Why I’m out after all these years.
Normally I map on a myopic level and ignore the big picture. Well, I looked at the big picture today, and what a mess. A spider web of roads mislabeled as tracks. Or tracks correctly tagged as tracks. I can’t tell the difference. Sorry, but the Thailand map is just plain ugly now. And wrong. And useless.
The OSM Thailand community seems to have handed the Thai map to FB without a whimper. Only Russ seems to be making an effort. Good on ya’, Russ.
When I map, I fix crooked roads and rivers and sometimes huge mistakes/omissions I find in major roads. I add whatever other features the area needs. I name villages and wats and schools. FB does none of this. Their drones draw roads and nothing else.
And they don’t draw them well. It takes only moments to draw a nice road, they don’t bother. I’m sure they are paid by the node, or highway. VDL018 claims to have drawn 33,800 highways in the last two months. I say bullshit. 600 per day?? I carefully drew 5000 in the same time.
I asked DrishT about the ‘track’ tag, and she said it was the OSM community’s decision, and sent a ref https://forum.openstreetmap.org/viewtopic.php?id=57942&p=2
I read the thread, and find nothing in it to support drawing agricultural roads where normal public traffic roads exist. She herself wrote:
- Tracks - Earlier we were told by some community members not to use this tag, however some have found it useful. After studying local edits, we decided to keep a minimum amount of Tracks for roads that are mostly agricultural or forestry.
Also bullshit. They do not do this.
Just look at the map, and compare it to any other country. I checked those I know well from bicycle trips (US, Netherlands, Germany, France, New Zealand, W. Australia). No one else does this. This would be blocked anywhere else. Other countries use the tag ‘track’ properly. Thailand is being stigmatized for not being able to afford to pave rural roads. Well, the US is a rich country, and most of their rural roads are unpaved. None of them is tagged as a track on OSM.
I asked FB to reserve the province Amnat Charoen for me, which they did, thanks. It’s not finished, even after about 2 months of constant work. But it looks a hell of a lot better than anywhere else and is correct and useful.
For the previous two months, I worked on Yasothon. I left it incomplete when I saw that Amnat was a blank slate. Now I look back at Yasothon and barely recognize it. Another fine mess. A rat’s nest. And wrong. And useless. And ugly.
Other reasons are that it would be nice to have 5 extra hours per day. Maybe my right hand would feel normal. Or I could finish the bathroom I tore apart 2 years ago.
I have the Thailand schools database updated with the provinces I’ve done so far and have lots of suggestions about how to use it. It’s interesting and not hard to do. Please let me know if you want a copy.
Best Wishes, Tom