Went to Noida Sector 18 yesterday to scout the venue for our upcoming mapping party.
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First order of things was finding a place which could seat 10-15 people. There was a park with stone bleachers for seating, but it was in a terrible state. I mentally toyed with the idea of bringing a broom and sweeping the thing before we sit on it.
Fortunately, I found there was a pedestrianized street outside the park with lots of benches, including a big one that could seat around 15 people - perfect for us.
The pedestrian street was separated from nearby streets by rows of bollards. As I added these bollards, I was about to tag them as bollard=fixed on autopilot, when I realized that I was witnessing my first example of rising bollards in India.
In another first, a young man saw my OpenStreetMap India T-shirt and asked me about OpenStreetMap, rather than the far more common and paranoid question of “What are you doing?” or “Where (read: which government department) are you from?”
He was a software developer who needed map data for a project, and was weighing the differences between Google Maps and OSM. I invited him to the mapping party, and we exchanged phone numbers.
Later, I evaluated the nearby eateries, and finally ended up getting dinner at the DLF Mall of India - in the process adding many eateries in the area, and adding details for the mall’s food court.
Here’s my changeset for the day, made using #Vespucci. Took me around 90 minutes of active mapping.
Noida Sector 18 - add park details, 4 benches, 4 bollards, 5 restaurants, 9 fast food, cafe, pub, 2 shops, 6 fast food details, food court, ATM, 5 building levels, building, building part, police booth.
#contraMaps #OpenStreetMap #OSM #FreeData #LibreData #OpenData #FreeSoftware #FOSS #OpenSource #Libre #FreedomRespecting #India #Delhi #Noida