Wouldn’t it be cool to have an editor where multiple people could edit on one session and see each others edits in real time? You and your friends could map all buildings in a town together and finish it in quick order.
Hi, welcome.
There is MapRoulette: MapRoulette where people can set up a framework of ‘bite-sized’ tasks so that a collective effort can have a more immediate impact than what one person can do.
So, for example, a town can be divided into grid squares and the task is to map all the buildings. If there is a higher concentration of buildings at certain locations like the town centre, then those grid squares can be split into smaller tasks. When each grid square is complete, it can be saved. The completeness of the task can then be verified.
One important rule for MapRoulette is that you need to stay within your own grid square. The problem being that if two or more people map in exactly the same place, at the same time, there can be conflicts, double-mapped objects, wasted work, etc. Being able to watch other people map possibly increases the risks, not decreases them.
The best place to be able to see other people’s work is on the finished map. You can periodically refresh that map if you want.
There is the option of using video chat systems and having someone else’s screen view reproduce for people to watch.
No it wouldn’t be cool it would be a PITA.
How do I know? Because potlatch 1s live mode was essentially that.
The app StreetComplete has a team mode. It works for up to 12 devices. Every device gets asked different questions in the same area.
Even if upload can be set to automatically, data download ist not. So on your device you dont see the progress or input from other users in real time.
We did some mapping walks here in the past, and besides dividing ad hoc “tasks” among the contributors (like we do the left you do the right side, or one does barriers, another one housenumbers, a third one building levels and yet another one street lamps, …), a very common operation was deleting the cached data from the device, so that you got the other’s updates and the probability of conflicts was reduced.
Haha, sounds like it has been tried already.
MapComplete locks the task you’ve chosen, so another mapper will not get the same task. They each use their own preferred editor, which does not lock the area or objects the mapper edits.
If the mappers upload after each edit, then flag the task as completed, this usually causes no conflicts, even when several mappers map in the same area.
I am not convinced that it would meaningfully help with that part