Went to Noida Sector 18 yesterday to scout the venue for our upcoming mapping party.

I rely on the community’s donations to make ends meet, so if you like my contributions, support me on Liberapay!

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

Now that both #MangroveReviews and #MapComplete support editing and deleting your reviews, I set about making some much-needed improvements.

My review of Agasi now also describes the ambience a little, and ends on a more positive note to accurately reflect my feelings.

My review of Manoj Nān Wālā also got some tweaks.

Both also got some new photographs on #WikimediaCommons and #Panoramax! Check out my recent uploads on Wikimedia Commons

I discovered that there is a slight caveat to how MapComplete handles edits of reviews, but I hope it will be fixed with time.

As always, I rely on the community’s donations to make ends meet. If you like my contributions, support me on Liberapay!

#contraReviews #OpenStreetMap #OSM #FreeData #LibreData #OpenData #FreeSoftware #FOSS #OpenSource #Libre #FreedomRespecting #India #Delhi #Food #Reviews

@mangroveReviews Should the review of a restaurant try to cover as much of their menu as possible?

Or should a review represent a single visit, encouraging people to write about multiple visits (and orders) through multiple reviews?

cc @MapComplete

#OpenStreetMap #OSM #MangroveReviews #Food #OpenData #LibreData