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Why Book Corners won't sync contributions back to OpenStreetMap

andreagrandi.it

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Re: Why Book Corners won't sync contributions back to OpenStreetMap

#51

Post by vladms »

mips_avatar wrote: post #46
gopher_space wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like the path is streamlined once they know who you are. This sort of feels like a generational thing but I would have flown over.

Like I have a list of a few hundred osm places websites that are clearly scam sites. I should be going one by one and filing them manually but I found this via a spam filter and it’s very robust. I should have a way of getting these scam sites reported to osm.

You could share it here and let more people remove the spam sites. If everybody removes a couple in no-time all will be removed.

Which is probably what might happen if you would have the option to "report them to osm". Someone should check things, because maybe you are a new person to them, maybe the spam filter might not be as robust as you might think, etc. Even if you are perfect, other submission might not be, so someone needs to check/review/etc.

Re: Why Book Corners won't sync contributions back to OpenStreetMap

#52

Post by jasonkester »

I run a website that's in a similar situation, and it sounds like the author is close to the correct solution, but needs to take things one step further:

There needs to be a Single Point of Truth, and it should not be your little website.

BigCentralThing should be the official database that knows about where all the Whatevers are. Your little Whatever Locator site should only ever _pull_ from them. Need a new Whatever in the database? Get BigCentralThing to add it, then pull it in.

As an example, I run https://bettybeta.com/, a select guide to bouldering in Fontainebleau tailored for Women and short folk. We have a list of boulder problems in our database, but no way for anybody (even an admin) to add a new one. Every boulder problem record includes a link to its page at https://bleau.info/, who are dedicated to cataloging every climb in the forest.

Bleau.info is the Single Point of Truth. If one of our users does a First Ascent and wants to log it with us, we'll point them at that other site with instructions on how to get their climb in there, and tell them how to get us to import it. Any other path would lead to our database and the "official" database eventually diverging.

There are half a dozen other websites doing similar things to us. Some do what we do, but the ones that don't quickly find themselves out of sync and end up with a lot more work on their hands.

It's tough because, as the author says, writing the flow to import at our end is really easy (I've written it, before coming to this realization and hiding it again). But doing it is a trap.

Re: Why Book Corners won't sync contributions back to OpenStreetMap

#53

Post by vladms »

neilv wrote: post #23
mxfh wrote: post #11

Also I don't get the point why you would want them easily scrapeable to begin with. If you have eyes to read and can walk across YOUR neighborhoods, you would have eventually seen one. I thought that was the whole point? They are not exactly hidden. I find those public bookcase incidental low barrier offerings to a reading exprience you just stumble upon, nothing you would seek out on a map. Why would you want to hav…

Recently it's seemed like (very roughly) half the Little Free Libraries I see aren't in OSM. I sometimes edit OSM, so I'm wondering whether any public bookshelf omissions are intentional, and adding the shelves would be unwelcome by the people running them.

I see OSM as a mapping application. It is in the real world, publicly visible for a long period of time, and there is no law preventing sharing the information (like military stuff) it can be in the mapping application (decide what is relevant enough is another story).

I would not include the wishes of the people into it, because there are various groups that might have strange ideas (dunno, like only churches of some type should be shown; or no shops of a certain kind because it hurts my feelings, etc.).

I personally would not like any edits that advances the wishes of "any" group of people (like removing features). I do not like all things that exists on maps, but I will not remove them because of my feelings.

Re: Why Book Corners won't sync contributions back to OpenStreetMap

#54

Post by PetitPrince »

DoctorOetker wrote: post #15

I've always been confused why OSM doesn't design a cheap open source stereo imager, some finetuned modern YOLO neural network could detect and blur the glass parts of windows, doorbells, nameplates and humans in the scene. It could use GPS for rough geolocation, and 3D models of all the scenery could be generated. New contribution traces would contain changes compared to the past. Volunteers could request new paths i…

Are you describing what Mapillary is doing ? It's a crowdsourced street level imagery provider (owned by Facebook since 2020, but still contributing to OSM), but they do auto-detection of feature (you can see that in the online OSM editor: Map Data > Photo Overlays > Mapillary > Map Features).

I vaguely remember a blog post about doing photogrammetry out of their images, but I'm not entirely sure about it.

Re: Why Book Corners won't sync contributions back to OpenStreetMap

#55

Post by andreagrandi »

Hello folks, author of Book Corners here. I just made the whole libraries db available for download (it's OBDL licensed).

It's available from every users dashboard (it's a ~2 MB compressed GeoJSON file). It includes both libraries orignally imported from OSM and additional libraries added by users.

While I still think the whole OSM process to submit back is a bit too much for the time I have available (but I still understand and respect), at least I want to give users an additional option to retrieve the data (in addition to the public API).

If you have any other advices, I will be glad to hear them and, compatibly with my spare time, I will try to implement them (if they make sense and are useful for users) :)

Thanks

Re: Why Book Corners won't sync contributions back to OpenStreetMap

#56

Post by Rygian »

andreagrandi wrote: post #55

Hello folks, author of Book Corners here. I just made the whole libraries db available for download (it's OBDL licensed). It's available from every users dashboard (it's a ~2 MB compressed GeoJSON file). It includes both libraries orignally imported from OSM and additional libraries added by users. While I still think the whole OSM process to submit back is a bit too much for the time I have available (but I still un…

In the article, you claim:

> There are also important licensing questions. A user’s permission to send a library to OSM is not automatically the same as having a sufficiently clear right to release that factual information under terms compatible with OSM

which would imply that you could not make available your database available for download under ODbL. Yet you have made it available under that license.

Maybe that part of the article needs further editing?

Also, if the data of your tool is now available under ODbL, then the tasks related to importing it into OSM can be effectively performed by anyone, not necessarily you.

Re: Why Book Corners won't sync contributions back to OpenStreetMap

#57

Post by andreagrandi »

Rygian wrote: post #56
andreagrandi wrote: post #55

Hello folks, author of Book Corners here. I just made the whole libraries db available for download (it's OBDL licensed). It's available from every users dashboard (it's a ~2 MB compressed GeoJSON file). It includes both libraries orignally imported from OSM and additional libraries added by users. While I still think the whole OSM process to submit back is a bit too much for the time I have available (but I still un…

In the article, you claim: > There are also important licensing questions. A user’s permission to send a library to OSM is not automatically the same as having a sufficiently clear right to release that factual information under terms compatible with OSM which would imply that you could not make available your database available for download under ODbL. Yet you have made it available under that license. Maybe that pa…

> Maybe that part of the article needs further editing?

Yes, I should edit it. I had not though about the bulk download until another user on Mastodon suggested it to me.

> Also, if the data of your tool is now available under ODbL, then the tasks related to importing it into OSM can be effectively performed by anyone, not necessarily you.

Definitely. I would be more than glad if libraries which are not on OSM were added back, I just don't have the required spare time to go through all the process and also maintain it.

Re: Why Book Corners won't sync contributions back to OpenStreetMap

#58

Post by DoctorOetker »

PetitPrince wrote: post #54
DoctorOetker wrote: post #15

I've always been confused why OSM doesn't design a cheap open source stereo imager, some finetuned modern YOLO neural network could detect and blur the glass parts of windows, doorbells, nameplates and humans in the scene. It could use GPS for rough geolocation, and 3D models of all the scenery could be generated. New contribution traces would contain changes compared to the past. Volunteers could request new paths i…

Are you describing what Mapillary is doing ? It's a crowdsourced street level imagery provider (owned by Facebook since 2020, but still contributing to OSM), but they do auto-detection of feature (you can see that in the online OSM editor: Map Data > Photo Overlays > Mapillary > Map Features). I vaguely remember a blog post about doing photogrammetry out of their images, but I'm not entirely sure about it.

I was talking about photogrammetry, preferably with 2 global shutter synchronous image sensors, attached to the ends of say a 1 m pole.

Re: Why Book Corners won't sync contributions back to OpenStreetMap

#59

Post by Moghammed »

jasonkester wrote: post #52

I run a website that's in a similar situation, and it sounds like the author is close to the correct solution, but needs to take things one step further: There needs to be a Single Point of Truth, and it should not be your little website. BigCentralThing should be the official database that knows about where all the Whatevers are. Your little Whatever Locator site should only ever _pull_ from them. Need a new Whateve…

I agree that that's the ideal way to do this, but it's just not always an option.

I run valideparkeren.nl, a crowd sourced overview of all accessible parking spots in the Netherlands. Ideally, there should be a government-owned single source of truth, but the whole reason for starting this is because that source doesn't exist yet. I'm starting to work with the government to eventually hand this project over to them, which was the goal from the start, but the only way to make that happen is by first becoming the source of truth.

Edit: I was also planning to add my data to OSM at some point, but I'm reconsidering that after reading this. I completely understand that they only want high quality data, but in my case I'm convinced that high coverage and slightly lower quality is better than low coverage and high quality. Of course, transparency of how sure we are about the data is vital, so users can decide the risk they want to take.

Re: Why Book Corners won't sync contributions back to OpenStreetMap

#60

Post by jasonkester »

Moghammed wrote: post #59
jasonkester wrote: post #52

I run a website that's in a similar situation, and it sounds like the author is close to the correct solution, but needs to take things one step further: There needs to be a Single Point of Truth, and it should not be your little website. BigCentralThing should be the official database that knows about where all the Whatevers are. Your little Whatever Locator site should only ever _pull_ from them. Need a new Whateve…

I agree that that's the ideal way to do this, but it's just not always an option. I run valideparkeren.nl, a crowd sourced overview of all accessible parking spots in the Netherlands. Ideally, there should be a government-owned single source of truth, but the whole reason for starting this is because that source doesn't exist yet. I'm starting to work with the government to eventually hand this project over to them,…

Yeah, it's tough because to be the Single Point of Truth, you'd need to be the List of Parking Places in the Netherlands, not just the accessible ones that you care about. You might even need to be The List for Europe.

Being The List of anything is a big, thankless job filled with nonstop toil to keep it up to date. It's not something you want to do unless it's truly your passion or somebody is paying you (a lot) to do it.

The problem is that building to tools to Be The List is pretty straightforward and fun. You only learn about the toil you've signed yourself up after the fact, once people start relying on it.

Good luck!

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