Loomio
Wed 8 May 2019 8:56PM

Proposal: Regional mapathons

R RobJN Public Seen by 47

Hi all,

I would like to propose an idea and appreciate any feedback you may have. It is inspired by the 24 hour mapathon that Tshedy (Mats’eliso Thobei) held in April.

The idea is that we do 24 hour mapathons focused on a specific region in the UK. Instead of one mapper working for 24 hours (I don't recommend that) we welcome people to help map the specified region at time that suites each individual within the 24hour window. The suggestion is to do this once per month and announce the locations well in advance (e.g. a full 12 month list).

I feel that this complements the quarterly mapping projects which a thematic not regional projects. It may help to build community and allows mappers to look beyond their normal patch every now and then - will help to fill in some less mapped areas and to highlight mapping styles inconsistencies.

If uncomfortable with armchair mapping then there are plenty of other ways to get involved:

  • If nearby, then visit in person.
  • Review how the existing OSM data compare to your normal mapping area. What differences can you find, etc.
  • Send messages to locals to encourage them to get active in OSM.
  • Search for open data available in the location.
  • Reach out to local organisations / councils to encourage them to use and update OSM.

Dates can be picked randomly but proportionate to when most people are actively contributing. A quick look at OSM Stats suggests Mon-Fri are most active. Weekends less so. Over 12 months we can therefore pick 2xMon, 2xTue, etc.. and just 1xSat, 1xSun.

I'm also tempted to pick regions randomly at first so that each place has an equal chance of being selected.

Any thoughts or ideas?

L

Locator Wed 8 May 2019 9:50PM

Sounds Good. I like involving local mappers as imagery might well be out of date for some locations, so don’t want armchair mappers undoing stuff when they could be getting on with more valuable stuff that hasn’t been mapped yet which is perfect for them.

DS

Dan S Wed 8 May 2019 11:42PM

I'm concerned about the possible downsides of "drive by" mapping. I don't mind remote mapping, that's not my issue. But with high streets I think we've seen a tendency that if people helicopter in and map in lots of detail, the detail may then sit there getting stale and being too much work for the "organic" local community to maintain. However, this concern might be mitigated with judicious choice of the area to map. (I guess picking regions purely at random is particularly risky from my PoV.)

BP

Brian Prangle Thu 9 May 2019 9:43AM

I think we should ask for a list of nominations from the community and then pick these nominations randomly- it involves more people in the process and might get more buy-in for the actual events

GMD

Gregory Marler (former Director) Thu 9 May 2019 12:03PM

I can imagine having a wiki page for each project.
Start with an introduction (ideally from local mappers), bullet points of suggestions/requests to map. Maybe a classic "cake" picture that can be referenced.

Then have a table with a row for each hour in 24 hours. Columns would have space for people to declare they're going to be active in that hour and where/how. There may be a column to add a note for how their hour will end - e.g. by giving a link to Mapillary or to a pub/cafe they're going to recharge in.

Dan is rightfully concerned for "drive by" mapping, which is why Brian's thought of nominations is good.
I have some places I could suggest. Me and others would happily do some prep (maybe a mix of pre-event and for some of the early hours) collecting on-ground imagery or notes. There are many villages & small towns that are missing all their shops on the "front street", I struggle to do the editing of these but could keep them updated if there was a wave that got the initial work done.

Rob, the stats are focused on changeset timestamps. These projects would demonstrate there is more than just editing. One hour might be recorded as people surveying, a later hour might see the same people editing. One hour might even me someone writing a report/article about all the editing that has been done and the impact of changes.

B

blackadder Thu 9 May 2019 3:51PM

Slightly off topic but its somewhat aligned. I've got a back of mind plan to do some remote random mapping facilitated by the bike. Plan is to ride for say a couple of hours (or more or less), map something wherever you get, possibly edit locally in a coffee shop and then cycle back. In 2 hours of cycling I can cover a radius of 50km so lots of localities to pick off at random. The amount mapped (volume and focus) would depend on time and interest on the day.

R

RobJN Thu 9 May 2019 8:01PM

Hi all. Thanks for all the comments.

I agree that there can be risks but hopefully we stand to benefit more than enough to outweigh the risks. This is particularly true if we encourage an attitude of "if in doubt, don't edit it, leave a note instead".

What I have found when I map places away from my norm has been very enlightening - different styles of mapping, old jagged ways traced from the OS NPE maps, major omissions easily rectifiable from the open data we have access to.

Let's push ahead with a program for the next 6-12 months and keep an eye on it.

If you have suggestions of locations please let me know. As a reminder we are looking across England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. If we get approached by other communities we could consider occasional locations further afield (but core focus is the OSM UK region).

I'm thinking that as it is only 24 hours and likely to start with just a few people, we shouldn't go for entire cities. Perhaps pick areas with a population of around 100k.

If you post suggested regions here I will compile them into a list. If there is a popular one then we could look into booking a hostel/apartment and making it a meetup over a weekend.

B

blackadder Thu 9 May 2019 8:32PM

Can you add Crewe to the list please

N

Neil Thu 9 May 2019 8:44PM

Please DON'T add Bristol - bad enough trying to see what Amazon and DHP11 are doing. Come visit and survey on foot -- enjoy the beer :-)

JN

Jez Nicholson Fri 10 May 2019 10:37AM

Aberdeen please. We have a good contact at https://codethecity.org/ One of my dreams is for a large organisation to sponsor the purchase of a number of 3D cameras and dashcams which we then partner with a group at the city in question (students, walkers, Open Data groups) to build detailed street view imagery in a day.

R

RobJN Sun 12 May 2019 4:44PM

Right, I made a start on this and have created the following wiki page:

https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/UK_24_hour_mapathons

West Aberdeenshire came up by random - I hope this is ok Jez. I then added Crewe for Andy and Guernsey as that is one I am curious about. I think it is good to not manually override every location. After all this is not to replace local meetups but to help us build community in places we might not normally go to.

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