Hi all,
This reminds me of an extra requirement I have for a project:
"I want my ushahidi instance to completely run open source and open data"...
and also to completely run offline.
Using TileCache and OSM makes it fairly easy (although an option in
the admin interface would be fantastic). I've not done anything about
geonames, though, but I can't imagine it's too hard to make offline.
Aside, another great extra I've found with using OSM is that you can
then make it easy to let users edit the map (with a simple
click-on-the-map-to-potlatch addition to your markup), which is an
important feature of some projects.
Max.
PS. Happy new year all!
On 1 January 2011 21:12, Erik Hersman <
erik@...> wrote:
It's the right place Chris, just most people are offline this week for the
holidays. :)
Erik Hersman
www.ushahidi.com | www.iHub.co.ke
www.afrigadget.com | www.whiteafrican.com | @whiteafrican
US: 407.427.0412 | Kenya: +254 729.157.257 | Skype: ezungu
On Jan 1, 2011, at 10:46 PM, Chris Blow wrote:
Cool thanks Erik.
Let me know if there is a more appropriate forum for brainstorming stuff
like this!
Cheers
c
On Dec 31, 2010, at 12:09 PM, Erik Hersman wrote:
Hey Chris,
Thanks for putting so much thought into this. I can see by your mockup that
you're trying to help us with a solution that could work for both sides.
All the devs are on this list, but since this has to do with design and
usability, I'll talk it over with Caleb once the holiday is over.
Erik Hersman
www.ushahidi.com | www.iHub.co.ke
www.afrigadget.com | www.whiteafrican.com | @whiteafrican
US: 407.427.0412 | Kenya: +254 729.157.257 | Skype: ezungu
On Dec 30, 2010, at 12:50 PM, Chris Blow wrote:
Really interesting thread! I've been thinking about it all day.
I see Ushahidi as a major catalyst in the open geodata community — and so I
think it would be a missed opportunity to remain completely neutral on this
important choice. But naturally I can see Erik's perspective that, on a
practical level, some people just don't care about this, they just want a
detailed map. I have a mockup (below) to split the different.
But actually, my initial concern was purely pragmatic, about the usability
issue with the error popping up. I just have seen that error so many times,
on every installation, just when I think I am done with the install. :P
I realize this seems trivial to fix for everyone on this list! But I fear
that many of Ushahidi's users:
- will not understand the term "API key"
- will not have a Google account to create an API key
- will not understand the concept of map baselayers, that they can be
changed
So in this sense the OSM option can be seen as the "easy setup" option —
which is the very boring reason why I use OSM on all of my local development
instances. It's just faster to get it running.
Also, notably, in some cases OSM is actually more detailed than Google. (And
for many major cities, OSM is functionally equivalent.)
I remember last year when a high-profile Afghanistan instance was set to
Google Maps even though OSM had a vastly more detailed map. It really was
frustrating — we were trying to communicate with the map administrator, but
he just didn't understand it, or was unwilling to change it. There was so
much parallel work going into the map in the OSM community ...
This was Kabul in Google during the
elections: http://www.flickr.com/photos/unthinkingly/3838485026/in/photostream/
The same view in OSM at the
time: http://www.flickr.com/photos/unthinkingly/3838483594/in/photostream/
And I can see this happening again in the future, especially now that OSM
can use Bing for tracing. OSM has velocity now, and a team of humanitarian
mappers who are deploying in many of the same areas as Ushahidi. So, some
areas are exploding with mapping in response to humanitarian problems, and
the OSM vs. GOOG equation is not the same as it is globally. (For example
Ivory Coast has seen a bunch of edits lately in response to conflict and may
eclipse Google quickly.)
Anyway, I did a mockup of what I think would be a win-win:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/unthinkingly/5306122918/
Design goals in this mockup:
- to avoid the API key error by moving the final map setup step into the
installer process
- to make sure the values of each map's strengths are more clearly stated in
plain language
- that the map coverage is easy to compare on a per-city basis
- help the user generally understand that they can change this aspect of the
page
- make it clearer that choosing Google will require an extra step
would love feedback,
c
On Dec 29, 2010, at 5:22 PM, Milo van der Linden wrote:
Would it be an option to select something like:
"I want my ushahidi instance to completely run open source and open data"
which gives people the possibility to follow their ideal? In that
case, geocoding through google and geonames would also need to be
turned off and replaced by nominatim?
2010/12/29 george chamales <george@...>:
In addition, I believe that the system uses Google to do geolocation of
addresses that are entered into the submit report form.
George Chamales
Konpa Group
Mobile: +1 718.288.7718
Fax: +1 857.488.4002
Skype: notgeorge
http://konpagroup.com
On Tue, Dec 28, 2010 at 10:35 PM, Erik Hersman <erik@...> wrote:
The only problem is a practical one Chris, that is that the OSM maps don't
have nearly as much detail as Google does in many locations globally. We're
neutral on this topic, just pragmatic, as you saw when we switched from
Google to OSM in Haiti.
Erik Hersman
www.ushahidi.com | www.iHub.co.ke
www.afrigadget.com | www.whiteafrican.com | @whiteafrican
US: 407.427.0412 | Kenya: +254 729.157.257 | Skype: ezungu
On Dec 29, 2010, at 9:12 AM, Chris Blow wrote:
hello, happy Christmas everyone,
to me, it makes sense to me to use an OSM baselayer as the default map for
several reasons:
- legal: keeps the default install free of licensing issues
- design: removes the google logo from the page
- UX: avoids the nagging API key error (which is always my first
experience upon installation)
- community: strengthens a partnership with OSM, some of our strongest and
most important friends IMO
thoughts?
Cheers
c
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