Canada subcategory

This Site Feedback ➕ New category requests
1

Category name

Canada

Is this a top-level category or a subcategory?

Subcategory of Communities

Description of its purpose and which open mapping groups it will serve

For questions or discussion about mapping in Canada

Why is this new category needed instead of being hosted as part of the existing ones?

Questions or discussion could go in the “Help and Support” or “General Talk” categories but if they are about Canada specifically they would not be relevant for most users on this forum

Is this a new space or does it already exist on other platforms? Where?

There is an active mailing list, talk-ca.
There was also a category users: Canada created in the migration, but it appears to be read-only. I’m not sure if it can be reused or merged with a new one.

Current volume of messages on the former platforms, if any (per week/per month)

The talk-ca mailing list has about one discussion per month. The discussions can get quite long, so the number of messages is higher. Also there are 2 posts per week (8/month) from weeklyOSM.

Is there a transition plan for the old platform to this new one? (please link or describe)

I sent a message to the talk-ca mailing list a few days ago about creating a category, but it got stuck waiting for moderator approval. As far as I know no other discussions about creating a category here have taken place.

(Optional) A link or list of the category specific guidelines

List the usernames of the category moderators

Since I couldn’t find any previous discussions and I couldn’t reach the talk-ca mailing list I can’t provide a list of moderators. Would anyone like to volunteer?

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2

Thanks for the request.

Please, reply again when you have a list of proposed moderators, they will need to comment here they are OK with the role, and it would be great if you could edit the initial message adding their usernames in these forums and a brief description on why each moderator was proposed. This is asked as part of the process to provide transparency and allow a community conversation to happen here.

As per the current Moderation Selection Criteria note that for the list of moderators to be approved, 5 days of community discussion will need to take place here (always including weekend days) and then a voting poll to validate the list by the community will be open for another 5 days too.

Thanks again!

3

Hello,

Just checking how we can help you and the Canadian community with this request, please let us know anything that unblock you.

If finding three volunteers to be mods is challenging, remember that the role should not be super demanding, since they just need to be around and make sure the guidelines are followed. Any trusted Canadian contributor could help with this.

Cheers.

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4

I’ve put out another call to the talk-ca mailing list. I’ll let other more active and longer standing community members volunteer themselves.

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Who currently moderates the talk-ca@ mailing list? I recommend reaching out to each of them individually and asking for their support.

There is also a Slack workspace for OSM Canada that gets a few messages per month, though the invite link appears to be broken.

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The list owners for talk-ca are Richard Weait and Steve Singer but I suspect neither is very active - there were several months of posts in the moderation queue which I have just cleared.

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7

I’m in. Fluent in both French and English. I’m also on talk-ca for a while.
Daniel

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8

Speaking of English and French, Canada is officially bilingual with English and French. Will there be any rules about language usage, or can people freely express themselves in either language?

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The talk-ca@ mailing list already has posts in both English and French. I imagine this subcategory would remain the same. On Discourse, a translation button shows up below posts that aren’t in your default language.

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10

Great to see there is still interest!

We’ll just need a list of three people and a brief description on why they have been proposed as moderators, then the community will be able to vote on a quick poll to validate and we should be done.

Please, let me know if you have additional questions.

Cheers.

11

I will volunteer to moderate.

I would like to encourage more Canadian-oriented discussion on this forum (instead of the mailing list). Since it sounds like this won’t happen without enough moderators, I’ll put my name forward.

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12

I’m interested as well. Please add me to any considerations.

Eric Geiler
A&B Courier

13

Okay I would like to officially nominate @jfd553 @joel56dt and @Eric_Geiler_A_B_Courier to be moderators of the new Canada subcategory.

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14

Thanks all for volunteering!

Can we have on the first post or in a new message a brief description of each so the community can have a few days to discuss and then we can create a survey to validate it?

Thanks again!

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Thanks for the support!

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Both language are used in the Talk-ca list. I expect the same in this forum.

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17

Since the Canadian Forum is currently “read only”, I think someone with appropriate privilege should open it with an initial message - context, expectation. Then I would present the - to confirm - moderators. If agreed, here is a -not so brief- presentation of my involvement with OSM…

I started getting involved with OSM in 2009. At that time, I was working for NRCan, converting the Canvec product to .osm format according to Canadian OSM community specifications. As Canvec data became available for my area, I imported them and updated what was visible from available images (low satellite resolution at the time).

I retired from NRCan in 2012 to complete a PhD on the OpenStreetMap Contributors Lifecycle (Memorial University of Newfoundland). Although I kept contributing, the volume of my contributions became rather low until I defended my PhD thesis in 2018.

Since then, mapping areas around is my main hobby but I would like to see more discussions about how to map/improve mapping in Canada :slight_smile:

Daniel

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18

@joel56dt @Eric_Geiler_A_B_Courier (or someone else who knows them) can you write a short intro to who you are so people voting to validate the moderator list knows you better?

Thanks!

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I first contributed to OSM in 2016 but I only regularly began contributing in 2020. What motivated me to begin contributing regularly was a quest to move away from big tech. Maps were one of the main tools I felt tied to Google with. I internalized the idea that I could be the change that I wanted to see and have been hooked ever since.

I am from the Vancouver area so most of my mapping focuses here and in BC. I tend to map a lot of bike paths and sidewalks, detailed intersections with turn lanes and crossings, sports courts, and shops. Some of the more esoteric mapping: non-English business names, pronunciations of difficult local names, 3d buildings, and additions to the Name Suggestion Index. I have professional experience using GIS tools for power system analysis so I have some expertise in power system mapping.

I have appreciated the discussion on the talk-ca mailing list, but I find the email format and difficulty in searching to be barriers to contributing. I am hopeful that the ease of use of this forum will draw more people into the conversation and improve how we map Canada!

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20

@nukeador

Hello everyone! I just wanted to provide some insight in to my history with Location Intelligence and Mapping.

I work for A&B Courier, we are a regional transportation carrier in the Greater Toronto Area. We provide courier and trucking services within the province of Ontario.

I got involved in mapping to due to my employers need to increase location awareness within our fleet. We looked at a few different solutions Bing, Google, Yahoo, OSM, Mapbox etc. We decided on a hybrid environment, utilizing Mapbox and OSM and a lot of internal development.

My first OSM edit was adding/fixing the motorway junctions / ramps for HWY 400 @ Highway 9 to ensure our drivers received accurate navigation requests when routing from the Newmarket Area into the GTA. Since then, I’ve been a semi-active contributor to OSM, my edits are mainly for new streets, new subdivisions, new commercial buildings, and associated ways to assist with navigation and rendering.

We mapped a lot of loading docks, doorways to commercial properties and warehouses in the GTA.

My current mapping weakness/lack of experience are ; public transit relations, train / rail relations.

My current mapping strengths would be, turn restrictions, lanes, traffic signals, stop signs, and other “nodes” that can affect routing / timing / etas. We also concentrate on address numbering for commercial properties and ensure that the address node / building is reachable from a public way. Our drivers seem to regularly arrive behind buildings due to building roof top being closer to a side street than the routable approach a driver would expect. Slowly but surely we are correcting these issues on OSM by adding the applicable service roads, parking aisles and driveways where possible.

I’m a member of the talk-ca mailing list, but i tend not to post much to the mailing list. I’d love to see the OSM Canada Slack channel become more active, that would be one of my goals this year.

We have contributed over 2million images to Mapillary, and will be resuming our street level imagery collecting shortly. Currently our fleet travels about 40,000 km per business day on average. This in turn provides excellent feedback channels to obtain ground truths via imagery or surveys.

Unfortunately, I rarely have time to dedicate to mapping issues outside of Ontario.

Thanks for your time everyone and have a great Canada Day Long Weekend!

Eric Geiler
A&B Courier

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