Israeli/Palesitnian Joint Mapping Party

Communities יִשְׂרָאֵל (Israel)
#1

Hi all,

I was contacted by one of the people behind JumpStart to see if there will be a interest in a joint mapping party for Israelis and Palestinians.

JumpStart is a project that lends GPS devices to people in developing areas, so they can map their area,
thus helping them get on the technology wagon, as well as help OSM :slight_smile:

It was done in Gaza and the West Bank as well,
and you can see how good it did for the mapping coverage in these areas.

Personally, I don’t know of any place that we could have a joint mapping party,
as Palestinian are not allowed in Israel, and Israelis are not going in Zone A places.
But I could be wrong.

Maybe the old city of Jerusalem?
Do you think we can do better than that?
http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3833303,00.html

Thoughts? Ideas?

talkat.

#2

Hey,
If it’s in Jerusalem I’m in!
Some points I think are important:

  • Mapping in English, Arabic and Hebrew
  • Mapping for routing
  • Focus on Holy and Historical Places and POIs (Let’s face it, most souvenir shops are the same…)
  • Opening hours and admission fees
  • Print flyers explaining about OSM in 3 Languages, to put in POIs so people who visit Jerusalem actually use the map

We should find a HQ for meeting before and after (preferably with computers?).
What else?

#3

I would say:

Decide of a meeting place, preferably with Internet (a cafe with free wi-fi is enough)

Get as many people as possible.

Divide the area among the people.

Go out and get new data for OSM.
Not everyone needs a GPS. People without a GPS can take notes on paper, like information about position of POIs, etc.

Meet again after 60-90 minutes.

Go home and update the OSM with the tracks and POIs.

talkat.

#4

So what’s next? when do we have a Jerusalem Mapping Party?

#5

Some news:

I was contacted again by the JumpStart people.

Jerusalem might be problematic to some of the Palestinians,
so they came up with the idea of a “simultaneous mapping party”
Like people from both sides of the border would do mapping parties at the same time.

That brings ideas, like mappers from the 3 areas together, like these 3 places that are roughly on the same line:
ad-Dhahiriya: http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/node/332792048
Netivot: http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/node/278478336
Deir al-Balah: http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/node/505041386

Thoughts anyone?

talkat.

#6

netivot it’s quite distant for me as i’m living in Netanya…