5 ms·

Why would you have your own database ?! That's what OpenStreetMap is for.

by Faaak 6y ago

timthorn 6y ago
Because they're using Ordnance Survey maps, which is what walkers in the UK tend to use.
- arethuza 6y ago
  I'd love to know what proportion of walkers have any kind of map, even in areas where it is strongly recommended.
  - mhh__ 6y ago
    OS maps are brilliant so anyone who has walked in n degrees away/with a soldier, scout, or (say) DofE walker will have used an OS map. In my experience of walking on dartmoor most people are intelligent enough to realise that they build prisons on moors for a reason, so have maps.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - arethuza 6y ago
      I wish I could be so confident - I carry print outs of OS maps as backups when walking Munros in the Highlands and I frequently encounter people who don't have maps. I've even had people ask me on fairly non-obvious Munros which mountain they were on - I gave them my backup map. Mind you they were locals so probably hadn't been raised with dire warnings about going into the hills unprepared. Edit: I notice that "lost" is a significant entry in mountain rescue statistics: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-54158079 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-54158079
      - rfergie 6y ago
        I am very surprised by this. I suppose somewhere like Ben Nevis maybe 90% of the people you meet won't have a map and it is possible that places like this will represent a large proportion of the total people you meet when doing a round. So maybe it does make sense that you frequently encounter people without a map doing Munros just because most of the people you encounter are on Munros like Ben Nevis But the restriction to "non-obvious" Munros doesn't match with my experience
        arethuza 6y ago
        Sorry - I meant that I personally have only ever spoken to people who didn't appear to know where they were a couple of times and they happened to be on what I would have thought were slightly odd hills for someone to just wander up. In both cases they asked me where they were and I gave them a map and showed them where they were - which I hoped helped. I have spoken to other people on popular hills who didn't have maps - but at least they knew where they were (if perhaps a bit vague about the way up/down....).
      - globular-toast 6y ago
        Reminds me of when I encountered people on top of Kinder Scout the day after heavy rainfall trying to navigate across the middle using Google maps. Surprisingly, their map showed a path. There is no path, even though there is a right of way. OS shows the right of way, but I imagine OS map users would know that right of way doesn't mean "path". On OSM I have made efforts to tag the physical properties of a way separately to any enshrined rights but it's hard to get right. I've used GPS to navigate for many years now. I used to carry paper maps, but you need a compass (and the ability to use it) to make it useful if you get lost in the moors or something. I just carry a backup Garmin now instead of paper maps.
        arethuza 6y ago
        Entertainingly, at least in retrospect, I made the same mistake a couple of times when I switched to using GPS - I descended the wrong ridge from a top. No real harm done but I do think GPS made me pay less attention to where I was than I would have before when mainly using a paper map.
  - Theodores 6y ago
    It is this principle of making you pay for stuff twice that goes on with the British government. Even postcodes and weather data get this tax. In the US if the federal government makes something then the tax payer has paid for it and it is therefore there for the tax payer to use. So pretty pictures from NASA and the zip code database and even weather observations/predictions are all there for the taking. In the UK the tax payer has paid for Ordnance Survey already but you have to pay for the maps and get fully extorted to use them in your own publications. There was a time when photocopying an OS map in the library for a planning application was fraught with difficulty. That is why the Google people were clever with Street View - they built their own maps and are not beholden to OS. So it is not as if the government goes out of its way to furnish the UK population with the best maps it can. It hoards the map data. It is tantamount to victim blaming to berate those caught on the dales during bad weather with no map other than that which came with the dead battery on their phone. The OS work for the crown and not the people. If Slow Ways had gone OpenStreetMap you can bet the landing page would have the map around your British house with routes highlighted.
    - arethuza 6y ago
      I think that's being a bit hard on the OS - I think they've been pushed by different governments over the years to become more commercial and hard-nosed about raising revenue wherever they can. I'm actually pretty surprised they haven't been privatised. https://weownit.org.uk/public-ownership/ordnance-survey https://weownit.org.uk/public-ownership/ordnance-survey Edit: OS maps are 'freely' available through Bing Maps.
    - timthorn 6y ago
      The OS and Met Office (and various other bodies) are established as Trading Funds. That means that they are responsible for their income and expenditure and have to balance their own books - the government pays for services in the same way that the private sector does. If the OS didn't sell its data, the government would have to pay a lot more to have the range and quality of cartographic services that are available. It's also worth saying that government departments are free to purchase mapping (or weather) services from other agencies in the free market, and I've seen OSM based providers winning contracts before. Finally, weather data is made freely available by the Met Office, but it is the forecasts are commercial. The same base data is used by eg Meteo Group for their forecasts.
  - dboreham 6y ago
    You're probably not in the UK?
    - arethuza 6y ago
      Yes - Scotland? NB Police Scotland have been urging to be better prepared when going into the hills, so I don't think its just me! https://www.northern-times.co.uk/news/police-scotland-urge-hill-walkers-to-plan-their-route-and-be-prepared-with-appropriate-clothing-and-equipment-209984/ https://www.northern-times.co.uk/news/police-scotland-urge-h...

Why would you have your own database ?! That's what OpenStreetMap is for.

by Faaak 6y ago

Why would you have your own database ?! That's what OpenStreetMap is for.

timthorn 6y ago

Because they're using Ordnance Survey maps, which is what walkers in the UK tend to use.

arethuza 6y ago
I'd love to know what proportion of walkers have any kind of map, even in areas where it is strongly recommended.
- mhh__ 6y ago
  OS maps are brilliant so anyone who has walked in n degrees away/with a soldier, scout, or (say) DofE walker will have used an OS map. In my experience of walking on dartmoor most people are intelligent enough to realise that they build prisons on moors for a reason, so have maps.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - arethuza 6y ago
    I wish I could be so confident - I carry print outs of OS maps as backups when walking Munros in the Highlands and I frequently encounter people who don't have maps. I've even had people ask me on fairly non-obvious Munros which mountain they were on - I gave them my backup map. Mind you they were locals so probably hadn't been raised with dire warnings about going into the hills unprepared. Edit: I notice that "lost" is a significant entry in mountain rescue statistics: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-54158079 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-54158079
    - rfergie 6y ago
      I am very surprised by this. I suppose somewhere like Ben Nevis maybe 90% of the people you meet won't have a map and it is possible that places like this will represent a large proportion of the total people you meet when doing a round. So maybe it does make sense that you frequently encounter people without a map doing Munros just because most of the people you encounter are on Munros like Ben Nevis But the restriction to "non-obvious" Munros doesn't match with my experience
      - arethuza 6y ago
        Sorry - I meant that I personally have only ever spoken to people who didn't appear to know where they were a couple of times and they happened to be on what I would have thought were slightly odd hills for someone to just wander up. In both cases they asked me where they were and I gave them a map and showed them where they were - which I hoped helped. I have spoken to other people on popular hills who didn't have maps - but at least they knew where they were (if perhaps a bit vague about the way up/down....).
    - globular-toast 6y ago
      Reminds me of when I encountered people on top of Kinder Scout the day after heavy rainfall trying to navigate across the middle using Google maps. Surprisingly, their map showed a path. There is no path, even though there is a right of way. OS shows the right of way, but I imagine OS map users would know that right of way doesn't mean "path". On OSM I have made efforts to tag the physical properties of a way separately to any enshrined rights but it's hard to get right. I've used GPS to navigate for many years now. I used to carry paper maps, but you need a compass (and the ability to use it) to make it useful if you get lost in the moors or something. I just carry a backup Garmin now instead of paper maps.
      - arethuza 6y ago
        Entertainingly, at least in retrospect, I made the same mistake a couple of times when I switched to using GPS - I descended the wrong ridge from a top. No real harm done but I do think GPS made me pay less attention to where I was than I would have before when mainly using a paper map.
- Theodores 6y ago
  It is this principle of making you pay for stuff twice that goes on with the British government. Even postcodes and weather data get this tax. In the US if the federal government makes something then the tax payer has paid for it and it is therefore there for the tax payer to use. So pretty pictures from NASA and the zip code database and even weather observations/predictions are all there for the taking. In the UK the tax payer has paid for Ordnance Survey already but you have to pay for the maps and get fully extorted to use them in your own publications. There was a time when photocopying an OS map in the library for a planning application was fraught with difficulty. That is why the Google people were clever with Street View - they built their own maps and are not beholden to OS. So it is not as if the government goes out of its way to furnish the UK population with the best maps it can. It hoards the map data. It is tantamount to victim blaming to berate those caught on the dales during bad weather with no map other than that which came with the dead battery on their phone. The OS work for the crown and not the people. If Slow Ways had gone OpenStreetMap you can bet the landing page would have the map around your British house with routes highlighted.
  - arethuza 6y ago
    I think that's being a bit hard on the OS - I think they've been pushed by different governments over the years to become more commercial and hard-nosed about raising revenue wherever they can. I'm actually pretty surprised they haven't been privatised. https://weownit.org.uk/public-ownership/ordnance-survey https://weownit.org.uk/public-ownership/ordnance-survey Edit: OS maps are 'freely' available through Bing Maps.
  - timthorn 6y ago
    The OS and Met Office (and various other bodies) are established as Trading Funds. That means that they are responsible for their income and expenditure and have to balance their own books - the government pays for services in the same way that the private sector does. If the OS didn't sell its data, the government would have to pay a lot more to have the range and quality of cartographic services that are available. It's also worth saying that government departments are free to purchase mapping (or weather) services from other agencies in the free market, and I've seen OSM based providers winning contracts before. Finally, weather data is made freely available by the Met Office, but it is the forecasts are commercial. The same base data is used by eg Meteo Group for their forecasts.
- dboreham 6y ago
  You're probably not in the UK?
  - arethuza 6y ago
    Yes - Scotland? NB Police Scotland have been urging to be better prepared when going into the hills, so I don't think its just me! https://www.northern-times.co.uk/news/police-scotland-urge-hill-walkers-to-plan-their-route-and-be-prepared-with-appropriate-clothing-and-equipment-209984/ https://www.northern-times.co.uk/news/police-scotland-urge-h...