Over the past months, I have spoken to a few different people about the friction that can exist when groups of new contributors engage with OpenStreetMap in areas where there is already existing and active community. Whilst the prompt for writing this diary entry has been recent issues in Panama (between a local YouthMappers chapter and a small group of active local mappers), the content isn’t specific only to that situation and has been informed by multiple people across multiple continents (as well as my own experience).

The issue in itself is also not at all new - I remember if from 2014 when we started the Missing Maps project. What is new is that I now work in HOT’s community team and it’s actually my job to try and work out how to grow the OSM community in a way that respects the past and the future of the project and the community.

You may wonder what the situation in Panama has to do with HOT and I think there are two answers to this.

Firstly, we run the HOT instance of the tasking manager (TM). We see the TM as a community asset and, whilst we don’t originate every project on there (for example, in 2020, HOT originated 17% of all published projects), we do develop and maintain the technology as well as providing the workflows and onboarding for people that want to create and manage specific projects. For example, a majority of YM chapters contribute by mapping through the TM (including the Panama chapter who organised local projects to be set up in collaboration with the global YM team).

Secondly, it is HOT’s mission to radically increase quality local map contributions and contributors from across 94 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America / Caribbean over the next five years as part of the Audacious project. We need to be good at making sure that new mappers build on what already exists in collaboration with people and communities already actively engaged in the OSM project and that they are welcomed into those same communities.

So, this diary is about identifying some specific ways in which HOT could improve tasking manager workflows (something firmly within our sphere of influence) to help improve the way we bring new contributors into OSM (and especially those, for whom, the TM is one of their first experiences of OSM) and the way we interact and collaborate with them as experienced contributors and communities.

Potential issues to address / aspects to improve

The below aren’t solutions, but rather a list of issues that, if addressed, could maybe contribute to solving some of the issues raised. Please feel free to add additional ideas in the comments (and ask questions / constructively criticise)!

Tasking manager knowledge and understanding (and documentation?)

It is clear that there are misunderstandings around what the TM is and what the mapping process through it looks like. Multiple misconceptions exist around the origin and ownership of projects, who the tool serves and how accessible it is. There is also a lack of understanding around (or buy in to) the two-stage mapping -> validation process as frustrations arise around new mapper edits (including data being deleted / changesets reverted) before a validation process has had time to take place. This can not only discourage new mappers, but also can stop an important learning process taking place.

Tasking manager transparency - project creators

When the tasking manager was completely open for anyone to build projects in, there was a serious problem with data quality as some projects were poorly described and / or lacked proper instructions and guidance for mappers. HOT adjusted TM policy so that organisations and groups had to register and complete ‘onboarding’ in order to become a project creator (ie. be able to post a new project). Now, through the tasking manager, anyone can find a project’s creator and message them. One issue with the Panama situation was that one staff member from the YM global team is managing all YM’s tasks (currently serving >200 chapters). This makes transparency through the TM difficult as OSM contributors only know who technically implemented the project, not who requested it or is managing it locally.

Room for improvement in ‘social responsibility’ onboarding for project creators / managers

The main focus of onboarding for project creators / managers is technical project implementation - essentially trying to make sure that standards are met and that mappers are able to do what is asked of them in an effective way. Onboarding does cover expectations and skills around; engaging local communities and contributors, responding to questions and info requests, closing out projects, ensuring documentation on the wiki (in the case of organised editing), etc, but it is clear that this aspect of the onboarding could be developed and strenghthened.

Classification of areas of interest (for beginners)

One issue that arose through the Panama situation was that an urban environment was categorised as a beginner project. Current onboarding and guidance for project creators doesn’t support them to make sure that the environment to be mapped is commensurate with the experience of the group of mappers, espercially when there are likely to be many beginners.

Project documentation not well integrated / emphasised

Regardless of the quality of the project documentation on the OSM wiki (a convention established in the organised editing guidelines), the TM project template / onboarding process does not emphasise the importance of documentation or link to it if it is available.

TM projects don’t always get closed out

Inactive (or barely active) projects can ‘hang around’ on the TM for a long time, meaning data in OSM can be incomplete across the area of interest. This can also cause issues if other editing work is starting in the same / overlapping areas. Also, the longer a project is open, the harder it becomes to find the people who were involved in requesting / creating it.

TM projects can overlap (each other or projects in other TM instances)

There is currently no way of knowing or efficiently checking whether other projects in the HOT TM or in other instances of the tasking manager overlap an area of interest. This means that it is theoretically possible (and occassionally occurs) that multiple projects draw different groups of mappers to contribute data for the same area (basically saying to mappers, “this area needs mapping” when it potentially is being / has already been mapped).

Feedback through the TM

Whilst this is possible, it is not easy or intuitive (and this applies to feedback / questions directed to the project creator / manager or to HOT itself).

Finding active mappers local to a project is not easy (especially for new mappers)

Currently, there is significant tacit knowledge needed to be able to be able to find local contributors and interact with them. Whilst this is a more generic issue that we would like to dive deeper into in the near future (there are, of course, multiple tools and methods available to do this), there is little space given to this within the TM itself. We know that for some mappers, the TM is one of their first experiences of OSM, so helping them to integrate into / collaborate with existing contributors / communities within the platform could potentially be of benefit.

Feedback welcome!

Please feel free to add anything I have missed and correct anything I have wrong. Once we have done a bit more consultation on this topic, we (at HOT) can look at if / how we might go about addressing the above and what the priorities should be.

BTW, a big thanks to everyone who spoke to me about this and helped me to identify and articulate the above, but especially Rory and Mario for helping me understand the specific issues from the Panama situation. Your time was much appreciated.