Could we make an effort to map one bit of India remotely ideally one that has a few mappers in it or users and see if it can grow from there? Any NGOs operating in India?
I think there are mappers in Bangladesh or East Bengal as it used to be called before it split from India perhaps they might have some ideas? Yes I am aware that India is a very large place. Cheerio John On 15 June 2015 at 22:01, Arun Ganesh <[email protected]> wrote: > > Fair enough. Although a quick mapcompare session shows that GM has >> nowhere near the quality that it has in Europe/America, so it should >> be less work for OSM to overtake GM in India than it took in Europe (I >> know, if the community is tiny, "less overall work" is still way more >> work for each individual). >> > Businesses throughout the country want to list themselves on GM to get > more customers. I have been to remote parts of the country where hoteliers > or shop owners ask me how they can be listed. This POI database is massive > and along with it comes address information which is data gold in India for > geocoding. There is low business incentive for anyone to list themselves on > OSM, moreover the computer skills to do that is lacking by most people. If > there were more users of openstreetmap, this can change quickly. > > >> You point out an interesting bit of information though: GM is for >> English speakers. Do you render a Hindi (and other languages) >> slippymap ? Provide Hindi OSMand and Garmin maps ? That might catch >> the attention of many users. In Ireland we have an all-Gaelic map >> ( >> http://maps.openstreetmap.ie/?zoom=9&layers=00BFFFFFF&lat=52.92847&lon=-7.65252 >> ) >> that attracts people from outside OSM. >> > > Its a given that most users of new technology in the country are familiar > with English, or atleast the Latin alphabet. One may not be able to speak > the language but can easily read street signs and it is more familiar than > localized signage. We have had trials with localized maps > http://yogiks.github.io/osm-kn/map/ but apart from being good PR they > have limited practical use in daily life. > > We would need to support 22 languages and in offline mediums to make the > maps truly accessible to most of the people. Till then maps will continue > to be used only by a small class of the population.. > > > -- > Arun Ganesh > (planemad) <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Planemad> > <http://j.mp/ArunGanesh> > > _______________________________________________ > talk mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk > >
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