OpenStreetMap
I spend hours studying news reports and carefully tracing building outlines in Malden, noting which ones did or didn’t survive the Babb fire.
And then a bunch of wanna-be do-gooders come by and crap out HOT-quality mapping, complete with duplicate buildings, vehicles mapped as buildings, scribbled outlines, and nothing but self-congratulatory hashtags for edit summaries. I think I’m going to just revert the whole batch.
Discussion
Comment from SomeoneElse on 23 September 2020 at 23:07
I can understand how frustrating this must be.
I wonder if it might be possible to get in touch with the person telling these “#WARedCrossers” what and how to map? Maybe asking “take me to your leader” a few times in changeset discussion comments might get an answer to that? It’s difficult being too critical in changeset comments when these are people who are (a) new mappers (b) probably just doing what they’ve been told to and (c) are probably a bunch of college kids trying to do something positive for the rest of the world, but maybe we could find out who’s organising the work.
If you need to Data Working Group to get involved (by e.g. sending them messages that they have to read before continuing to edit) let us know.
Best Regards,
Andy, from the DWG.
Comment from InsertUser on 24 September 2020 at 08:22
At least if it’s actual HOT they’ll have a proper tasking manager so you only really have to deal with one layer of “marginal improvement”.
Other volunteer groups do far worse on occasion. I’ve seen four or five outlines of the same building in some cases.
Comment from RachBLevine on 24 September 2020 at 12:55
Hello Carnildo, I’m helping Washingtonians host monthly Missing Maps mapathons. Some of our participants might have tried mapping locally to support their neighbors. This wasn’t an organized activity, so if there is room for improvement I’m sure a nice note would be appreciated. Thanks for your kindness with these new learners! Best, Rachel
Comment from Glassman on 25 September 2020 at 05:33
I noticed one of the mappers added a bunch of houses in the last hour. See https://osmcha.org/changesets/91480916 for the first of five edits tonight. They look good but the imagery is from before the fires.
Comment from Carnildo on 25 September 2020 at 09:12
According to Copernicus Sentinel imagery, the most recent additions are generally (barely) outside the burn area. The ones in Malden very much weren’t, and I’ve been working on figuring out which ones did or didn’t survive.
Comment from SomeoneElse on 25 September 2020 at 10:09
I wonder if a way forward might be to invite the new contributors to chat with the local community more widely (OSM US’ Slack or elsewhere), to talk about things like “what imagery is good to use” etc.?
Comment from RachBLevine on 25 September 2020 at 10:34
I’m sure they’d appreciate that kind of advice and support. Thanks everyone!