one planet, 
one experiment").  Some communities (Germany, GB to an extent) are 
mostly import-free and seem happy about it, some (Japan, The 
Netherlands) have lots of imported data and seem happy with that too.


What I am a bit surprised about is that in the Adirondacks there's 
relatively little track data in OSM.  Sure, New York State is big, but 
it's not _that_ big.  It's roughly twice the size of Scotland and 
(excluding New York City) about twice the population.  Parts of the 
Adirondacks are about as far from major centres of population as parts 
of the Cairngorms in Scotland are, and the Cairngorms seem to have many 
more hiking trails mapped*.


One thing to be said in favour of a wetlands import is that these are 
features that by definition it's difficult to map the entirety of from 
the ground (it's a problem I'm familar with as it's the same reason I'm 
only able to map the western part of the Derbyshire Peak District in 
late summer when it's been dry enough for long enough). However a worry 
is that because there's so little surveying done here no-one's going to 
be able to sense-check the data so there's a worry that it'll just "sit 
there" without any future modification. When I've done stream and river 
mapping in e.g. South Wales I've always found it useful to compare all 
of survey, government open data and imagery to see what things should be 
mapped as, where imagery (or GPS data) is offset and where government 
open data is inaccurate.  Do you have any way of sense-testing any of 
the data to be imported?  Maybe it might be useful to create e.g. a umap 
overlay of some of it that's immediately usable and you can start 
collecting feedback from hikers about what they'd categorise the 
features you're suggesting be imported.


Another question - if not OSM, what maps do hikers in the area use now?  
Something from the US Forest Service, or something else?  The reason I 
ask is that in GB the generally excellent "Ordnance Survey" mapping has 
been used by hikers' clubs as a reason not to need OSM. My limited 
experience with US outdoor maps suggests that they're not generally of 
the same quality.


Best Regards,

Andy (SomeoneElse)

* though fewer and with less detail than similar "destination" areas 
that are much closer to major centres of population.



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Re: [Talk-us] mapRe: (Second attempt) Potential data source: Adirondack Park Freshwater Wetlands

[Nathan Mills]

Personally, I think using TIGER as an example of an import gone wrong is not 
accurate. Knowing what we know now, things certainly could have been done 
better. If nothing else, waiting for TIGER 2010 would have been prudent, as the 
accuracy was much improved. But that wasn't something that was knowable at the 
time, so it makes no sense to second guess based on that.

That said, without TIGER, OSM would have been useless (and still would be!) in 
large swaths of the US. Thanks to the import, routing clear across the US was 
possible many years before it otherwise would have been. I was able to do a lot 
more work in Tulsa than would have been possible from GPS traces alone thanks 
to the import. As a newbie at the time, correcting geometry was much more 
doable than mapping completely from scratch.

If you want an example of a bad import, GNIS is a much better example, IMO. The 
data was largely 30 years out of date at the time of the import. I still find 
myself outright deleting many of those nodes when I come across them. (On the 
rare occasion I have the time and motivation to map these days, anyway)

By no means is this to say that any data set one comes across is appropriate 
for OSM or that many of the controls or improved processes put in place in the 
last several years are in any way a bad thing. However, I feel like some people 
want to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

-Nathan

On March 14, 2016 11:57:19 PM EDT, Tod Fitch  wrote:
>Ditto to Mike’s comments.
>
>I’ve been dealing with the clean up of bad imports, usually TIGER but
>others too, where ever I map so I think I understand where people like
>Frederick are coming from.
>
>But I also see the reality in the U.S. of huge geographical areas with
>very few OSM mappers. An all volunteer map will always be years behind
>other offerings here unless we allow and even encourage carefully
>importing high quality data.
>
>The U.S. might be unique in that there are vast quantities of excellent
>geographical data that are public domain. Unfortunately there is also a
>vast quantity of public domain map data of, shall we say, lesser
>quality. Had the original U.S. highway import data come from the USGS
>rather than the census bureau, people probably would have a very
>different opinion about imports.
>
>At least the experience with bad imports has shown there can be issues.
>And there is now a lot better understanding of how the data and import
>procedures need to be vetted. So we are in a better place to do imports
>and we should not shy away from importing high quality data when the
>stars line up (good data, appropriate copyright, competent OSM mappers
>available, documented and tested work flows, etc.).
>
>Tod
>
>> On Mar 14, 2016, at 8:36 PM, Mike Thompson 
>wrote:
>> 
>> I support the careful import of high quality data whose license is
>compatible with OSM. Those appears to be one of those cases. I believe
>the existence of high quality data will aid in the recruitment of new
>mappers and will encourage high quality contributions from those
>mappers. It is much easier, and less daunting,  to add  additional
>detail from an on-the-ground  survey to some high quality data than it
>is to start from scratch. People also like to be associated with
>successful projects, and the more high quality data we have the more
>successful we will be in the eyes of potential new mappers.
>> 
>> Mike
>> 
>> 
>> On Mon, Mar 14, 2016 at 8:46 PM, Kevin Kenny > wrote:
>> Since I received only a total of three comments about this idea, one
>strongly negative (from Frederik Ramm) and two only lukewarm in
>support, I'm forced to conclude that this proposal has no chance of
>gaining a broad community support. Consider it withdrawn.
>> 
>> I find myself somewhat frustrated about the question of how to
>recruit mappers when it appears that the map has such a paucity of data
>that it will never become useful solely through the effort of volunteer
>mappers. I can demonstrate the map at
>http://kbk.is-a-geek.net/catskills/test3.html
>, and state that OSM is
>one of many data sources that go into it, but when people go to
>openstreetmap.org  and look at it, my
>experience is that they lose the connection entirely between the data
>that OSM has and the map that OSM enables. The huge blank area is too
>intimidating for my friends, it appears!
>> 
>> The fact that we apparently cannot use data that are not our own in
>presenting our public face, together with the fact that we do not wish
>to import data for which OSM will not become the authoritative source,
>leaves us with an impoverished public appearance outside the cities
>where streets are sparse. Perhaps this is outside OSM's ambit. It is,
>after all, Open STREET Map. It seems to leave, however, very limited
>pathways for citizen mappers to build on 

Re: [Talk-us] mapRe: (Second attempt) Potential data source: Adirondack Park Freshwater Wetlands

[Frederik Ramm]

Kevin,

On 03/15/2016 03:46 AM, Kevin Kenny wrote:
> Since I received only a total of three comments about this idea, one 
> strongly negative (from Frederik Ramm)

My comment was intended to open your eyes to the fact that there's more
to a good import than simply putting precise data into OSM and getting
the tags right.

Frankly I felt that you had already laid out the negative bits in your
original message and you didn't need me to write a negative comments,
you just needed me to draw the logical conclusion from what you yourself
wrote ;)

I have zero knowledge about the Adirondack; I just echoed your own
words: You said that there are "difficulties inherent in getting changes
made by local mappers working independently", and I said if that's the
case then the import is not likely to be useful for a long time as it
will just "echo" third party data.

Brian May in his encouraging message talks about laying "the groundwork
for others to build on" and says "You will also no doubt spark interest
from more active contributors who will notice that there's major quality
improvements in your area and pitch in to help - potentially a lot."

While Brian seems to disagree with my "one strong negative comment", he
also seems to disagree with your very own judgement that it is very
unlikely that the data is going to be edited and improved; he seems to
believe that the import can be a viable foundation for original
surveying by volunteers in the Adirondack. I don't know if that's just
wishful thinking or if he has first-hand experience of the area that
goes against yours.

Like me, Brian sees an import not as a replacement for mapper activity
("nobody's going to go there anyway so let's take someone else's data")
but as a foundation ("let's import this data so others can build upon it").

I can't judge how likely it is that others will build upon it but I'd
say that if, five years down the line, nobody has built upon it while
official data has been improved time and again, then it's probably a
waste of time. We would only know with hindsight. (For the TIGER import,
which covers ground much more accessible than the Adirondack, the "five
years down the line and nobody has done anything while official data has
improved" is, sadly, true in many areas.)

If it is any consolation, I have rarely seen a so well reflected and
carefully laid out import proposal as yours. But as I said, I believe
that your proposal essentially answered the question "should this import
go ahead" all by itself.

Bye
Frederik

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

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Re: [Talk-us] mapRe: (Second attempt) Potential data source: Adirondack Park Freshwater Wetlands

[Martijn van Exel]

I don’t see why your idea should not receive some more consideration. Don’t 
give up so easily - people may just have missed the message or not had the time 
to read your proposal when you initially posted it. 

Why don’t you create a wiki page with what you have using the import guidelines 
as a template? Other next steps might be ensuring the compatibility of the 
license of the data you are considering and identifying any other mappers in 
the target area and asking them what they think. 

Martijn

> On Mar 14, 2016, at 10:46 PM, Kevin Kenny  wrote:
> 
> Since I received only a total of three comments about this idea, one strongly 
> negative (from Frederik Ramm) and two only lukewarm in support, I'm forced to 
> conclude that this proposal has no chance of gaining a broad community 
> support. Consider it withdrawn.
> 
> I find myself somewhat frustrated about the question of how to recruit 
> mappers when it appears that the map has such a paucity of data that it will 
> never become useful solely through the effort of volunteer mappers. I can 
> demonstrate the map at http://kbk.is-a-geek.net/catskills/test3.html, and 
> state that OSM is one of many data sources that go into it, but when people 
> go to openstreetmap.org and look at it, my experience is that they lose the 
> connection entirely between the data that OSM has and the map that OSM 
> enables. The huge blank area is too intimidating for my friends, it appears!
> 
> The fact that we apparently cannot use data that are not our own in 
> presenting our public face, together with the fact that we do not wish to 
> import data for which OSM will not become the authoritative source, leaves us 
> with an impoverished public appearance outside the cities where streets are 
> sparse. Perhaps this is outside OSM's ambit. It is, after all, Open STREET 
> Map. It seems to leave, however, very limited pathways for citizen mappers to 
> build on what the government has done. Few mappers can manage to produce such 
> a map under their own steam, and I certainly don't have the bandwidth - 
> either personal or network - to support that map as a public resource out of 
> a solo project.
> 
> I'm really at a loss where to go from here.
> 
> Kevin Kenny
> 
> On 02/28/2016 11:42 PM, Kevin Kenny wrote:
>> Oops: Just realized I originally sent this reply privately: meant to send to 
>> the list.
>> 
>> On 02/27/2016 05:18 PM, Frederik Ramm wrote:
>>> An import is great if it enables a community to go further, or forms the
>>> basis of solid work in the future. An import is great if it is one
>>> ingredient that makes OSM the best map of the region. But it sounds to
>>> me as if your proposed import is hardly more than a small time saver for
>>> people who want to make maps of the Adirondack - they *could* go to the
>>> original source at any time, and the likelihood of OSM hydrography being
>>> *better* than the official data is very low.
>>> 
>>> In my view, a good import is a catalyst for future OSM data improvement.
>>> But you seem to say quite clearly that such is unlikely to happen with
>>> the data you are planning to import. Your main point is that it'll look
>>> better on the map, which for me isn't good enough.
>>> 
>>> Can you point to areas where your import would encourage mappers,
>>> including yourself, to add more knowledge and surveyed data to OSM?
>> My personal interest is mostly from the standpoint of improving OSM as a 
>> resource for hikers - and recruiting citizen mappers to the task. Available 
>> databases of hiking trail alignments are pretty poor. The USGS maps, once 
>> stellar, have not been updated since the first Bush administration, and 
>> keeping them up to date is no longer in the USGS's charter. They have 
>> neither the mission nor the funding to map hiking trails, shelters, 
>> campsites, privies, viewpoints, and similar amenities. Mapping them falls on 
>> the shoulders of private companies such as National Geographic, and they are 
>> happy to sell us maps - even ones in electronic format if we are extremely 
>> fortunate - of obsolete data of the most popular areas. The less popular 
>> areas are entirely neglected. If trail data are to be collected, it will 
>> have to be citizen mappers that do it, and OSM is an obvious repository for 
>> it. And none of that data is what I propose to import.
>> 
>> Why, then, should I import what I don't plan to improve substantially? When 
>> I've tried to recruit my contacts in the hiking community to mapping for 
>> OSM, when they see the state of the tiles at openstreetmap.org, they are put 
>> off immediately. "Why should I bother?" they say, "there's nothing there!" 
>> Particularly before the import of lakes and ponds was done - an import to 
>> which your argument equally applies - this entire area simply appeared 
>> entirely featureless, with no hope of using OSM to produce a map that could 
>> be helpful for anyone.
>> 
>> When, on the other hand, 

Re: [Talk-us] mapRe: (Second attempt) Potential data source: Adirondack Park Freshwater Wetlands

[Tod Fitch]

Ditto to Mike’s comments.

I’ve been dealing with the clean up of bad imports, usually TIGER but others 
too, where ever I map so I think I understand where people like Frederick are 
coming from.

But I also see the reality in the U.S. of huge geographical areas with very few 
OSM mappers. An all volunteer map will always be years behind other offerings 
here unless we allow and even encourage carefully importing high quality data.

The U.S. might be unique in that there are vast quantities of excellent 
geographical data that are public domain. Unfortunately there is also a vast 
quantity of public domain map data of, shall we say, lesser quality. Had the 
original U.S. highway import data come from the USGS rather than the census 
bureau, people probably would have a very different opinion about imports.

At least the experience with bad imports has shown there can be issues. And 
there is now a lot better understanding of how the data and import procedures 
need to be vetted. So we are in a better place to do imports and we should not 
shy away from importing high quality data when the stars line up (good data, 
appropriate copyright, competent OSM mappers available, documented and tested 
work flows, etc.).

Tod

> On Mar 14, 2016, at 8:36 PM, Mike Thompson  wrote:
> 
> I support the careful import of high quality data whose license is compatible 
> with OSM. Those appears to be one of those cases. I believe the existence of 
> high quality data will aid in the recruitment of new mappers and will 
> encourage high quality contributions from those mappers. It is much easier, 
> and less daunting,  to add  additional detail from an on-the-ground  survey 
> to some high quality data than it is to start from scratch. People also like 
> to be associated with successful projects, and the more high quality data we 
> have the more successful we will be in the eyes of potential new mappers.
> 
> Mike
> 
> 
> On Mon, Mar 14, 2016 at 8:46 PM, Kevin Kenny  > wrote:
> Since I received only a total of three comments about this idea, one strongly 
> negative (from Frederik Ramm) and two only lukewarm in support, I'm forced to 
> conclude that this proposal has no chance of gaining a broad community 
> support. Consider it withdrawn.
> 
> I find myself somewhat frustrated about the question of how to recruit 
> mappers when it appears that the map has such a paucity of data that it will 
> never become useful solely through the effort of volunteer mappers. I can 
> demonstrate the map at http://kbk.is-a-geek.net/catskills/test3.html 
> , and state that OSM is one of 
> many data sources that go into it, but when people go to openstreetmap.org 
>  and look at it, my experience is that they lose 
> the connection entirely between the data that OSM has and the map that OSM 
> enables. The huge blank area is too intimidating for my friends, it appears!
> 
> The fact that we apparently cannot use data that are not our own in 
> presenting our public face, together with the fact that we do not wish to 
> import data for which OSM will not become the authoritative source, leaves us 
> with an impoverished public appearance outside the cities where streets are 
> sparse. Perhaps this is outside OSM's ambit. It is, after all, Open STREET 
> Map. It seems to leave, however, very limited pathways for citizen mappers to 
> build on what the government has done. Few mappers can manage to produce such 
> a map under their own steam, and I certainly don't have the bandwidth - 
> either personal or network - to support that map as a public resource out of 
> a solo project.
> 
> I'm really at a loss where to go from here.
> 
> Kevin Kenny
> 
> On 02/28/2016 11:42 PM, Kevin Kenny wrote:
> Oops: Just realized I originally sent this reply privately: meant to send to 
> the list.
> 
> On 02/27/2016 05:18 PM, Frederik Ramm wrote:
> An import is great if it enables a community to go further, or forms the
> basis of solid work in the future. An import is great if it is one
> ingredient that makes OSM the best map of the region. But it sounds to
> me as if your proposed import is hardly more than a small time saver for
> people who want to make maps of the Adirondack - they *could* go to the
> original source at any time, and the likelihood of OSM hydrography being
> *better* than the official data is very low.
> 
> In my view, a good import is a catalyst for future OSM data improvement.
> But you seem to say quite clearly that such is unlikely to happen with
> the data you are planning to import. Your main point is that it'll look
> better on the map, which for me isn't good enough.
> 
> Can you point to areas where your import would encourage mappers,
> including yourself, to add more knowledge and surveyed data to OSM?
> My personal interest is mostly from the standpoint of improving OSM 

Re: [Talk-us] mapRe: (Second attempt) Potential data source: Adirondack Park Freshwater Wetlands

[Mike Thompson]

I support the careful import of high quality data whose license is
compatible with OSM. Those appears to be one of those cases. I believe the
existence of high quality data will aid in the recruitment of new mappers
and will encourage high quality contributions from those mappers. It is
much easier, and less daunting,  to add  additional detail from an
on-the-ground  survey to some high quality data than it is to start from
scratch. People also like to be associated with successful projects, and
the more high quality data we have the more successful we will be in the
eyes of potential new mappers.

Mike


On Mon, Mar 14, 2016 at 8:46 PM, Kevin Kenny  wrote:

> Since I received only a total of three comments about this idea, one
> strongly negative (from Frederik Ramm) and two only lukewarm in support,
> I'm forced to conclude that this proposal has no chance of gaining a broad
> community support. Consider it withdrawn.
>
> I find myself somewhat frustrated about the question of how to recruit
> mappers when it appears that the map has such a paucity of data that it
> will never become useful solely through the effort of volunteer mappers. I
> can demonstrate the map at http://kbk.is-a-geek.net/catskills/test3.html,
> and state that OSM is one of many data sources that go into it, but when
> people go to openstreetmap.org and look at it, my experience is that they
> lose the connection entirely between the data that OSM has and the map that
> OSM enables. The huge blank area is too intimidating for my friends, it
> appears!
>
> The fact that we apparently cannot use data that are not our own in
> presenting our public face, together with the fact that we do not wish to
> import data for which OSM will not become the authoritative source, leaves
> us with an impoverished public appearance outside the cities where streets
> are sparse. Perhaps this is outside OSM's ambit. It is, after all, Open
> STREET Map. It seems to leave, however, very limited pathways for citizen
> mappers to build on what the government has done. Few mappers can manage to
> produce such a map under their own steam, and I certainly don't have the
> bandwidth - either personal or network - to support that map as a public
> resource out of a solo project.
>
> I'm really at a loss where to go from here.
>
> Kevin Kenny
>
> On 02/28/2016 11:42 PM, Kevin Kenny wrote:
>
>> Oops: Just realized I originally sent this reply privately: meant to send
>> to the list.
>>
>> On 02/27/2016 05:18 PM, Frederik Ramm wrote:
>>
>>> An import is great if it enables a community to go further, or forms the
>>> basis of solid work in the future. An import is great if it is one
>>> ingredient that makes OSM the best map of the region. But it sounds to
>>> me as if your proposed import is hardly more than a small time saver for
>>> people who want to make maps of the Adirondack - they *could* go to the
>>> original source at any time, and the likelihood of OSM hydrography being
>>> *better* than the official data is very low.
>>>
>>> In my view, a good import is a catalyst for future OSM data improvement.
>>> But you seem to say quite clearly that such is unlikely to happen with
>>> the data you are planning to import. Your main point is that it'll look
>>> better on the map, which for me isn't good enough.
>>>
>>> Can you point to areas where your import would encourage mappers,
>>> including yourself, to add more knowledge and surveyed data to OSM?
>>>
>> My personal interest is mostly from the standpoint of improving OSM as a
>> resource for hikers - and recruiting citizen mappers to the task. Available
>> databases of hiking trail alignments are pretty poor. The USGS maps, once
>> stellar, have not been updated since the first Bush administration, and
>> keeping them up to date is no longer in the USGS's charter. They have
>> neither the mission nor the funding to map hiking trails, shelters,
>> campsites, privies, viewpoints, and similar amenities. Mapping them falls
>> on the shoulders of private companies such as National Geographic, and they
>> are happy to sell us maps - even ones in electronic format if we are
>> extremely fortunate - of obsolete data of the most popular areas. The less
>> popular areas are entirely neglected. If trail data are to be collected, it
>> will have to be citizen mappers that do it, and OSM is an obvious
>> repository for it. And none of that data is what I propose to import.
>>
>> Why, then, should I import what I don't plan to improve substantially?
>> When I've tried to recruit my contacts in the hiking community to mapping
>> for OSM, when they see the state of the tiles at openstreetmap.org, they
>> are put off immediately. "Why should I bother?" they say, "there's nothing
>> there!" Particularly before the import of lakes and ponds was done - an
>> import to which your argument equally applies - this entire area simply
>> appeared entirely featureless, with no hope of using OSM to produce a map

[Talk-us] mapRe: (Second attempt) Potential data source: Adirondack Park Freshwater Wetlands

[Kevin Kenny]

Since I received only a total of three comments about this idea, one 
strongly negative (from Frederik Ramm) and two only lukewarm in support, 
I'm forced to conclude that this proposal has no chance of gaining a 
broad community support. Consider it withdrawn.


I find myself somewhat frustrated about the question of how to recruit 
mappers when it appears that the map has such a paucity of data that it 
will never become useful solely through the effort of volunteer mappers. 
I can demonstrate the map at 
http://kbk.is-a-geek.net/catskills/test3.html, and state that OSM is one 
of many data sources that go into it, but when people go to 
openstreetmap.org and look at it, my experience is that they lose the 
connection entirely between the data that OSM has and the map that OSM 
enables. The huge blank area is too intimidating for my friends, it appears!


The fact that we apparently cannot use data that are not our own in 
presenting our public face, together with the fact that we do not wish 
to import data for which OSM will not become the authoritative source, 
leaves us with an impoverished public appearance outside the cities 
where streets are sparse. Perhaps this is outside OSM's ambit. It is, 
after all, Open STREET Map. It seems to leave, however, very limited 
pathways for citizen mappers to build on what the government has done. 
Few mappers can manage to produce such a map under their own steam, and 
I certainly don't have the bandwidth - either personal or network - to 
support that map as a public resource out of a solo project.


I'm really at a loss where to go from here.

Kevin Kenny

On 02/28/2016 11:42 PM, Kevin Kenny wrote:
Oops: Just realized I originally sent this reply privately: meant to 
send to the list.


On 02/27/2016 05:18 PM, Frederik Ramm wrote:

An import is great if it enables a community to go further, or forms the
basis of solid work in the future. An import is great if it is one
ingredient that makes OSM the best map of the region. But it sounds to
me as if your proposed import is hardly more than a small time saver for
people who want to make maps of the Adirondack - they *could* go to the
original source at any time, and the likelihood of OSM hydrography being
*better* than the official data is very low.

In my view, a good import is a catalyst for future OSM data improvement.
But you seem to say quite clearly that such is unlikely to happen with
the data you are planning to import. Your main point is that it'll look
better on the map, which for me isn't good enough.

Can you point to areas where your import would encourage mappers,
including yourself, to add more knowledge and surveyed data to OSM?
My personal interest is mostly from the standpoint of improving OSM as 
a resource for hikers - and recruiting citizen mappers to the task. 
Available databases of hiking trail alignments are pretty poor. The 
USGS maps, once stellar, have not been updated since the first Bush 
administration, and keeping them up to date is no longer in the USGS's 
charter. They have neither the mission nor the funding to map hiking 
trails, shelters, campsites, privies, viewpoints, and similar 
amenities. Mapping them falls on the shoulders of private companies 
such as National Geographic, and they are happy to sell us maps - even 
ones in electronic format if we are extremely fortunate - of obsolete 
data of the most popular areas. The less popular areas are entirely 
neglected. If trail data are to be collected, it will have to be 
citizen mappers that do it, and OSM is an obvious repository for it. 
And none of that data is what I propose to import.


Why, then, should I import what I don't plan to improve substantially? 
When I've tried to recruit my contacts in the hiking community to 
mapping for OSM, when they see the state of the tiles at 
openstreetmap.org, they are put off immediately. "Why should I 
bother?" they say, "there's nothing there!" Particularly before the 
import of lakes and ponds was done - an import to which your argument 
equally applies - this entire area simply appeared entirely 
featureless, with no hope of using OSM to produce a map that could be 
helpful for anyone.


When, on the other hand, I show them 
https://kbk.is-a-geek.net/catskills/test3.html?la=44.1232=-73.9804=15 
, they see a map that's already useful for navigating the region, 
although deeply flawed in many ways. I can point out that trails shown 
in magenta with their names in UPPER CASE are from a State data set 
that is digitized at an inappropriately large scale (and for that 
reason alone, even before license concerns, I wouldn't propose 
importing it). I can point out that a good many of the trail shelters, 
privies, parking areas, register kiosks, viewpoints and similar 
amenities are missing. I can tell hikers that they can improve OSM by 
capturing that information. I can point out that if enough of us do it 
as a community, we'll have up-to-date maps that we can maintain as a