Hello,
I did some edits in Khon Kaen, as I am currently living there.
As I am absolutely new to mapping and those kind of things, is there anything I could do to help in this city?
Thanks a lot
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Hello,
seems there is not much reply to you, which is quite sad. Don’t let this frustrate you.
In the beginning of OSM Thailand, there was a very active mapper in Khon Kaen. Unfortunately he stopped after some disputes about mapping. Besides that I don’t remember any high profile mapper. So if there is no local contact, you can still come up with questions here in the forum.
There is no specific task list we work on. Most mappers have their own preference on what kind of data they would like to see in OSM and that is then the area they focus on.
I think most street geometry is already in OSM. You could check whether you find missing street names to add. You could also check for major POI like schools, temples or petrol stations. Other prefer to map POI like restaurants or pharmacies.
If you are interested in mapping on the go, you could look at StreetComplete. It asks you about missing details nearby your current location and then you can add them “on the go” on your smartphone.
I recommend not to start editing with overly complex tasks. for example editing relations is quite complex and not suitable for beginners. Also trying to map into too much detail is mostly “too much”.
Just think a bit of what kind of contribution would fit your mood. We are happy to support getting you started there.
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Hi Stephan,
For now, I mostly updated POI on the go, using OSMAnd, I’m not sure to be quite accurate in updating geography.
I also updated some missing street names, but most of the streets where I go are already well named.
I also updated POI in the 3rd floor of Central shopping mall, I will do the 2nd floor later, and will add it floor by floor.
Maybe one question : do we have a list of Thai vocabulary that we should translate or not (for example, I know that ซอย is transliterated into soi while ถนน is translated into road). Some like those two examples are obvious, but I have to say that sometimes, I’m still hesitating between transliteration and translation.
Thanks for all your advices.
Regret to inform you that we don’t currently have such explicit instructions. Perhaps tagging according to the sign (if available) is the safe way.
If it’s helpful, other from the soi and road you mentioned, I personally used วัด=Wat, แม่น้ำ=River, and คลอง=Khlong.
Naming is an area where it can get tricky in corner cases. Statements below are for the typical cases. I am certain we can find exceptions as everything has the one or the other.
Most important rule: In Thailand the language is Thai. So usually names are in Thai script. That is in “name” tag. Your editor might hide this technical details for you. To be explicit about this, we frequently have the local name then also in “name:th”.
For the international use, we frequently use the “name:en” tag, which contains the transliterated name (RTGS) and sometimes a translated part of the name. You noticed this already. We translate the “road” part, but keep “wat” as transliteration. We don’t use the translation “temple”.
In Thai the descriptive part of a feature is having a closer connection to the real name, making the combination the name.
There are no hard rules. You can orient yourself on how people name it when you talk with native people about a POI in English. Like “you follow the Sukhumvit road and end up at Wat Pho.”. Not “you follow Thanon Sukhumvit and end up at Pho temple.”.
The type of the POI is described by the respective tags. like amenity=school.
Be careful to not end up using the name tag for description. Also when tagging POI in a mall, be aware that often you are wanting to tag brand and not name. Some editors offer a “auto-complete” feature to get the brand name. Do not try to transfer artistic representations of brands into the tagging. Avoid all-caps.
If you have specific questions, probably best is to come up with them. You can always look up existing tagging on overpass to get an idea on how others tagged something to get an orientation.
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