@bo_hot

This isn’t a lack of prioritization, without a knowledge of a local language you can’t localize the tools, and without the knowledge of peoples needs and how they interact and use maps and what data is important you can’t tailor anything for that. Without any information you wouldn’t even know there is a lack of priority. Everyone is doing their best and doing their own thing there has been great progress that has been made already and excellent tools that have been created. Like any product or service you need to know the audience but in this case the audience is the entire planet so you have to try to zoom in on a given population as an example. Right now there are many use cases and the basics of street navigation and tagging place names and other infrastructure is all there. I have mapped using everything from a handheld GPS + camera and walking papers to a modern smart phone the barriers are shrinking given the amount of cheap tech and cheap consumer devices with GPS. I can’t say what the situation is on the ground but with walking papers just a printer and a clipboard and pencil is all you need if you already have remote tracing and edits to work off of and a single computer can compile the data and add in the information from the walking papers. I have done this so I know it works. I have made edits off of a cheap consumer netbook for years now and can say yes it is possible to edit and work on OSM with less powerful and cheaper hardware. I think you may need to see what are the things on the ground in the various locals and what resources or tools do they have then have the information and tools tailored to those communities that match their situations. Basically without the information of a given community you can’t adequately meet their needs.

@bo_hot

to simplify you need to identify

• who is the intended group you want to serve
• how would they consume or edit the maps
• what are their use cases

Then you

• Tweak existing tools to localize and make it easier to map features that fit their use cases
• market to the groups and attract interest in the project
• have infrastructure set up to help amplify or tailor the maps to their use cases and deployed in a form most can consume

I would say that the process has gotten a whole lot better over the years. iD is making it a whole lot easier for many to edit, they can even edit on a cheap chromebook which makes that tool accessible to many. Adding data from editors can be localized so memorizing or learning the technical side isn’t really needed as much. What I have noticed irregardless of what group or what mapper is that OSM allows anyone to map pretty much what they are interested in. If you like churches you add churches if you like movie theaters you add movie theaters if you like hiking trails and walking shortcuts you add them.

OSM is open the data is open and yes the contributor still technically owns their edit and can re-license their edits and place them in the public domain if they wish. OSM I feel has done more than any other project to expand it’s reach to as many communities as possible but again this is based on contributors so if there is no local community editing tourists and couch mappers will be the ones adding to the map. I see this as a marketing problem rather than inequality, as no community or even a person will ever achieve equality in anything there will always be variability. You can market to communities and try to attract and grow a community if there is a void but that is it’s own problem.

As someone who has contributed to HOT I can say I tried my best and didn’t try to do a low quality edit but I know without having at least some understanding of local architecture and landscape there will be mistakes. I also know that there are simple things that can make a big difference like charting major roads that connect towns and cities, having accurate place names with the local names and having at least some of the important infrastructure mapped such as hospitals and health care facilities. I know that I was able to download the maps offline onto my garmin and was able to navigate at least from city to city and knew if I took a wrong turn off a main road and that helped greatly in getting around. Even if I didn’t know every road in town or any road names.

I would also say that remote mappers aren’t the be all and end all. They are best done when paired with on the ground mappers so buildings can be added and roads. Then a team on the ground adds names and POIs from the street level. I like to call that the double tap, as having even a sloppy edit but real roads and buildings roughly in place it gives you something to print out or utilize on the ground. I have done some edits this way to great effect.

What I would like to see is a vector map standard that is picked up and used by all of the online maps and apps so every app isn’t rolling their own maps or having to create the infrastructure for them from scratch. You could have dynamic theming or rendering highlighting features you want to emphasize or not . Which could make it easier for people to make the maps that matter to them

The other thing I would say is what is the target method of consumption. Are people using budget android phones, iphones, chrome books, desktops, printouts on paper or posters, atlases? Like anything you need to know the audience so you can cater to them. If you want people using the data you need to know what data is important to them and how they most likely can or will consume said data. So here is where I say marketing may be the real issue. Without know these we can’t sell the idea or show the importance easily of the project.

OSM like many international projects Unicode being another face unique issues in dealing with multiple cultures, languages and communities and making things easier for the whole world to make use of it. I don’t think diversity is an issue especially when you are dealing with data now attracting a community and marketing to them so you have sustainable high quality local data is where you will naturally get to more usability and more equity. We have to know what people need and how to provide or help make it easy for them to provide for themselves.

We have the tools getting better and making things more accessible but yes there is always room for improvement. Knowing what more people expect or need or how to provide the right tools for their uses cases can be important. Having better communication between different communities also can help as well. But at the end of the day if we don’t know the intended audience and their needs no real solution can be had and this is true for more than just OSM or maps.

Congrats, I never understood the purpose of foursquare. OSM is used in multiple places it is great to see your edits being used. I see my edits on craigslist and facebook and most importantly on offline mobile maps.

Listen don’t fall for the identity politics game it is divisive. It devides people rather than bringing them together and labels people where it is not necessary, I cannot in good conscious promote or support such an endeavour. In OSM we are people no more nor less not a cis x person or an marginalized person but a person. There is no need to inject this into the community that is focused on mapping it will detract from the mission statement. If you want to promote OSM to different communities then fine but it should not need the focus or attention of the random mapper nor should they be dragged into any identity politics. OSM is free and everyone has access to the map data so I don’t see where the issue is?

Can you name any credible ways you will market OSM to other communities that will resonate with the normal everyday person and not some conception you have of people? Look at the numbers OSM mapped by the few and you need to reach the masses. What is your plan?

First off you show no evidence of any need of a CoC nor any examples of any problems with the community. Now this is a community that has already voted and promoted women to the highest positions and really is focused on it’s mission statement of creating a map for the world. Secondly given the amount of anonymous accounts how do you have any knowledge of who is mapping and whether they are marginalized or not? The OSM community has no obligation to do anything but create a map for the world, now if you want to promote OSM to people feel free, go do that.

There are practical reasons for why some people don’t map many simply aren’t interested as this is a niche activity. Secondly it costs some amount of money for equipment to map, either a computer or phone with GPS and it takes time. So really you have to convince people that it is worth their time and money to map and this is a marketing problem and not anything inherently wrong with OSM. And I don’t think it is helpful for anyone to single out a demographic and complain about how many of them there are. I makes you look bad and it makes me question if I can trust you to represent me. OSM isn’t about race or sexuality to bring this into the discussion is frankly counter productive. OSM shouldn’t be a soapbox for political platforms or ideals you will alienate people who simply just want to map and that is just mean spirited.

Interesting paper, this has confirmed my anecdotal thoughts on some things. However I would say that there is no bias towards men rather it is a project that men found interesting and decided to contribute to. OSM is open to everyone and if the default editor is not engaging to meet the needs of a community another one can be created. Look at wheelmap for example, the wheelchair using community needed the accessibility tags so they created an open and easy interface to update and add the tags they cared about.

OSM to me is non gendered as I largely don’t know the gender of the people contributing and largely don’t care. OSM has objective standards such as ground truth that seeks to weed out subjective gendered mapping. Furthermore there is no one really dictating what tags you use even if a tagging community disagrees with a tag you can still use a tag and bake it into an editor and there is no one to stop you. Most of the editors are opensource and will accept contributions.

I personally tried to find out what the broader female population’s POI preferences where and what they would like to see on a map and got the response that there is no preference they want the same things as men an accurate map they can just use. Map use in general isn’t a gendered activity but a utilitarian one thus the content isn’t controversial as long as it is accurate and based on ground truth.

That being said OSM does not have a bias toward any gender but rather was organically created by contributors and organically attracted like minds. Thus the under representation is actually a marketing issue / UI issue of attracting women to a technology project that organically grow attracted men. There is no reason why women or people interested in female participation couldn’t just make a frontend or editor that specifically caters towards women, my guess would be a mobile app that includes some social media integration which includes community building and interaction with other mappers. There is nothing stopping anyone from stepping up or trying to push forward a solution. Another way to promote female participation is to try to push OSM on female majority websites and you can try push them to use the new app. Much like how Pokemon Go uses ended up contributing when they found out their community uses OSM data.

What I would find unacceptable is shaming OSM or contributors because of the gender imbalance as OSM has been a volunteer organization and hasn’t put any gendered barrier nor has any discriminatory policies. I also would not find any solution that decreased any male participation acceptable. Rather I would like any solution to be an expansive change that grows the community and that growth skews female. This is what I call inclusive expansive growth. Then again I can be misinformed and my opinions could be garbage BS. What are your thoughts?

@Artiom Komolov ISO is used for which countries can have borders on OSM not for the borders themselves. Since Russia is an ISO recognized country there is no conflict. That being said I personally have issues with that but can see why it is there to prevent someone from just claiming land willy nilly creating new countries. But if push comes to shove and there is a conflict with that rule it should change as well but in the mean time it is fine.

@Alexee I heard there are tour buses going to Crimea from Belarus. The Crimean Bridge also makes it more connected to Russia now than any other countries even by your own admission. How is it not part off Russia now?

@Artiom Komolov a UN proclamation is not the same thing as ground truth. I don’t care what bureaucrats say, show me Ukrainian government presence in Crimea, military, law enforcement, courts? It is all Russian and given the Crimean Bridge the physical control is cemented as well as vital transportation ting Russia to Crimea. Given there was no military fight aside from Ukrainian Boats being humiliated I wouldn’t even call the borders disputed. If Ukraine isn’t willing to fight for it back then there is no dispute.

OSM isn’t the UN it works on ground truth not the hoes and wishes of pompus bureaucrats. Change the ground truth or forget about it. Physical control is an objective measure that resolves disputes when push comes to shove. Taiwan and China, India and Pakistan, Ukraine and Russia. If OSM gives in then what you have endless no win disputes that come down to opinions rather than objective facts.

@velmyshanovnyi you have to back up your property with some amount of force. Thief breaks into house owner shoots thief with shotgun. Thief breaks into house owner calls police and police shoot thief. Ukraine hasn’t lifted a finger to defend or protect Crimea. Furthermore when dealing with countries their one major property is to be the monopoly of legitimate violence in a geographic region, they were pushed out without a fight. Effectively you don’t have the property if there is no forced used to take it back and you effectively don’t control it and the authorities aren’t going to lift a finger either to take it back. Their job was to protect their areas and make sure no outside forces come in and they failed miserably. Ukraine is like calling the police and they just sit outside eating donuts crying about how dangerous the thief is and instead of protecting the house they write passive aggressive letters and threaten pedestrians that walk on the side walk. At the end of the day borders are controlled by force either forcing the citizens within through law or literally forcing invaders out, simply put without any presence of the Ukrainian government and no real challenges to the border, it simply isn’t being disputed. Again it’s pathetic.

@velmyshanovnyi the only thing more pathetic than your desperate snitching is the patheticnes of the Ukrainian Military as they get humiliated again and again over and over again by the Russians. Really all the DWG did was state a fact, based on the objective facts gathered on the ground. OSM isn’t picking a side they have objective measures for which they come to the decisions. In this case control of the area is the metric for which the border is drawn. If you were to go to Crimea you wouldn’t see the Ukrainian government at all the Ukrainian government coward and ran and the military has cowardly done nothing. You want to turn your back on fundamental principles and promote border that lie about ground truth. But hey having no principles is fine for a cowardly snitch that has to try to bully others to get their way because they don’t have the facts on their side.

@Kilkenni apparently Russia is far better at protecting it’s borders than Ukraine whose only defense is to cry to the UN and to OSMF. Push comes to shove Russia still controls the area, and isn’t afraid of further humiliating the Ukrainian military. As for what other countries responses towards people that travel there it is within what they can enforce in the borders they control. As an American there are places I just can’t legally travel to but that is how it is. I still will stick to ground truth and hold to those principles unlike some people and still can not care less what ridiculous desperate proclamations get put out. Admit to yourself that Russia controls Crimea and unless you want to go try to challenge that with physical force good luck( I’ll even cheer for you).

@velmyshanovnyi yes people with self inflated importance of their opinions will have fanciful claims that differ from reality. However even in there they want Russia to release it which would imply Russia has it therefore Russian Territory.

Groundtruth is king, the completion of the Crimean Bridge cemented Russian rule in Crimea like it or not. If anyone would go to Crimea they would be subject to Russian law, have the borders protected by Russian military and would pay Russian taxes. Other than fanciful claims in which concrete ways is Crimea on the ground part of Ukraine? Ground truth has always been a core principle of OSM any you want us to turn our backs on one of our core values. Who are you to demand such things? The map should reflect reality as bleak or upsetting as it may be. Crimea now and for the foreseeable future is part of Russia. I don’t see the Ukrainian military challenging that fact as well. You need to come to terms with reality and put aside nationalistic pride and try to look at things more objectively.

@Tomas Straupis the only ones in power in the area are the Russians, a “recognized” country and major power in the region. They took it proclaimed it as theirs and have maintained it. By your standard the Russians have it.

@Larry0ua what is your definition, should be bring back Silesia to OSM, maybe show the Native American tribes instead of the USA? How rediculous do you want this to get, without a clear-cut definition of the general area IE administration and other governing factors how else do you choose the borders. Do we get pixie dust and say I do believe and magically the borders change. All governments are based on force all of them claim a monopoly of legitimate violence in said geographic regions Now when one takes the other’s land and they are the ones administering it and it isn’t being challenged then it is clearly theirs now. No amount of wishing will change that, now you can wage a Guerilla war and may have a chance of getting it back but that is left to be seen and that is not a problem for mappers. Until the administration and occupation of the Russians comes to an end it should be in the Russian’s borders. Just look at Hawaii that is in the US borders and that was taken over dubious tactics anybody can bring up an argument but simply put OSM isn’t the UN it isn’t some NGO and it isn’t a pulpit to try to push lies about the ground truth for political posturing, you state what is not what you like. To do otherwise would not only violate ground truth but also mapping for the renderer both of which are some of the highest taboos in OSM.

I am sorry if I got a bit heated on what @Larry0ua brought up about ground truth for administrative borders, and yes there is some truth to that, as the exact demarcation is a bit tricky. This is what the DWG needs to work out niggling over the little minutia. That being said administration is evidence of ownership and is far more concrete than merely a competing claim with no force to back it up. Administration is based on force and you can prove that a given area is controlled by a given group. I personally have no problem with mapping claimed areas, conflict areas where administration and borders are in flux and other ways of adding detail but the default area should reflect ground truth. If others want to make fantasy maps with Crimea as part of Ukraine go for it, but the default borders should reflect actual on the ground administration in all cases

@Kilkenni If a government is threatening violence for non compliance of a map that is a terrorist threat, meant to induce fear to comply with the political will of those issuing the threat. The freedom to state an objective fact and put that in a map should be absolute and not be infringed. Russia controls the land it is observable fact, I am not Russian and I can see that clear as day. I don’t want wishful thinking and political dictates to control OSM but ground truth and a real accurate map. I don’t care if the truth hurts but it is what it is people in Ukraine, people in the EU and people in the USA need to grow up and deal with the reality. As I said put up or shut up, you don’t like that Russia has control take it back or be quite on the matter petty threats against cartographers to dictate what they do and how they show the map is beyond petty. Facts over Feelings and the dictates of whatever funny looking robed people say with inflated worth of their opinions(judges). like in the book 1984 it is Four finders not Five, like you want to push. Facts or Facts and they just can’t be dictated to be true by the courts they actually have to have ground truth.

@Kilkenni yes borders are not allways apparent but the best we have to go by is what is enforced and agreed to. It there is no dispute follow the convention if there is a dispute, try to be as rational as possible and take into account who is enforcing laws, who is collecting taxes and who has the military presence in the area. Those are areas that can be validated and will give greater credence to the border given a dispute than some pompous government official or NGO member’s opinion.

I know this goes against some prevailing opinions in governments including the one for which I reside but I simply don’t care what a Bureaucrat says it what is enforced. In this case might makes right as in two sides have a dispute but one has the force to back up the claim it simply is that easy. OSM can’t go sucking up to different NGOs and Governments it needs to be objective. OSM can work with NGOs and Governments as long as OSM stays true to it’s values and principles. The whole compromise is the false middle fallacy.

In the case of OSM being attacked by courts and governments, that shows the lack of freedom in those countries. OSM shouldn’t pander to such bad actors that have to use violent threats, if they give in then China will want their way and Pakistan will have their way. The EU isn’t special they shouldn’t magically get extra rights, neither should the US or India or Pakistan. Once you give in to terrorist threats you will get more of them and the whole system based on objectivity crumbles. “Truth is Treason in the Empire of Lies” –Ron Paul