2023 quarterly projects ideas and feedback
We want to announce all the quarterly projects for 2023 in advance.
This will be in early December.
Tell us what quarterly project ideas you have or think are good! Here's an email sent to talk-gb earlier this month:
We had a call on 1st of November to discuss potential topics. Here’s a digest of what was raised.
I’d appreciate it if you could:
Add to these any other topics to consider with potential data sources, metrics, outcomes etc.
Add to the already mentioned topics ideas that could make it a good quarterly project.
We referred to https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Talk:UK_Quarterly_Project as a starting point to the conversation.
There was a recap of what a quarterly project should be or achieve.
Easy to measure metrics can make it much clearer to monitor progress and success of a QP.
Some quarterly projects are to bring in brand new mappers, or get novice mappers to map more.
Other quarterly projects are to focus on enhancing a particular subject area on the map, resulting in more detail, coverage and/or tools.
Buses and public transport.
Are all bus stations mapped in detail (or at all?)
Are bus stops in the correct location?
Maintenance on bus route relations
Is there a better way we can present the NAPTAN dataset to mappers to help identify misplaced bus stops or missing bus stops? There was an idea floated of having an overlay that could be shown in iD/rapiD/josm etc. that could do a diff of where NAPTAN thinks a data point is compared to if/where it exists in osm and indicate that visually. This wouldn’t necessarily show the exact location of it as recorded in NAPTAN but just highlight a square on the map to direct in person survey, aerial use, streetlevel imagery etc. Added stretch goal doing a diff within NAPTAN itself so it would highlight where something has moved in that database since last update.
There was additional discussion on detail mapping other transit stations (like railway stations) though surveying these and tagging for these can be quite complex.
Places of worship.
Adding locations that are missing.
Enhancing existing datapoints with religion, denomination, wikidata links, etc.
Are there compatible 3rd party datasets which could help measure progress and direct surveys?
What other adjacent mapping activities could be included?
EV charging points
A lot of discussion on this as there are many databases that are all partial.
A guide to clearly identify and record the capabilities of common chargers in the UK (compatibility, power delivery, etc.)
The government has lots of plans about making this more open in the future using ‘OCPI data standard’ however this looks unlikely to be implemented in 2023.
Possibility of scraping through planning applications to direct surveys
Including H2 filling stations
Galleries, libraries, archives and museums + public art
Could we compare with local authorities lists for libraries (even with more libraries being volunteer run)
Public art installations, compare with wikidata and link to node in osm if possible.
Verify art installations still exist
A lot of metrics would need to be calculated up front.
Notes and fixme’s
The forever project. It can be worthwhile to focus on resolving notes to ensure they retain utility.
Latin America have done ‘notathons’ to great effect. https://blog.openstreetmap.org/2022/10/26/the-evolution-of-notathons-in-latin-america/
Lots of tools already exist to help monitor progress and help solve them.
Despite the usefulness, it can be difficult to get excited about.
Meta quarterly project
Nothing to do with the company
Focus on improving the wiki or other documentation sources
Collate and share data sources for the UK in one place.
Where to find the dataset, how you could use them – Think how many times you find a useful data set later than you’d like.
Welcome new mappers
Focus on welcoming new mappers in the UK using the welcoming tool https://welcome.osm.be/
Enhance tools, faqs
A road and motorway corridor detail + motorway gantries?
Using the ample streetlevel imagery, enhance the detail along the corridors of A roads and motorways.
Include motorway gantries as they were reportedly under-mapped in 2020 (need to recheck current state)
Difficult to measure any metrics on this.
Steven H Tue 29 Nov 2022 8:02AM
If this extended to mapping blocks and rows of burial plots, that would help volunteers fulfill requests from people all over the world to have someone get a photo of their ancestor's grave, like these:
I nearly volunteered once but found that the council only had maps to the block level and that rows weren't sequentially numbered, so gave up. But there is a name index so it would be possible to infer the row numbers from a few identifiable graves.
Jon Harley Tue 29 Nov 2022 9:21PM
What makes 'notathons' a good idea is that people only leave notes on things they're interested in - it's a strong signal that something interesting is missing from the map. We could attach some competitions for extra motivation, eg who resolved the oldest note, who resolved the note that's furthest from any place point, what's the funniest and the weirdest note anyone has found etc.
trigpoint Thu 1 Dec 2022 11:12AM
Mapping graves is an interesting idea.
One slight niggle is that the wiki at https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag%3Acemetery%3Dgrave states "please map only significant and notable graves", my question here is why? Finding a grave is far easier if all are mapped so you know it is y rows up and x graves along.
Guy Hayward Tue 20 Dec 2022 5:07PM
Bit late to the party probably but I run the British Pilgrimage Trust, and Harry Wood directed me to this conversation, particularly around places of worship. We define 'pilgrim places' more broadly than just places of worship, including all these: ancient tree, ancient/prehistoric monument, mosque, synagogue, temple, war memorial, parish church, chapel, cathedral, labyrinth, hermitage, cave, grave, holy well, waterfall, source, or mouth of, a river, island and hilltop. Is there capacity to include these other categories as well? Even with the places of worship it'd be great for walking/cycling pilgrims to know if they are open or closed during the day for people to walk into; whether they have loos or kitchens; bit of history including date of origin; vital stories, any famous gravestones; most important features; etc
Gareth L Wed 28 Dec 2022 4:19PM
Hi Guy,
These project topics help direct attention on a particular focus, but can encompass a great deal. The things you have listed, in my opinion, are just as valid.
"Places of Worship & Cemeteries" is listed as the Quarter 4 project in 2023, starting in October.
I've only recently started the wiki page detailing what the project is about and giving information on data sources and examples of the kinds of things to map. https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/UK_Quarterly_Project/2023/2023_Q4_Project:_Places_of_Worship_and_Cemeteries
The examples you've summarised above would be useful to capture!
Guy Hayward Tue 3 Jan 2023 8:59PM
This is great to hear and just what we need!
Ancient trees are already mapped on Woodland Trust's 'Ancient Tree Inventory' https://ati.woodlandtrust.org.uk/
Megalithic.co.uk has loads of prehistoric sites on it
https://labyrinthsinbritain.uk/ has labyrinths mapped
There is a Holy Wells facebook group with mapped holy wells in the documents section of the group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/244060782427611/files/files
Hope that helps!
Cj Malone Thu 12 Jan 2023 11:49AM
Ancient trees are already mapped on Woodland Trust's 'Ancient Tree Inventory' https://ati.woodlandtrust.org.uk/
Are you involved with this one? Do we have permission to use this data in OSM?
Guy Hayward Mon 16 Jan 2023 3:54PM
I called Tom Reed this morning, who says this is good timing as they are creating a subset of "Heritage/Named" Ancient Trees data points which could be applied to the OSM base layer map. He says email him on [email protected]
Adam Hoyle Wed 21 Dec 2022 9:52AM
@trigpoint the point about only mapping significant and notable graves is something that's been kept from the original version of that wiki page - https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/w/index.php?title=Tag:cemetery%3Dgrave&oldid=1144148
I imagine it is due to concerns about the resources that micro mapping can take up (as outlined here - https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Micromapping). Personally, I think the global value of micro mapping outweighs the technical challenges of hosting extra data (and the need to handle extra data isn't going away as more and more of the world is mapped), so long as the micro mapping is of high quality I personally think it's worth it.
Adam Hoyle · Mon 28 Nov 2022 10:54PM
Mapping graveyards as part of places of worship would be interesting.