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Hi, I am trying to find a remote village and locate it on osm. My source is a number of maps, some of which have copyright on them. Most of these maps either show neighboring large villages and a few show the village but in the wrong location. (I guess these maps have digitized paper maps and have accuracy of a few kilometers. There can be five or more villages in the few kilometers area.) Some maps show some of these villages but the locations are approximate. Other maps show only some of these villages some of which may be accurate and some wrong. Therefore the village names are all over the place in each map. My research involves, finding the population and number of households in each of these five villages. Then refer to the size of each village in osm bing maps. I also search on google for more information about the village e.g. it is on a river bank, lakeside, some important land mark (number of schools/playgrounds) in the village. I also look at postal addresses of villages to determine other villages via whom the post is delivered and therefore there should be a good road between them. Based on this analysis, I can start fixing the exact location of some of the villages. I get a success rate of about 90% in finding the exact actual location of villages in hilly area (where villages are far apart from each other) and get about 70% success in densely populated districts. Since, hardly any work has been done for Indian villages, most of the time, I find that the maps I was referring to were showing approximate locations (i.e. the map be showing a location five kilometers away from the actual locations of the village as I discover it.) and I am able to find exact locations. Can I assume that since I am doing my own research and am not merely copying from other maps, I am ok to mark these villages on osm. Thanks, Atam |
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I don't want to comment on the copyright issue because at best the situation is muddied, however I do not see the utility of what you are doing, given that in the end you are only guessing. The "proper" way to determine what a village is called and where it is, is to go there. 2
This boils down to the question whether guessing village names (and adding an appropriate fixme tag) is better than having no village names at all.
(04 Nov '14, 08:54)
scai ♦
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I don't believe that there is an easy answer to specific question, because I could phrase it as: is it better for the ambulance driver to know that there is very little solid information on where exactly a place is (and to get different instructions on how to get there than just a name) or to arrive at the potentially wrong village?
(04 Nov '14, 09:44)
SimonPoole ♦
SimonPoole : The proper way to travel to over 600,000+ villages is daunting. Most villages do not have people who can either buy a smart phone or to know how to create and upload gps tracks. Scai : Of 600,000 villages only about 10,000 have actually been mapped by collecting gps tracks. Even these tracks are sometimes off by a few kilometers as they refer to a bus stop on the nearest road to the village. Many villages do not have proper roads where a bus can ply.
(05 Nov '14, 03:28)
atamp
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What about Bing coverage? is that helpful?
Bing has the poorest coverage for 600,000+ villages in India. I have been able to find only 1 out of 20 villages on Bing maps, that too for large villages only.