Hi,

If you followed a link in a message to get to this diary entry, you’re probably one of the people who went to the event. I’m the old, tall, bald & bearded one who stood at the front & talked for part of the time.

The event was laid on by a large team of people all hoping that we could give new mappers the information they need to get started mapping for HOT, from http://tasks.hotosm.org/ , but I think we’re all aware that with such a big group of people ‘zero to hero’ is unlikely in the 2 hours that were available. We’ve given you a start & we’re planning to help you keep going, but we do need you to try! It’s a simple process but sometimes there are little hiccups with the software that can make it seem difficult, just keep trying & you’ll get there. By the way, I still make mistakes - it’s a human thing, just don’t let it stop you & try to learn from them.

I’d recommend that you sign up for HOT emails - this link for a howto: https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/hot

If IRC is your thing then http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Irc (obviously I’d recommend the HOT group!)

There are quite a few places to get more help from (The tasking manager has recently been upgraded & many of the screenshots are out of date - we’re working on updating the guides, but the principles are the same). http://learnosm.org/en/ has several different modules & it’s worth reading them. http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/OSM_Tasking_Manager contains more information and links.

I’ll be validating shortly, and I always try to leave feedback on the squares I validate – I’m intending to start on http://tasks.hotosm.org/project/606 (#606 - Central African Republic. Refugees in Cameroon, Garoua-Boulaï - Meidougou ), and then move on to http://tasks.hotosm.org/project/624 (#624 - Ebola Outbreak, Eastern counties, Liberia, road network ) . I have other bits & pieces to do as well, so please bear with me if it takes a long time before your squares are validated.

There will be other Missing Maps Project events, and I hope you can come to another. We have concentrated on the information for new mappers, and kept things simple so far, but there is plenty of scope for variety, with faster methods of editing, importing the names of objects after surveys ‘in the field’ by local people, and perhaps you would like to try validating?

Feedback to us / me. What can we do to improve? We need to know please.

Thanks for reading, and I hope to validate some of your squares soon.

Nick (Tallguy)