On Fri, Apr 3, 2015 at 11:19 AM, Martijn van Exel <[email protected]> wrote:
> It would be nice if we could have SotM US this June be a venue to dispel > some of the assumptions that seem to exist abroad about the U.S > OpenStreetMap community. Reducing the U.S. community to a bunch of couch > potatoes who are more concerned with mapping remote places and importing > data is not only inaccurate but also disrespectful to all of us who > tirelessly work to improve our neighborhoods and towns based on good ol' > ground surveying and local knowledge. > > Perhaps we, as the U.S. chapter, play a role in creating or sustaining > these false assumptions? Do we need to do a better job highlighting really > good local mapping efforts? I would welcome opinions and ideas. > >> >> As I recall Martijn, there were a number of videos from SOTM US 2013ish that laid out the issue. It is the size of the US project that complicates the issue. By the time your talk came around, you stated the same thing once again. By the way, I am so thankful that the US Conference records these sessions. I have not been able to attend but I try and view the videos every once in awhile. I'd have you focus on something else than trying to dispel the assumptions about the US. I have the sense; it is what I have observed; no mater what is done in the US, we did not do it like the Europeans so it cannot be good. That's my perception of their view. One of the most interesting things I saw from 2013 was the progress report and the meta tile report that some of the report was based on. I had to go look at what some of the mappers had accomplished in these regions. It was so cool to see all those buildings that were imported in Chicago. That was a major accomplishment. Arizona has this problematic issue about trying to make money off their GIS data. Sadly, there's no cost recovery even if they think that there is. Moreover, there is no building data set that I know of in AZ that could match what Chicago cataloged. The Chicago area inspired me to trace as many buildings as I can. One of the cool areas that I worked on was the Scottsdale Air Park http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=17/33.62087/-111.91182 . Thanks for the inspiration Ian! I got bored. I moved on to other areas. However, I always look for those nice challenging buildings to map. One of the Carolina meta tiles also inspired me http://www.openstreetmap.org/way/254964599#map=19/35.84273/-78.66457 . Wow. Look at that! The mapper added driveways too. I saw a number of tag combinations that I never thought of because of these meta tiles. I actually setup a daily import to generate my own meta tile report. I was shooting for x number of nodes in each tile of the meta tile. I found out that Arizona has a number of zero meta tiles. I also saw that $user in the East Valley had a number of very dense tiles but no 100K meta tile yet. As for me, I got past 50,000 nodes in one meta tile but no 100K meta tiles yet. There's so many interesting things to see and map that when I achieve boredom with an area, I find another interesting area to map. I always try to think of the glass of orange juice as half full or half empty. Either way their's room for Vodka! So Fredrick builds a tool to solve a rendering problem.[1] It is not just the US where a "certain image is painted". The resulting discussion sounds like a Ford verses Chevy debate __to_me__. The debate goes like this, if your Chevy has more nodes than my Ford, I have to find some vault with the Chevy. The opportunity to see a Craig's List or Rand McNally use OSM without all the great or small contributions would not have been possible with the efforts of OSM mappers. The sea of change that OSM has brought is just amazing to me. Regards, Greg [1] https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk/2013-May/067194.html http://fred.dev.openstreetmap.org/density/ http://fred.dev.openstreetmap.org/density/2012.html https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk/2013-May/067136.html Because it means that this is probably dead data without a community behind it to fix problems and to do updates. https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk/2013-May/067138.html Endless story. That's the "anti-imports" theory : a map looking "complete" does not call for new contributions. Which means that we should gum out the map from time to time just to build a new community of contributors when the previous one consider the job done or is exhausted ;-) Pieren https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk/2013-May/067142.html
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