Christoph,

WRT “concept of SWOT which is strongly linked to American business culture and kind of implies that OSM is a business project based on American cultural values,” I have two reactions: 1. Google “how many countries use swot analysis” and see what you get back, and 2. non-business organizations use SWOT analysis, not only businesses (I used it in government for the past 16 years; NGOs use it regularly).

WRT “it is my understanding that the idea behind SWOT is to look at things w.r.t. a specific goal - in the business world often essentially to maximize profits. You have not specified or referenced any specific goals to consider so the answers you get might significantly diverge because people consider the matter w.r.t. very different goals without actually specifying the goals in question,” your understanding is incorrect. A basic SWOT analysis is an inventory and does not necessarily focus on a specific goal. A good SWOT analysis may, in fact, lead an organization toward a goal it had previously not considered (that’s the Opportunity quadrant, typically, but not always).

WRT “to get a broad spectrum of views on this it would be important to (a) also ask and invite answers in other languages,” please look at the wiki page and see my appeal for volunteers to translate that page into other languages.

WRT “it would be of advantage if the different opinions on this would be linked across the four categories, for example by having the points signed by those who make them,” since it is a wiki, edits are automatically recorded with the contributor’s OSM handle–that’s one reason I chose the wiki as the platform for this SWOT analysis.

Heather, Christoph has answered your question about anonymity, above. Given the number of times I have received spam via OSM from one-time-use user accounts, preservation of anonymity appears to be quite easy.

Yes, I have asked the CWG to expand the message. I am also counting on members of the community multiplying the message by repeating it through their own social media accounts, user groups, and so on. Are you amplifying my message via your networks? If not, please do–there is no copyright or pride of authorship here.

As for “automatically” folding the survey into the analysis, as a former board member you know that very little happens “automatically” in OSM :-) Any and all data points will be incorporated, but I daresay such incorporation will require human intervention.

As for a “community curated OSM strategy and project roadmap”, let’s please take one step at a time. There is a faction within OSM’s community that has expressed strong opinions that nothing is broken and thus no actions are needed by the Board, period. Others have identified issues they just as strongly believe require Board action, perhaps not urgently, but necessarily. Our first step is to identify issues the OSM community perceives. The second step is to assess them–do any existential risks exist? Are there opportunities (e.g., for membership growth and diversification) we would be foolish not to pursue? The third step is then to decide if a strategy is warranted or if the current “steady as we go” laissez-faire approach is sustainable for the foreseeable future. The latter approach has its advocates, some of them quite vocal, and the Board will have to weigh the consequences of action or inaction.

You can see samples of Soviet military maps here: https://iu.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=098c42997ca441029b69f0597ff92ea6

Mapstor also has digital copies of Soviet military maps as well as much more, if you are interested in acquiring them.

It just opened for me with no problem. Please try again.

Christoph, the board has yet to decide whether to create a Diversity Working Group; the conversation with the membership is underway. Thank you for your contribution to that conversation. The Board may decide to go that route or it may not. Either way, diversity is clearly an issue, as is the English language barrier.

Twitter is not the only avenue for conducting such a conversation–you are correct–but it was the quickest way to get the conversation started. I am open to other modes of communication as stated in my candidate’s Q&A. My OSM e-mail is on the [OSM Board website[(https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Officers_%26_Board). I’m not hard to reach, and neither is any other board member. If you think I should start using my OSM diary to communicate with the membership, I’m open to that, too. What is your advice?

As for my use of parliamentary procedure, I’ve been doing that since my days in 4-H some 50 years ago. Parliamentary procedure, properly applied, allows all viewpoints to be heard, and averts coercion of decisions. In particular it allows minority viewpoints to be aired. That is my intent, and I trust you have no objection to that. Does it create an obstacle to non-English speakers? I think not, and beg to differ with you. It is a specific set of protocols, no more complex than the hypertext transfer protocol or simple mail transfer protocol. If you can code HTML, you can learn Robert’s Rules of Order and the proper way to say “I move…”, “I second the motion,” and “Point of order!” as quickly as you learned <p>….</p>. Anyone who has mastered Python or Java will find Robert’s Rules to be child’s play.

As for learning British (really, Ango-American) traditions like parliamentary procedure, well, in the past 45 years I have learned a fair number of Russian, Austrian, Turkish, Mexican, Indian, and Turkmen traditions, and with the exception of Russian vodka toasts, which I now decline, none of them bothered me too much. Some of them are quite endearing, in fact.

I’ll close with the comment that one of the criticisms I heard about past boards was that they were slow to act and to deal with issues. Now I am hearing from you that the board is moving too fast on an issue (diversity) even though it has merely started a conversation about something is clearly on the minds of a fair segment of the membership. There must be a happy medium somewhere, not too fast, not too slow, that will lead to a good result. I look to you to help us find that sweet spot.

Happy New Year to all.

apm

I just finished reading “The Red Atlas”, which devotes a few paragraphs to the Ordnance Survey assertion of copyright violations in Soviet military maps and the OS’ threats of lawsuits against anyone using them to generate their own maps.

@GinaroZ
My bad. Linked to the wrong version. Should be better now.

@imagico, I scanned at 1200 dpi on a cheap Epson all-in-one scanner-printer-copier, and downsampled to 400dpi for these versions. Other than straightening the images there was no other editing–the images in the book are really sweet, I have to say!

@alexkemp, thanks for the heads up, apparently Wikipedia changes URLs after uploads for some reason. I have corrected them all. Sorry about that!

I used a smartphone (Samsung Galaxy running Android) with the Mapillary app to collect ground-level images. If you set up the app to store data on the SD card, you can then pull the images plus the gpx files off the SD card, merge the gpx files into a single file using EasyGPS, and then you have the GPS traces for mapping. I always had to run it off the cigarette lighter outlet because running the camera plus the GPS function exhausted the battery very quickly otherwise, and also had to direct the a/c vent toward the camera or it would overheat in summer.

@stephan75, when I was struggling with the data volume, other mappers recommended Osmosis, that’s all.

Well, well, rather interesting correlation, no? Cartography has its uses!

Mapstor sells scans of the maps (see https://mapstor.com/map-sets/country-maps/turkmenistan.html). I bought them quite some years ago but found them unwieldy when viewed on a computer screen. The paper maps are much easier to review and study.

No, had not heard of it, thanks! Will take a look.

It’s an ad hoc “team”. My security officer insists that I travel with a security detail and chauffeurs, and another embassy officer has to come along as my “control officer”. With that many people riding along, there are lots of eyes to identify POIs, find street signs, city/town/village names, and so on. I punch the data into MAPS.ME while they point out things I miss. It’s a team effort. So no, there is not a permanent “team” for OSM, but the mapping is often a “team effort”. :-)

Thanks for the kind words. This is a target-rich environment–so much data that needs to be collected, and as long as I’m making a trip as part of the job, I may as well collect information useful not only to me but to other mappers.

@alexkemp, thanks very much for the tips! I’ll give the SVG-> PDF option a try. My intended end product is a wall map roughly a meter high.

@Warin61, yes, no joke!

@eneerhut, you will have a head start as I am presently on vacation in the United States and won’t be back in Turkmenistan until late January. Good luck!

@althio Thanks for catching that.

@SunCobalt Thanks for the tip. I have tried figuring out overpass turbo and osmosis (but not osmfilter, will have to take a look); however, the time required to master them is more than I can spare given the demands of my day job. When I retire I’ll have more time to devote to acquiring new tools :-)

@kucai, I use a 16Gb RAM Samsung Galaxy smartphone with large (minimum 32Gb) SD card to store the images. The main reliability issue is that it has a tendency to log out of Mapillary periodically for no apparent reason, and if I am in an internet dead zone (there are many in Turkmenistan) it refuses to collect images until I can log back in. In summer I have to position the phone close to the windshield defroster vent on the dashboard and crank up the air conditioning so it blows directly on the camera, or it will overheat (direct sunlight+camera+charging battery+GPS generates lots of heat). When it overheats, it simply shuts down.

I have another Samsung with less RAM (8 Gb) and have found when it has collected a few thousand images, it takes forever to boot Mapillary up and sometimes simply locks up. 16Gb seems to work much better.

Main tip is to plug it into the cigarette lighter to keep it charged, and monitor the battery. I also carry a backup smartphone for when this one fails for some reason.