[Talk-ca] MSF Toronto Missing Maps Event
I'm forwarding this on. I attended their event last month. It was a great event and they get a lot of new mappers adding data. I just wanted to send you a quick message to let you know that we are hosting our next public Missing Maps mapathon on Wednesday, September 26th at the MSF Canada office (551 Adelaide St W), and to extend an invitation again to you and your meetup group. The mapathon will be hosted by MSF staff and include discussion about the area we will be mapping again. It is still free to attend, and we will be providing pizza and refreshments. For all the details do check out and share the Eventbrite page. https://september-mapathon.eventbrite.ca [meet.meetup.com] Once again, if you have any questions please do not hesitate to ask, otherwise we hope to see you there! Best, Gaby ___ Talk-ca mailing list Talk-ca@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-ca
Re: [Talk-ca] Fwd: BC2020i - update Sept 2018
Thank you for those clarifications, John. I speak for myself, but I do feel confident that others are learning from what you say and that OSM and all involved can and shall do better. Honestly, I look forward to "better processes" which "make more open data available to OSM" (a worthy goal, indeed). "Getting familiar with steps" is part of it, and I know we are good people as we see first crawling, then walking, then running, then flying. May Canada and its buildings together with OSM gain much altitude and indeed fly. Governmental agencies around the world can and will gain, OSM can and will gain and it will be a win-win-win all around. Part of that happens because we talk to each other (civilly) and lots of people nod our heads and many/most of us say, "hey, yeah, that's a pretty good idea/way to do things, let's do it like that." Like learning to walk, it is a process, it isn't that hard, and it does come naturally. SteveA On Sep 17, 2018, at 12:16 PM, john whelan wrote: > Just a comment Alessandro is not a dedicated project manager but rather the > person that the project manager reports to. Currently in addition to his > normal job he is also acting in the position above his so he really is doing > two jobs at once. Bjenk was the project manager who pulled the project > together and worked hard and closely with the local OSM mappers on the first > phase but has moved from Stats Canada to another department. > > Alessandro has had staff working in the background to find ways to make more > open data available to OSM but probably isn't familiar with all the steps to > bring it in. > > The numbers from Ottawa would suggest that we need to understand more about > what information is most useful and which can be easily obtained. > > This isn't just about Canada by the way there are other places on the world > where this sort of information and the techniques used on the stats side can > be useful. > > Cheerio John ___ Talk-ca mailing list Talk-ca@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-ca
Re: [Talk-ca] Fwd: BC2020i - update Sept 2018
Just a comment Alessandro is not a dedicated project manager but rather the person that the project manager reports to. Currently in addition to his normal job he is also acting in the position above his so he really is doing two jobs at once. Bjenk was the project manager who pulled the project together and worked hard and closely with the local OSM mappers on the first phase but has moved from Stats Canada to another department. Alessandro has had staff working in the background to find ways to make more open data available to OSM but probably isn't familiar with all the steps to bring it in. The numbers from Ottawa would suggest that we need to understand more about what information is most useful and which can be easily obtained. This isn't just about Canada by the way there are other places on the world where this sort of information and the techniques used on the stats side can be useful. Cheerio John On Mon, 17 Sep 2018, 2:32 pm OSM Volunteer stevea, < stevea...@softworkers.com> wrote: > I (rather fully, and without Alessandro's accusatory "troll-like > behaviours," wow) addressed Alessandro in an off-list email reply, though I > quickly received an "out of the office until September 21" bounce-back. We > shall see. > > One thing I must say here I found unfortunate in Alessandro's post was the > cavalier attitude of "I would like to have more time to write emails...so > do not be offended if I will not continue this conversation." Again, wow. > > As long as we keep it civil, and I'll give us a "passing grade, just" > along those lines, we can and should continue this dialog. Please, let's > do our best to keep it civil. > > SteveA > > > On Sep 17, 2018, at 8:31 AM, Alasia, Alessandro (STATCAN) < > alessandro.ala...@canada.ca> wrote: > (a reply to my missive) > ___ > Talk-ca mailing list > Talk-ca@openstreetmap.org > https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-ca > ___ Talk-ca mailing list Talk-ca@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-ca
Re: [Talk-ca] Fwd: BC2020i - update Sept 2018
I (rather fully, and without Alessandro's accusatory "troll-like behaviours," wow) addressed Alessandro in an off-list email reply, though I quickly received an "out of the office until September 21" bounce-back. We shall see. One thing I must say here I found unfortunate in Alessandro's post was the cavalier attitude of "I would like to have more time to write emails...so do not be offended if I will not continue this conversation." Again, wow. As long as we keep it civil, and I'll give us a "passing grade, just" along those lines, we can and should continue this dialog. Please, let's do our best to keep it civil. SteveA > On Sep 17, 2018, at 8:31 AM, Alasia, Alessandro (STATCAN) > wrote: (a reply to my missive) ___ Talk-ca mailing list Talk-ca@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-ca
Re: [Talk-ca] Fwd: BC2020i - update Sept 2018
Hi Steve, If you read the email, you would see I did mention OSM (and it was sent to several people active with OSM in Canada, who rightly started a discussion on talk-ca). Specifically about your question: I do not think it is up to me to tell what should be the role of the OSM communities across Canada. They will decide. Of course, I would hope to have many involved, but there are certainly different views and priorities and that is perfectly fine. I will welcome any outcome of those decisions. But I would be more concerned about the manner in which discussions take place and the governance systems surrounding the possible decision making process. Online discussion forums are a great tool to discuss and generate consensus. But I am certainly not revealing anything new in saying that online forums can become channels through which ideas are misrepresented (if not distorted) and extremely vocal individuals, with troll-like behaviours, discourage others from expressing their views and be part of constructive discussions. Occasionally, it may even happen that people expressing different views are targeted off-line, with rather aggressive and annoying emails. This can quickly turn a great tool for democratic participation and consultation in its opposite. Of course, I am talking in general, right? Nevertheless, as the Canadian OSM communities continue to grow, they may have to address some of the issues related to their governance system(s). This may strengthen their voices and an authentic representation of their needs and aspirations, in connection with, and as an expression of, local groups across Canada. Ideally, an enhanced governance system for relevant decision making would include transparent participation mechanisms and some form of accountability to the communities themselves. Having this would probably facilitate the dialogue between institutions and OSM groups and eventually unleash the real power of civic data science. Finally, I do not think there was anything wrong with BC2020 or BC2020i (to begin with, they are the same thing; the "i" was a nice suggestion of a colleague, which ensured a unique hashtag in twitter). This is not to say that this initiative is perfect. New and innovative ideas do not hatch perfect; they always need a lot of improvements and refining, and there is nothing wrong with that. So to conclude, I can tell you what our (i.e., my team) role can be in BC2020i (in short: do our small part for more and better data available to all Canadian; in the specific case: our goal is to create an harmonized database of building footprints, available under a single open data license compatible with OMS, which would be available to all OMS groups interested in using it, importing, etc., as well as to all Canadians). We will continue to work in this direction, with all groups and entities that are interested in making meaningful and concrete contributions toward that goal. I trust this answer your questions. I would like to have more time to write emails, but unfortunately that is not the case, so do not be offended if I will not continue this conversation. Best regards, Alessandro From: OSM Volunteer stevea [mailto:stevea...@softworkers.com] Sent: September-16-18 8:00 AM To: talk-ca Cc: Matthew Darwin ; Alasia, Alessandro (STATCAN) Subject: Re: [Talk-ca] Fwd: BC2020i - update Sept 2018 Matthew, I personally thank you for sharing Alessandro's missive with talk-ca (an OSM-based list). However, Alessandro mentions "BC2020i" (and even "BC2020i-2"), initiatives which "used" (or proposed to "use") OSM as a data repository. Not wishing to rehash history about this yet again, the initiative was found to not fully respect some basic tenets of OSM (primarily that process and importation of data be "Open") and a genuine attempt was made (partly rather publicly here) to re-imagine a re-branded project (BC2020, no "i") which more openly and harmoniously integrated with a wider OSM community using familiar and more-open communications channels like our wiki and this talk-list. As Alessandro didn't mention OSM one single time in that message, yet it was forwarded to this list, I remain quite curious what role OSM is to or might play in any "BC2020i-2" initiative. So, I invite / politely request Alessandro to post here exactly what that is or will be. Is it a national-scale import of the Bing building data (as he says "what they did in the US")? I realize that from STATCAN's and indeed a much wider Canadian perspective, this "initiative" will be much more than that, benefiting many, and for that I do share enthusiasm. Still, I ask the specific question from an OSM perspective: what role will our mapping project play? Please, Alessandro, address OSM directly (in this list) what OSM is to BC2020i-2. You might start by addressing what is wrong with BC2020 (no i) as it exists in our wiki and how BC2020i-2 might diverge from that,
