The slum mapping projects are not really "crowdsourcing", although there are elements of it. They are primarily participatory mapping exercises, the visible di

The slum mapping projects are not really "crowdsourcing", although there are elements of it. They are primarily participatory mapping exercises, the visible digital output at the end is the map. The participants are primarily those who live in the slums. Public participatory mapping projects have happened for decades now, often happening without computers and more tied into the planning side of things. The article is quite correct, for these types of mapping projects, the map is a visible end result, not the intended object. The planning part of the process is required and needed. What the confusion with "crowdsourcing", humanitarian mapping and public participation mapping is with OpenStreetMap - anyone can contribute from anywhere to anyplace, therefore it's crowdsourcing. And with the recent Ebola humanitarian mapping, anyone can trace aerial imagery and add in whole towns that were never mapped before ever to a map for use by aid organisations primarily. So they both use the same stack, they both are in developing countries, but the people doing the mapping are different. local people mapping their own area and it being used not mainly by aid organisations for humanitarian purposes, and international (the true, faceless crowd) people mapping crises areas and it not being used by the local people for local planning. All this doesn't contradict what the article states. It's even more important that these mapping projects are being used for local planning. But it's important to see that OpenStreetMap mapping in developing countries is not all crowdsourced mapping.