For the SES stations, while it would certainly be possible to do a mass change on all of them to =disaster_response, operator= details couldn’t be done on the same change as the operator will change according to which state that they are located in.
Just for interests sake, we currently have a cyclone approaching the Queensland coast, so a Warning message has been put out.
Part of it reads:
“For emergency assistance call the Queensland State Emergency Service (SES) on 132 500 (for assistance with storm damage, rising flood water, fallen trees on buildings or roof damage).”
So that’s their advertised primary role/s in cases of severe weather.
1 Like
I think we are comming closer and closer to starting the vote for this proposal.
I gave the proposal page a general cleanup without realy changing the information content. It would be nice if some people would check if …
- … the proposal only includes discussed information where we found consensus.
- … the page is understandable for people who didn’t read all of this 120+ posts long thread and are not familiar with disaster response organisations.
- … no information that is crutial for a proposal is missing.
What do you think about the proposal page in general?
The proposal still has the status “draft”. If I understand the proposal process page right we need to do a RFC (request for comments) before starting the vote by sending a mail to the tagging mailing list and starting a thread in the forum. Would we still need to start a thread or does this one already count as an RFC-tread?
As we do not include a mass edit into the proposal, should we add something like this to the page? Or is this clear without saying?
Mass edits
Mass edits of existing elements are not part of this proposal. Such edits may get discussed seperatly after
emergency=disaster_responsegets approved.
@Polarbear, the original creator of the proposal, asked a question about the deprecation of emeregency_service=technical on the proposal discussion page. I am not sure if everyone following this discussion is also watching the proposal discussion page, so if you have comments about the question asked feel free to discuss over there.
Thank you. I think the proposal could use some better pictures, especially of objects (e.g. buildings) that would actually get this tag.
A picture of a truck, or two men with helmets inspecting a piece of concrete, doesn’t help as much, because we don’t map those 
1 Like
I added some pictures and described the situation for Germany in a bit more detail, see here. Is it now better/easyer to understand?
I think these pictures help you to get an idea of what the organisation does. Do they or are they just confusing?
Can someone help adding some pictures for the Australian SES? As I don’t have detailed knowlege about them I can’t realy add so much about them.
Done! 
As always, though, finding photos we can use is an issue 
1 Like
I asked some guestions in this post, that where not realy answered yet.
How exactly does this RFC-thing work? Would it be wise to start the RFC or is it too early?
You are supposed to open any new proposals to RFC (Request For Conversation, I think?) so as to let mappers know that you are putting forward a proposal, & get their comments / questions / suggestions / complaints. You are then expected to answer said questions & explain when necessary, & probably make amendments to the proposal based on them.
RFC is to stay open for “at least” 2 weeks, then the proposal is moved to “voting” for at least another 2 weeks, to see if it is approved by the majority of mappers. However, most proposals only get in the order of 20 votes out of a few million OSM mappers!
So as to avoid complaints that nobody knew about the proposal, it certainly wouldn’t hurt to post an RFC message, both here & on the tagging mailing list, with links back to this thread as “external discussions”.
I am not realy sure about the exact border between drafting a proposal and requesting comments. As of now we use the comments here to refine the draft.
From my understanding we de facto already started the request for comments. Since the basics of the proposal have been written into the draft, I changed the status to proposed. To comunicate the existence of the proposal I …
- … created a new topic:
[RFC] Feature Proposal - emergency=disaster_response - … sent an email to the tagging mailing list
- … addad an update about the proposal status to some wiki discussion pages (“The RFC for the proposal
emergency=disaster_responsestarted. Please discuss this proposal on its Wiki Talk page”). I added it to the …- … English discussion of
amenity=emergency_service. If you speak Russian, Ukrainian or Japanese adding a translation to the corresponding discussion pages would be great. - … German and English discussion of
emergency_service=technical. - … English discussion of
emergency=ses_station. If you speak Czech or Spanish adding a translation to the corresponding discussion pages would be grat.
- … English discussion of
Do you see any other places where this information should be published?
3 Likes
No, I think you’ve covered it all.
Would it be possible to move the past discussion on the talk page, which is probably now outdated and detached from the content of the proposal page, to an “archive” where the old, already processed ones are in?
This would sharpen the focus on new, relevant topics in my opinion.
I am not sure what you mean exactly. Do you want to give the discussion page a cleanup by moving parts that are not in discussion any more to a different page?
I see the point that the discussion page in its current state could deter people from commenting. But is it usual to remove content from a discussion page?
Yes, I meant to do a clean up to make it more focused, but I don’t know how to achieve. Maybe a separate page or a “expandable section” if this is available in the wiki?
I added some colapsable sections for big tables. I also marked a lot of the sections as resolved as they got discussed and are now either not relevant anymore or they got adopted into the proposal. Do you think the discussion page is now better understandable?
Thanks, it’s still quite long, but it’s much better now.
I was just worried that people who hadn’t been on the talk site before would be put off looking at it. But on the other hand, I guess people are used to it in OSM
I added a link to the proposal to the discussion page of emergency=disaster_response, even though the page has basiclly no content at the moment.
I currently have a discussion with @Warin61 over at the talk page about when to use emergency=disaster_response. He/She threw the Volunteer Rescue Assosiation into discussion, an organisation that probably fits the proposal.
Now the question came out about when exactly to use emergency=disaster_response. So what is the minimum level of capabilaties a station has to offer to “deserve” this tag? And how do we want to deal with specialised stations, that maybe lack some general disaster response capabilatys in exchange for specialised capabilatys.
It would be great if some of you could join the discussion eighter here in the forum or on the wiki talk page.
1 Like
Without knowing anything about them beyond the name, yes, I would say that they would also be disaster-response, so covered by this tag. Have put it out in the Oz Discord thread for further input.
There are lots of organisations that support during disasters so I think its important to understand which ones are active DURING the disaster (response) and which ones commence POST the disaster (recovery). Is the intention of this proposal only for response? Some organisations will obviously have a role in both (ie Red Cross). Some organisations will also have a role in preparedness as well (pre disaster)
Some other Australian organisations
https://www.slst.asn.au/members-clubs-and-units/marine-rescue-services/
https://disasterreliefaus.org/ - I suspect they are set up for preparedness, response and recovery
https://www.blazeaid.com.au/ - recovery only
NOTE - i have not read all 139 messages so this may have been covered previously.
1 Like