Talk:Beginners Guide 1.1

bit wordy

This page is a bit wordy I feel, "What data to add" in particular with the suggested data to get. I'm not really sure yet, but I'm considering just moving this chunk all together. I think the order in which people map varies between people, and is pretty obvious. If people want to map a town, then roads/amenities etc. will obviously be mapped. The actual order isn't really correct anyway for mapping in general, since usually you would map details up when making a map, although in OSM it's usually reversed. I tend to do details up as in adding the fine detail all the rest gets done as you go. Beginners don't want to be hit with a wall of text anyway, so unless really necessary, then I think we should shrink down this beginners guide page. I shall do so if there are no objections within a week or so. Ben 00:02, 10 April 2008 (BST)

I've updated the page based on my comment above, slightly more than a week later. Anyway, the section on 'WGS-84' is still there, but overly complex for a beginner, and I have no idea what this is refering to, so could someone else please alter this.

Currently It addresses the problem, by giving the solution, and making the whole ordeal seem complex, before saying 'but you probably don't need to know that'. It would be better to state at the end, that _IF_ they have an issue with 'WGS-84' then do xyz. Ben 19:23, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Removed: "Make sure you collect in, or convert your data before uploading to the WGS-84 lat/lon geographic datum. WGS-84 is the default for GPS receivers, so if you aren't sure about the datum, you are probably ok. Software to gather gps data can be found on the Making_Tracks_with_Homebrew-ware site." Dought it's a common beginner question and it's overly confusing. Ben 14:30, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

GPS "most common"

"GPS - This is currently the most common way of gathering data for OSM". Really? Not sure if this even true averaging over all edits these days (we have no way of telling reliably), but for new contributors I would expect the most common way to gather data would be to spot a missing restaurant or something, and add it in roughly the right place. Simple contributions. No need for a GPS! To avoid putting people off, I would put GPS lower down the list, at lest below 'local knowledge' -- Harry Wood 16:47, 13 September 2012 (BST)

Yes, I fixed and added warnings about outdated information in "local knowledge" and "imagery". See also new Category:Data collection technique. Our previous term "mapping" was too ambiguous, we have to use paragraphs what "mapping" mean. "Data collection" is self-explanatory we should use "data collection" instead of "mapping". Xxzme (talk) 07:59, 4 May 2015 (UTC)