Thanks Harry, interesting read.

Tbh, until now i stayed away from doing multiple one-user validation. I get confused, mainly because often the tasks are widely spread over the project area. But, as Patrik points out, i can use the todo plugin for that.

Thanks Patrik, and you are welcome if you have question on OSMCha. And i am surely going to experiment with your workflow, so i hope you don’t mind if i come back to you with my questions about that?

Thanks, really instructive.

Allow me to mention one additional tool: OSMCha.

With OSMCha you are able to see things that are hidden/hard to spot when validating through the TM.

Eg deletions of features. Say mapper A incorrectly deletes buildings, then mapper B adds them again and closes the task. As a validator you should inform mapper A of their actions. But using only the TM these are not visible any more.

Same with changed features.

Another nice feature is the possibility of using filters. That way you can filter out only beginner mappers in a project. And quickly address these, even before the tasks they mapped become available to validators.

In OSMCha it is also quite easy to see all the other mappings of the mapper (not only the ones of the project you are working in). To get a better context.

It is also possible to give a changeset comment there. The disadvantage of TM comments is that as soon as the project is finished all comments in a way become unfindable. A changeset comment will be permanent, see eg https://resultmaps.neis-one.org/osm-discussion-comments?uid=9621269.

You can enter OSMCha directly via the main project page (shows all changesets within a project) or via the individual task (only the changesets of that specific task).

Hi @Janet, thanks for your feedback. Although i am a member of the HOT Training WG i am not involved in webinars (my spoken english is not that good). I mainly focus on maintaining learnosm.org.

But you can always contact the HOT Training WG for new topic proposals.

@Puxan, you bring up some interesting ideas. However, i do not have any specific experience with mapathons, didn’t visit nor organized one.

Maybe some one who does can give feedback here about this.

Hi Frans, thank you.

I posted a message on HOT Slack a week ago announcing this diary post (https://hotosm.slack.com/archives/C042TUWCV/p1634981781007400). I think you missed it because you were on vacation (?).

I choose to publish on my OSM diary (and not on HOT Slack) because i guess not every HOT mapper is on Slack. And also non HOT mappers can read it and provide feedback this way.

I will announce this article also on the HOT mailing list soon.

In the end i plan to post a recap of the feedback on the HOTOSM Slack

@Kate, @Clifford, do you know learnosm.org? It is meant as an introductory site for both OSM and HOTOSM users. It covers both beginner stuff and also topics for the more advanced mapper.

@Kate, yes, ideally every new mapper should be able to have a personal mentor. Not necessarily validators, experienced mappers would also do.

They only problem could be that the demand for mentors would exceed the number of available ones.

Crowd2map has a system that every beginner mapper can post their freshly mapped tasks on Slack. An experienced mapper will check it out and provide personal feedback.

But here the same problem as mentioned above: there should be enough available validators (being all volunteers).

But there is an alternative: instead of waiting until the beginner mapper takes the initiative, the validator can do that. Through OSMCha you can “hunt” beginner mappers on project and task level. That way it is possible to provide feedback in a very early stage. Frans Schutz wrote an informative intro about this workflow (https://hotosm.slack.com/files/U78C3AYJC/F01JEB8C1HR/osmcha_concept_docx.docx?origin_team=T042TUWCB&origin_channel=DPL4D1SJU)

@Jim, Id Editor has an Issues Tab (https://learnosm.org/en/hot-tips/issues/#warnings-from-id-(issues)). It is not perfect but i believe it is actively developed.

Another thing is the lack of automated squaring of buildings, an issue that regularly pops up (and complained about). It is i believe also explicitly brought to the attention by HOT to the developers.

But Id Editor is not developed by HOT. So there is not much we can do until the developers decide it is worthwhile to dive into. And until now this seems not the case.

You can always post new features on their GitHub page https://github.com/openstreetmap/iD/issues/new?assignees=&labels=&template=id_editor_feature.yaml

Hi Clifford(?) / Glasman , i notice some great ideas on your diary.

I like especially the statistics you keep of the results of comments as far as the improvement of the edits.

How do you accomplish this? Do you maintain a spreadsheet? Maybe an automated script of some sort (is that possible anyhow?).

Thanks so much for sharing :-)