Open Street Map activist wanted...

[Richard Weait]

On Sun, 2008-08-31 at 11:26 -0400, Colin McGregor wrote:
> Looking for a activist to help finish putting Toronto on the (Open
> Street) Map (http://www.openstreetmap.org/).
> 
> On the weekend of September 20, 21st the people involved in "Open
> Street Map" are looking to map (or finish mapping) a number of cities
> around the world, and it would be nice if Toronto could be one of
> them. So, we need someone to coordinate efforts here in Toronto.
> 
> The goal behind the "Open Street Map" is to have a database of high
> quality geographic information, free of any commercial/government
> entanglements. So, if you want to say produce a custom map showing
> bicycle maps by elevation, no problem. Want to produce a great map
> showing your business, without having to get legal permission, again
> no problem. Information that might not make it on to regular maps,
> like foot path routes can easily be stored. Think a Wikipedia of
> geographic data. Once a free database is available, you can do lots of
> interesting things.

Awesome outline, Colin, and thank you for moving this along in
Toronto.  

Contributing to OSM need not take away from what you planned to do on a
given day.  Some of the things that make OSM a really rich data source
are things like bike paths.  So you can have your family bike outing
leave your GPS running in your pocket or backpack to collect track data,
and make notes of the posted names of the trails (and where they start
and stop).  

The beltline trail and the Martin goodman trail are both great
candidates to include in OSM for cyclists / roller skaters / runners.  

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