Notification mechanism to inform contributors of emergent campaigns

Introduce a notification mechanism to inform contributors of emergent campaigns. While the mailing list may work for the core community, there is likely a larger number of one-time mappers who may be willing to help out again when they’re needed, but currently they have no means of finding out.

Martin Dittus

From the mailing list discussion: the existing HOT newsletter could be a low-effort means of starting something like this, e.g. by adding a paragraph on current initiatives to every email. (Tyler might likely appreciate if someone who’s plugged into community discourse could provide such paragraphs on short notice.)

We have to balance our actions here. Firstly we have to be careful it does not take on the form of spam mail so we may have to add a button for members to select whether they want to be contacted in the event of an activation or not. Secondly I know we have to trawl through loads of first time mappers looking for those interested few who produce large amounts of quality mapping. But that does not mean that we should keep recalling the disinterested one timers. A lot of the time of the experienced mappers is being taken up fixing the poor mapping of those one timers when they could be producing good mapping themselves. At what stage does this become counter productive? Could the existing pool of good mappers produce the required amount of basic mapping in a short time scale without the aid of the first timers if they did not spend so much time fixing up other work? Probably not! So I would say that we should be trying to entice those mappers who have returned to do some more mapping, completing 4 or more tiles in one or more tasks. They at least are showing a bit of interest by returning to do more .......... just my thoughts.

Here are some ideas Ralph:

What if a validator could mark a mapper "Good Mapper" then when you showed up to validate a project any tiles by your "good mappers" list that were not already validated showed up outlined so they were easy to spot check and then validate all the good mapper's squares at once?

Now, what if only mappers who have been marked "good mappers" by a validator got a call to action?

I am also thinking the users will have options for what kind of emails they want to receive...... Feedback, comments on tasks you worked on, emergency alerts, our month newsletter update, etc

you know the best people to spend your time working with in all the different ways you can work with someone, we want to make it easy for you to do that.

So if you were reviewing a list of task squares to validate or you were looking at a project task map trying to decide what the "best" task square to spend time validating would be, what information about the user would you like to filter on, (you would be able to set the numbers yourself)?

x number of completed task squares x number of changesets x days since last contact (@ mentions or other tasking manager message/email) x number of validated task squares x number of invalidated task squares

others?

On Tue, Nov 29, 2016 at 9:48 AM, Ralph Aytoun notifications@github.com wrote:

We have to balance our actions here. Firstly we have to be careful it does not take on the form of spam mail so we may have to add a button for members to select whether they want to be contacted in the event of an activation or not. Secondly I know we have to trawl through loads of first time mappers looking for those interested few who produce large amounts of quality mapping. But that does not mean that we should keep recalling the disinterested one timers. A lot of the time of the experienced mappers is being taken up fixing the poor mapping of those one timers when they could be producing good mapping themselves. At what stage does this become counter productive? Could the existing pool of good mappers produce the required amount of basic mapping in a short time scale without the aid of the first timers if they did not spend so much time fixing up other work? Probably not! So I would say that we should be trying to entice those mappers who have returned to do some more mapping, completing 4 or more tiles in one or more tasks. They at least are showing a bit of interest by returning to do more .......... just my thoughts.

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There are some good ideas here. I have a couple of thoughts and counterpoints...

(1). "Good mappers"

I think if we wait until (new) mappers are in the TM we are putting a lot of "administrative" tasks on the validators' plates by asking them to first to validate, then to provide constructive feedback through the comment section in the TM and on top of that to also identify good mappers. This latter issue should be established in a training session with collaborative learning assignments and quizzes beforehand.

Further, if the learning environment is set up as an apprenticeship model, or as a "Community of Practice" this burden of answering questions will be distributed across the community.

To address this question poised by Blake below, "what if only mappers who have been marked "good mappers" by a validator got a call to action"? I therefore ask what if "good mappers" are accredited in advance through an online course?

I have worked with Claus Rinner, chair of the Ryerson University's Geography Department on embedding a discussion forum in a map. Here's a rough example:

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/222513434_fig4_Figure-5-Preservation-of-thread-structure-in-map-based-discussion-forum-through-implied

Or here, http://amjv.org/index.php/help, scroll down to the Forum Tutorial Videos and have a look at one of the videos that shows this concept in action.

This could be adapted for use in the TM. If we were using an embedded threaded discussion forum anyone could answer and, perhaps more importantly, anyone could correct any misinformation that has been posted. This also distributes the burden across the community, much like a learning environment such as the course and includes but is not limited to just validators.

This is how communication on the Internet has worked starting with Usenet newsgroups.

(2). Using metrics to identify mapping stage

(a). Completed task square

As I see it there are four potential scenarios of a completed task square. I've been involved in all four. In one case I mapped the whole square, in other cases I've mapped most of it, still other scenarios where I've mapped only some and finally where I've not mapped any of it but marked it done. In all of these cases I'm recorded as the person who completed that square and therefore was included as someone contributed to the overall project. But obviously I have had varying degrees of involvement. Therefore this concept as a metric needs to be further unpacked before it can be accurately used.

(b). number of changesets

You can make one edit and upload your changeset or you can make a thousand and upload it then. It's not a good metric unless you consider how many edits are in the changeset.

(c). Days since last contact

I've worked on a few projects where I've left a comment on the TM requesting feedback on my mapping. I have never received any responses (this excludes exchanges between John Whelan and myself as we had already established a relationship via email).

(d). Number of validated task squares

This depends on how many edits you've done on the task square. Again there are task squares I've marked as done because I've determined there are no more edits to me made. These tasks have, in turn, been validated. Does this make me a good mapper or a good reviewer (or potential validator)?

(e). number of invalidated task squares

In one case a task square I marked done was invalidated. But I think the errors in the map were caused by previous mappers as the edits were in place before the project was identified on the TM. I knew this by the dates of the edits plus the entries were not requested in this task (it was buildings only). I asked for feedback from the validator (who was the activator) but received none. This might mean I could make a mistake again, if in fact I had done so in this case. I'll never know for sure because I never received a response.

Activators on the TM work for different organizations and may have different priorities, one of which is not to use time answering questions of mappers they may be think they'll never interact with again. If I worked for that activator's organization I wonder if my question would have been answered, which in turn may reduce any future invalidated task squares.

Overall, as for how mapper stages can be identified I suggest you look into the method that OSM uses. If you look at my profile:

http://www.hdyc.neis-one.org/?logrady

you'll see I'm labelled as a "casual mapper (active)". I don't know how this is calculated but I think it might provide some further insight on how metrics can be used to create categories such as causal mapper within OSM.

Hi @logrady Thank you for the above. Honestly, to start with, as part of the development process, I think a lot of new functionality related to mapping is going to be based on "someone sets it" model.

It is important that we iterate through process of what does it mean that we can mark a mapper a validator, or mark a mapper as a good mapper. Specifics of how that could be judged have to be teased out more.

Some of this could be validator specific too, the list of people they consider good mappers could be unique to them just to be used as an aid to how they work.

Lots to figure out

@bgirardot @logrady To grade someone as a good mapper we have to first understand what a good mapper is. I do not judge mappers by the number of tiles they have completed or by the number of OSM edits they have made. I look at each person's work, the first tile they do is not a good judge of what they are capable of. When I spot someone who shows potential I go to the 'stats' and check which tiles they have completed (because this is the quickest way of finding their work). I then look through them from first to last. I am looking for a number of markers. A...... Are they consistently identifying features correctly from the imagery. B...... Are they drawing those features at the correct size and shape. C......Are they using the tags correctly. D......Is their work improving as they continue. E.......And as a bonus for us..... are they mapping intelligently. The type of comment I would send to this person is ....... "Good/Excellent work @xxxxxxx Thank you for your time and contributing to this project. Your work has been validated. You have shown that you are correctly identifying buildings from the background imagery and drawing them accurately at the correct size and shape. This is the kind of standard we need so please keep mapping." I have had a number of really good responses from this kind of feedback. My point is that letting good mappers know they are good is more likely to give them the encouragement to continue with confidence, and this is probably more productive. Please do not get me wrong, I am not against one-offs or occasional mappers. I encourage the validators that I mentor to identify new mappers and help them to improve so that it helps to reduce their workload. But I am also realistic. Drawing maps is not going to fit easily with everyone. People come along to Mapathons because so many have a fascination with maps and the 'humanitarian' tag also helps but the drop out rate is about 60% in London (please correct me if I am wrong here, I have not analysed these figures recently) and Pascal Neis's figures for 2015 showed that the top 10% accounted for 75% of the total edits, that is 550 mappers out of 5596. (These figures do have discrepancies so should be taken as an estimate and not as precision accuracy). So I believe our time is better spent nurturing the ones that are showing an interest by returning to do more and those that show a definite aptitude for this kind of project. I would be delighted if we could have a retention rate of 100% but that is just dreaming in La La Land. It is 1:15 am here and I am going to bed now but I will address the other issues tomorrow.

@RAytoun

Thank you so much for sharing these ideas about what makes a good mapper. I think these are the kind of metrics better suited to curriculum development and something I could use in that context. It's this type of material and ideas that I have (subconsciously?) looking for with respect to developing an online course for new mappers. I had gotten away from thinking in this way due to the content I've been reading as of late.

hotosm / osm-tasking-manager2

Notification mechanism to inform contributors of emergent campaigns #894

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