OpenStreetMap
I'm working to get my community involved in OSM, as I'd love to not be the only mapper in my neck of the woods, however I also don't want anyone else to touch the map because I know they won't map as well as me! Am I the only one that thinks this way? However I'm sure my fears are unfounded and my community and OSM will be better off for their involvement.
Discussion
Comment from EdLoach on 6 April 2011 at 14:19
It is perhaps better that you help get them involved and they know who you are to listen to your experience than for them to find OSM on their own and wonder who you are to tell them that after all their hard work they should have done it better (however diplomatically it is phrased). I've just had the second situation occur locally (though I've not contacted them yet). A new mapper has scattered loads of POIs over the district which is great - detail that wasn't there before. But some of them could have been done better, such as a supermarket node originally placed in the car park (based on bing background) and later dragged to the middle of the previously traced building outline, rather than just transferring the tags to the existing object. At some point I'll have to tell them how to draw building outlines from bing to add the details to, such as takeaways and other shops, though the phone boxes they've added are pretty much as well mapped as I can imagine (does anyone try to do those as areas?).
Comment from compdude on 6 April 2011 at 17:00
Why don't you want anyone else to map in your area? I love seeing other mappers in my city. If they're mapping stuff in a way I don't like (or making mistakes), I contact them and try to resolve this issue.
Comment from Roman Fischer on 6 April 2011 at 17:01
Heya!
Never tried to map a phone box as an area since they're about to disapear here (too much cell-phones)... However, I agree that more people are generally a good thing. Even if sometimes corrections must be made and helping instructions given. I hope we never get to the "Wikipedia-Relevance-Debate". I think on OSM there is enough space for all your POIs, buildings and even trees (yes, I've seen a guy map single trees in a residential area! ;))
-Roman
Comment from JoshD on 6 April 2011 at 17:07
compdude: I'm not saying I don't want anyone to map, I certainly do! However there's some part of me that is nervous to see "my work" altered in a way that I don't agree with. Trust me though, I am trying to get others involved; I'm working on an article for our community newsletter, and I'm going to be interviewed for a piece on our local Patch.com site.
Comment from Sundance on 6 April 2011 at 18:34
Personally I try and either add information, detail or fix mistakes, in cases where there are newer things then on the Yahoo or Bing imagery its a good idea to leave a note for someone else so they dont "fix" something that now doesn't exist the way it is in the imagery.
If you're putting the information in consistently someone shouldn't have to fix your work.
Comment from onion on 7 April 2011 at 12:02
I know the feeling... It's great that there are more mappers here, but I hate it when someone modifies MyMap in ways I don't like.
Comment from downtown on 8 April 2011 at 17:53
but I think 99 times on 100 the modifications go in the right way, for the amelioration of the card. no ?
If the objects you mapped are "perfect", if they are a good modelisation of the place you have mapped, nobody will touch them.
Also, the place you've mapped may change on the time. Nothing is eternal !
Comment from kevjs1982 on 12 April 2011 at 06:52
I thought the same at the start, but have been very fortunate in most of the other mappers (all the human ones) round here doing things very well and in ways which actually result in me noticing more things in the world and therefore improving my own mapping.
Having a decent number of other mappers in your area means other mappers notice stuff I wouldn't have, or stuff I did and didn't consider mapping (e.g. real_ale=* on a amenity=pub), and can also add details in which I haven't got a clue about - e.g. what on earth is the difference between a wood, a forest, a scree, or some other natural thing I have never heard of? Other mappers do care about those sorts of things and are able to add those sort of details in. On the flip side many others don't care about cycle routes but the work those people have already done (e.g. adding "footpaths" and roads) makes it trivial for me to add that sort of detail to the map. It's an awesome example of gradual improvements which improve everyone's mapping, and as a result the end product.