OpenStreetMap
I was going to do some more field name surveying next week, but shock, horror, it is no longer possible to “make an atlas” on fieldpapers.org.
DeBigC and I have tried to find out why. There was a post on GitHub, even before I noticed it, but no reply. DeBigC was more successful on Reddit, where the reason is given as having run out of funding.
This really is a shame; it was such a useful tool. Maybe there is a way to bring it back?
EDIT 11-01-2023 21:41: It’s back working again, very strange.
Discussion
Comment from SK53 on 11 January 2023 at 14:51
I suspect this is part and parcel of Stamen withdrawing support for various tile layers. It was rather hidden away in a post by Alan McConchie on the #30daymapchallenge, but I think we reported it on weeklyOSM, but didn’t spot that it might affect Field Papers.
Comment from tyr_asd on 11 January 2023 at 14:52
The Sketch Map Tool from HeiGIT might be a replacement for fieldpapers in the mid term. Compared to fieldpapers, currently the downsides are that it only produces single page maps, and the results of the scanned-in maps are GeoTiffs. These GeoTiffs can be opened in JOSM using the ImportImage plugin after renaming the file ending from
.geotiffto.tiff.Comment from b-unicycling on 11 January 2023 at 15:55
Thanks for the feedback. I’ll give Sketch Map a try.
Comment from DeBigC on 12 January 2023 at 00:00
I’m glad that our efforts to engage caused the server to be rebooted and the issues cleared up.
I think that while fieldpapers is not an editor as such, mappers need to have a diversity of such tools in place to encourage craft-mappers. I used fieldpapers several times in the #MapLesotho with groups of 12 mappers who walked all over a village called Lencer’s Gap outside the capital city in 2016.
The benefits of the tool are that it allows a group of surveyors to split up and cover ground and meet in the middle somewhere when finished. The group agreed a shorthand before going out, H=house, S=shed, Sh=shop, and L1 for a one story building etc… that shorthand is flexible which is a positive because it allows those who don’t know the tagging schema to participate.
I am adding my voice in a request to the osmf to rescue this tool from the difficulties that it experienced in the last few years that mean it was down more often than available.