[spectre] Mapchester Mapping Weekend

[Drew Hemment]

Mapchester: Making an open-source map for Manchester

Download this invite: http://10.futuresonic.com/download/ 
mapchester_invite.pdf


INVITATION
Mapping Weekend
Saturday 13th and Sunday 14th May, 2006

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/Mapchester

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** When bands like the Happy Mondays stalked the Hacienda, Manchester  
was dubbed 'Madchester'; now, a new generation of phreaks are in  
town, renaming the city 'Mapchester', showing that it isn't just  
music that puts the city on the map. **
++++++++

Mapchester is a collaborative 'wikimap' project, generated and  
maintained by users in the same way as Wikipedia. It kicks off with a  
Mapping Weekend, when Manchester is mapped in a weekend! A number of  
spin off projects will then take place during the Futuresonic  
festival, 20-23 July 2006 under the Mapchester banner, and the data  
generated will be used in a test-case festival guide.

Mapchester will generate a new kind map of Manchester - produced by  
collective, community effort that will be completely copyright-free.  
Mapchester was first proposed at the PLAN workshop (http://www.open- 
plan.org), as a test-case for how a city could be mapped and a guide  
for a festival created on collaborative and open principles.

Mapping Weekend invitation: We are seeking map hackers and citizen  
cartographers to participate in mapping the city for free. Our goal  
is to bring together as wide an array of different people who are  
interested in mapping and get them to walk / cycle / drive / bus /  
train / skate / etc / along city streets recording GPS tracks and  
noting down road names. These tracks will then be put online in the  
OpenStreetMap database and edited into map features. We hope that  
collectively people will work to completely map whole quarters of the  
city over the weekend.

Please spread the word about Mapchester and forward this invitation  
to come and map Manchester to other people who might be interested.

Getting involved:

|||| How: Just come along and choose an area of central Manchester to  
map. Head out with a GPS device (Global Positioning System, which  
monitors signals from satellites to record location) and notepad to  
record street names and other notable features. You can map for the  
whole day or just for a few hours. No prior mapping experience needed  
- intro briefings and equipment training will be provided.
|||| When: Saturday 13th and Sunday 14th May, 2006. Welcome briefings  
held at 10am and 2pm both days.
|||| Where: Mapchester HQ, Lower Ground Floor, 117-119 Portland  
Street, Manchester M1 6ED, see http://manchesterdda.com/article/12/ .  
(The space has been generously provided by the Manchester Digital  
Development Agency and they are also helping in signing people up to  
take part.)
|||| Registering: if you are interested in participating please send  
an email: mapchester at manchesterdda.com or call Jo Blackwell on tele:  
0161 255 8111. (Please indicate on what days you want to participate  
and whether you have your own GPS / laptop.)
|||| Refreshments: Drinks and a sandwich lunch will be provided for  
participants.
|||| What to bring: If you have it please bring your own mapping  
equipment (GPS, laptop, camera, notepad + pencil, etc). If you don't  
have a GPS receiver, don't worry, there will be a number of extra  
units available on each day. If you have never used a GPS receiver,  
don't worry either, hands on training will be provided.
|||| Further questions: please contact Martin Dodge  
(m.dodge at manchester.ac.uk).


Some background:

Mapchester is an experiment in 'citizen cartography' that we hope  
will make a significant contribution to wider efforts in so-called  
'open-source' mapping. This an emerging and rapidly growing  
cartographic activity, driven in part by technology (cheap GPS  
equipment and online collaboration tools, like OpenStreetMap.org),  
but also by a very different ethos to knowledge production. Under  
open-source models the right of authorship are de-centred and the  
ownership of knowledge is seen as a common resource that can be  
distributed and re-used without restriction or license. As such  
'opening' up mapmaking has real potential to empower people to create  
their own knowledge and encourages re-use of cartographic resources  
in novel, creative ways.

The map data produced for central Manchester will contribute to  
OpenStreetMap.org, one of the leading projects in the open-source  
mapping field. Currently, OpenStreetMap has mapped 25,000 kilometres  
of roads in the UK, including all motorways. However, thus far the  
majority of this data is for London and Birmingham and many other  
major cities are hardly mapped at all. It is hoped that an intensive  
effort to build a map of the whole of a city in a weekend will  
inspire others and be important to build momentum across the country.

All the map data generated for Mapchester will be free to view, edit  
and use via the  OpenStreetMap platform. An editable map will also be  
created and used as a test-case festival guide for the Futuresonic  
International Festival, held in Manchester 20-23 July 2006.


Mapchester mapping weekend is supported by:

|||| Future Everything / Futuresonic International Festival
    (http://www.futureeverything.org/)
|||| University of Manchester, School of Environment and Development
    (http://www.sed.manchester.ac.uk/geography/)
|||| Manchester Geographical Society (http://www.mangeogsoc.org.uk/)
|||| Manchester Digital Development Agency (http:// 
www.manchesterdda.com/)

Mapchester organising committee:

Steve Coast (OpenStreetMap.org); Drew Hemment (Future Everything);  
Mick Lockwood (Salford University); Martin Dodge & Chris Perkins  
(Geography, University of Manchester).

Thanks to:

Mikel Maron (WorldKIT), Libby Miller (FOAF), Ben Russell (PLAN),  
Steve Benford (Mixedreality Lab) and all others supporting this project.

Please spread the word about Mapchester and forward this invitation  
to come and map Manchester to other people who might be interested.