21.11.2011

Status Grid

Hello Wikimapians!

Today we have released a powerful new tool to help in monitoring and improving the map: the Status Grid. You can find it on the Tools page, it is avaliable for all registered users. The grid is a colorized layer over the map which collects and shows basic statistics about places for each grid cell. It should be helpful in finding badly described areas and tags. The status grid works at zoom levels between 5 and 15.

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The first three lines present common grid cell statistics: total number of places, number of road segments and their length. Below that are information deficiencies in the selected cell grouped by importance. The most important criteria are: how many places don't have a polygon or have a triangular polygon. Less critical are: places without categories, a description or buildings without an address. The final and not critical deficiency is lack of photos. Each group of values has its measure (factor) of influence on the summary percent (in left top corner) and color of the grid cell. (Each group of values affects the summary quality percentage of the cell and its color differently.) The best areas are colored green and have summary statistics percent about 100, the worst have 0% and are colored red. Significant deficiencies (like triangular polygons) render the grid cell red much faster than the others (like a lack of photos). You can see the formula for calculating the summary percent here [here would be a link to the post about Status grid formula, the main text of it is located below in this topic].
Each of those 6 lines is an active link to the category layer which shows all places with the selected deficiency located in the current grid cell, for example:
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The lines with basic info are not clickable, but they will help you make your own quality assessment of this grid cell. For example, a cell with no objects in it will be green and has 100% summary percent because it has no bad places in it. Such cells are fine somewhere in the ocean, but in the middle of the city it is the opposite: nobody has created any objects here yet, and this area needs attention. The same thing with the roads: the statistics just shows you how many road segments are in the grid cell, but it doesn't affect the color of the cell.

In most cases the statistics of the cell updates just after you save an object in it, but sometimes it could take a while, so don't worry if it doesn't update immediately. Please note: Status grid categories are system categories and they can’t be added or removed manually. These categories are used only in the Status grid and are not shown on a place page.
To help and improve the coordination, we added a link icon to each cell of the grid - you can send this in a PM or IM and work on the cell together.

If you are interested in how the Grid works and analyses the map join the Status Grid Formula discussion.