OpenStreetMap
There’s all this talk of people finishing remapping their area and I haven’t even started on my city Seattle! Looking at cleanmap and seeing all the stuff that will go away after the license change (which AFAIK is on April 1st, one week from now) is just overwhelming. I’m not sure how to start, so could those of you who have finished up their area please give me some advice on how they went about it, and perhaps help me get my area taken care of? That would be wonderful. Thanks!
Discussion
Comment from spark on 25 March 2012 at 01:59
The absolute best way to start is to see if you can avoid remapping in the first place, by working out who the main contributors in your area are that haven’t accepted, and trying to contact them. Have a look at http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Asking_users_to_accept_the_ODbL
Comment from compdude on 25 March 2012 at 04:34
Yes there is one person who I have tried contacting twice already, his username is Sunny. He’s made a lot of edits in the area; if he doesn’t accept, then everything of his goes poof. I’ll try and send him another message, but I think my efforts are futile…
Comment from chillly on 25 March 2012 at 11:05
Have you tried to contact him through other ways than just OSM? Google for him, check other sites where he might have used the same username, such as Flickr. Post on twitter, G+, Facebook. All of these have helped me find people and everyone I have found like this have agreed.
Comment from spark on 25 March 2012 at 20:21
I would love to help, but as I’m not from the US I think I would probably do more harm than good. I’ve noticed there is a small Seattle usergroup (https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Seattle,_Washington) - have you tried organising a group remapping effort with them?
I’ve taken a look at the ‘badmap’ for Seattle - it seems like one person should be able to at least remap the affected interstates and other main roads in probably a couple of hours. I would suggest focussing on the major pieces of infrastructure first; while it’s a shame to lose things like parks and buildings I imagine they will quickly get mapped again :)
Comment from compdude on 25 March 2012 at 21:41
@chillly the problem with the username “Sunny” is that it’s so generic that you get so many irrelevant search results. I’m just going to remap the area: it’s not a whole ton of work, and shouldn’t take that long :) At least I hope so…
Also would you guys recommend deleting all the “bad” ways and then using JOSM’s Undelete plugin to re-add them? This is how I imagine I might do it. And of course, I’ll ask other ppl in my area to help too.
Comment from chillly on 26 March 2012 at 16:09
Deleting a way then undeleting it is not remapping it, you are still using the original author’s work. You need to delete it and recreate it from the resources available as if it never existed. Trace from Bing or other aerial imagery or similar resources. A survey would be best to gather the real info but that is not going to happen in a few days. Names or other such details have to come from some source other than the original mapper. This is why it is a pain and it takes time. The alternative is to just have it deleted in a few days time.
Comment from compdude on 26 March 2012 at 16:52
Ok fine, I won’t use the undelete thing anymore.
For the most part, with most of the roads in Seattle the mapper did not add them. They were added from a TIGER import, and by a user who has accepted the license (for very good reason, otherwise all the roads in the whole US would disappear). So usually the editor did not actually add the road; they might have modified it, but yet I might as well redraw the road entirely. As for buildings I’ve identified some by a user who hasn’t accepted the license that I might as well re-draw anyway and yes that’s gonna be a pain. Sigh…
But if I just focus on the major ways and redraw them (making sure I don’t mess up any relations in the process), it hopefully won’t take that long.