Re: [OSM-talk] Change: How mature is OpenStreetMap?
On Fri, Jan 9, 2015 at 8:09 AM, Hans De Kryger hans.dekryge...@gmail.com wrote: I think the reason most long time mappers don't communicate the mistake the was made to new mapper s is the fact that where afraid of getting into a long drawn out conversation with them or it turning into a disagreement and end ing up nowhere. Just two frustrated mappers. I would like to point out a case in point. There's a mapper whose page a ran across that said All emails to me will immediately be deleted without being read.Now how do we communicate when we have mappers who feel that way in the community It's hard. Given a rather high profile and protracted example of this in which I was unfortunately a party to, the question begs to be asked: *do we even want *people who are unwilling to communicate with the rest of the project they're contributing to? ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Change: How mature is OpenStreetMap?
On 09/01/2015 14:09, Hans De Kryger wrote: I think the reason most long time mappers don't communicate the mistake the was made to new mapper s is the fact that where afraid of getting into a long drawn out conversation with them or it turning into a disagreement and end ing up nowhere. Just two frustrated mappers. I would like to point out a case in point. There's a mapper whose page a ran across that said All emails to me will immediately be deleted without being read.Now how do we communicate when we have mappers who feel that way in the community It's hard. Yes - communication is sometimes really hard work (a social rather than a technical challenge - maybe that's what the parent poster was saying and I didn't understand?). Anyway, for those who haven't seen it, I'd recommend watching this SOTM video, not for the policing aspects but for the how mappers interact bits: http://stateofthemap.org/session/More_than_Just_Data Cheers, Andy ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Change: How mature is OpenStreetMap?
* People are making discussions that come to no conclusion, this is so notorious. I guess one of the main reasons is that you often don't have to come to a conclusion. There is no pressue. If there is no agreement everybody just keeps tagging like before. I have this with fitness centre/gym now again. A few replies and then nobody cares. (compared to Wikipedia, where in the end you actually want to write something on the page, so you have to agree on something and can't just mash everything on a page) (compare with Wikipedia) I think the main difference is that most of the Wikipedia stuff is discussed on Wikipedia. Meanwhile the OSM database is seperated from the Wiki. In addition mailinglists and Forums are used by a lot more people than talk: pages. I keep preaching it over and over again, but unfortunately very few people are willing to invest time into the Wiki. It's just so sad when you look on TagInfo and see how many tags lack a documentation. __ openstreetmap.org/user/AndiG88 wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User:AndiG88 ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Change: How mature is OpenStreetMap?
Attack is the best form of defence? Sorry, I don't have much sense of the OSM community as it currently exists, and I just re-joined the list, where it seems like others leap in with confrontational tone. It has been some years since I was actively involved in OSM and i'm so glad that it's hitting the public radar in the way that my Twitter feed seems to suggest. I don't mean to aggress or to show off, if that's how my suddenly reappearing presence has come off; this is a genuine question for all of those contributing suggestions to the list; water it up or down according to extent of commitment. I just accidentally got a bit overcommitted to OSM. On 2015-01-06 06:46, Jo Walsh wrote: dear Michal, This is an interesting set of comprehensive criticisms that gives OSM something to aim for in terms of a classical maturity model. However, I wonder what you bring to the party apart from critique. What are your contributions to OSM? Jo / zool _ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Change: How mature is OpenStreetMap?
I keep preaching it over and over again, but unfortunately very few people are willing to invest time into the Wiki. It's just so sad when you look on TagInfo and see how many tags lack a documentation. I recently attended a weekend mapping party organised by the 57 North Hacklab up in Aberdeen. It was meant to have more of a hackday aspect but we just carried on mapping, and I really enjoyed the introduction to a new city it provided me with. It was also an interesting view of very geeky new mappers, familiar with the underlying concepts but new to the problem space, and so we were exploring the taginfo / wiki combination to figure out how to add things like contact details for local businesses.bv One thing we found was that a lot of the wiki pages had transitional sets of tags; moving from one namespace to a more specialised one. We weren't sure which tagset to use, and so of course one way to find out is to look at the volume in taginfo. In the end we looked at the centre of a comparable local city for commonly used tagsets, and took those patterns, can't remember how it all got tagged up in the end. ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Change: How mature is OpenStreetMap?
On 1/6/2015 4:23 AM, Andreas Goss wrote: I have this with fitness centre/gym now again. A few replies and then nobody cares. I'm pretty sure that now I tag each fitness centre randomly differently. I'd prefer a single convention, but I can see that there will never be agreement. ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Change: How mature is OpenStreetMap?
On 06/01/2015 01:25, Michał Brzozowski wrote: * Software for monitoring OSM changes is still very rudimentary. I wanna be the f**king NSA. It's incredibly hard to check newbies' work quickly (eg. you have to load every changeset separately into OSMHV). I'm not sure that it is incredibly hard - I rarely need to throw new users' changesets at osmhv - that usually gets saved for the wide changesets of people making things match JOSM's presets. It's usually pretty easy to categorise new users into adding new things; no problems, adding things OK but haven't quite grasped $some_concept (like joining roads at nodes) or Oh dear they're really struggling. * Why do these newbies make so many mistakes? Because it's difficult, dammit! When I started mapping there was a large area of white space for several miles around my house - not even the roads were mapped. It took a long time to get the hang of things, but while I was doing it there were no local mappers breathing down my neck saying that I was tagging for the renderer or similar. We have to give new mappers the time to get the hang of things, and offer help when required, but constructively and not just saying your're doing it wrong. One of the sad things about OSM is that many people are willing to fix the _data_ but not to fix the _people_ - if you look at the changset history anywhere you'll often see quite wide changesets with descriptions such as fix typo - but rarely are the people making these changes going back to the original mappers explaining the best way to map a certain feature. The documentation is a mess, editor presets are incomplete (whereas they should include all approved and other widely used features) Sometimes we forget that real life is complicated. It's not a simple case of tag X or tag Y - something might be a pub, or a restaurant, or somewhere in between, and sometimes what might be the best category can change. We saw it recently where well-meaning people tried to mechanically change wood=deciduous to leaf_type=broadleaved (most deciduous trees in the UK are broad_leaved, though some aren't - for example http://www.openstreetmap.org/way/40614704 ). At the weekend I went and had a look at this area: http://overpass-turbo.eu/s/6SY and it turns out that things are _much_ more complicated than how it is currently mapped (by me!) suggests. There are at least four groups of planting type there (old-growth broadleaved deciduous on the SSSI, planted-for-forestry pine in neat rows, some odds and sods mixed deciduous between the pine plantings, and some areas that are virtually heathland). No amount of remotely changing tag X to tag Y will capture that detail - you need to go there and have a look. However, if a new mapper arrives at an area like this part of Clipstone Forest but blank and maps it all just as some sort of woodland, perhaps even very roughly to start with, they've still made the map better than it was before. Sometimes we forget that we were all new mappers once. Cheers, Andy ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Change: How mature is OpenStreetMap?
Jo Walsh metazool at fastmail.net writes: Attack is the best form of defence? Sorry, I don't have much sense of the OSM community as it currently exists, and I just re-joined the list, where it seems like others leap in with confrontational tone. It has been some years since I was actively involved in OSM and i'm so glad that it's hitting the public radar in the way that my Twitter feed seems to suggest. I don't mean to aggress or to show off, if that's how my suddenly reappearing presence has come off; this is a genuine question for all of those contributing suggestions to the list; water it up or down according to extent of commitment. I just accidentally got a bit overcommitted to OSM. Although lots of people have managed to do lots of constructive work the past few months have been the most argumentative since the Australian clique were at their worst as a cascade of long-running dissatisfactions have come to the boil like dominoes. It’s time for everyone (including myself) to take a deep breath, but we can’t just let frustrations build up again and we really need to work on a stronger culture of harmony (we can have strong and differing opinions of course) and not just a surface appearance; lurkers on our communication channels aren’t the real audience. -- Andrew ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Change: How mature is OpenStreetMap?
I have no memory of sending this message. On January 6, 2015 10:38:29 PM GMT, Andrew Hain andrewhain...@hotmail.co.uk wrote: Jo Walsh metazool at fastmail.net writes: Attack is the best form of defence? Sorry, I don't have much sense of the OSM community as it currently exists, and I just re-joined the list, where it seems like others leap in with confrontational tone. It has been some years since I was actively involved in OSM and i'm so glad that it's hitting the public radar in the way that my Twitter feed seems to suggest. I don't mean to aggress or to show off, if that's how my suddenly reappearing presence has come off; this is a genuine question for all of those contributing suggestions to the list; water it up or down according to extent of commitment. I just accidentally got a bit overcommitted to OSM. Although lots of people have managed to do lots of constructive work the past few months have been the most argumentative since the Australian clique were at their worst as a cascade of long-running dissatisfactions have come to the boil like dominoes. It’s time for everyone (including myself) to take a deep breath, but we can’t just let frustrations build up again and we really need to work on a stronger culture of harmony (we can have strong and differing opinions of course) and not just a surface appearance; lurkers on our communication channels aren’t the real audience. -- Andrew ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk -- Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Change: How mature is OpenStreetMap?
Attack is the best form of defence? On 2015-01-06 06:46, Jo Walsh wrote: dear Michal, This is an interesting set of comprehensive criticisms that gives OSM something to aim for in terms of a classical maturity model. However, I wonder what you bring to the party apart from critique. What are your contributions to OSM? Jo / zool ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Change: How mature is OpenStreetMap?
OSM is not mature IMO: * People are making discussions that come to no conclusion, this is so notorious. * OSMF does very little work to actually promote OSM and improve its ecosystem (the only things they do that matter are providing servers and the SOTM) * There is very little collaboration between OSM-related software developers who aren't exactly aware how their actions shape OSM (on the top of this would need much coding attitude of some - so why did you choose to maintain it?) * The enforcement of editing standards is very hard. There is always that user who doesn't bother to ever come by the community forum. (compare with Wikipedia) * Software for monitoring OSM changes is still very rudimentary. I wanna be the f**king NSA. It's incredibly hard to check newbies' work quickly (eg. you have to load every changeset separately into OSMHV). * Why do these newbies make so many mistakes? The documentation is a mess, editor presets are incomplete (whereas they should include all approved and other widely used features) * Many important people are so defensive there is stagnation instead of doing. You can only fully evaluate a concept by implementing it. * Data consumers not exactly make OSM appear professional. It's hard to come by apps that are nearly as professional as Google Maps or Here Maps. They also almost never bother to consider country-specific stuff (like how is an address written, proper handling of abbreviations). Michał On Mon, Jan 5, 2015 at 10:05 PM, Rob Nickerson rob.j.nicker...@gmail.com wrote: There have been a couple of threads on OpenStreetMap’s mailing list this month to do with change. The first, entitled “Request for feedback: new building colours in openstreetmap-carto”, is all to do with a change to the way the default map style *looks* on openstreetmap.org. The second, “MEP – pipelines”, refers to a mechanical edit of the OpenStreetMap *data*. Both have been met with some level of resistance – but is this proportionate? Head over to http://www.mappa-mercia.org/2015/01/change-how-mature-is-openstreetmap.html and find out what I think :-) Your thoughts? I’d love to hear your thoughts on this – where is OpenStreetMap in its maturity and what level of change is appropriate? Is there anything you would like to see changed? And is there anything that must stay the same? ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Change: How mature is OpenStreetMap?
Interesting thoughts, I note that HOT is interested in how the data is consumed and in setting some sort of standards. I find the HOT approach gives some hope for the future. Locally much of the information in OSM is not readily useable, different spellings in the tags, different tags for the same thing, and heaven save us if one even thinks about touching what looks like a spelling mistake in a tag. Locally we have people saying roads should be tagged this way in the wiki but less than 1% were tagged according to the wiki. When I inspect the data locally I find every single French road name in the city was tagged incorrectly. In the wiki itself there are often different ways to tag the same information. There is little consistency. There are some good bits, the tool sets are very good but many years ago I was taught that computer programmers were more interested in how fast something ran, end users were much more interested in reliability. To me OSM is a collection of enthusiastic mappers, and if we sample say 500,000 of them we'll get 500,000 different answers to what we should be doing very few seem interested in what the end users would like or even who they are and what about our drop out rate? Could we do better maps with fewer mapathons but better training and perhaps help our retention rate? From an end user point of view its difficult to know how reliable the data is. For example are all the bus stops in the city with their phone numbers there are just the ones that one or two people have mapped? If the bus stop I want to get to isn't in the map for some reason then is OSM of any use to me? But as I say the HOT approach gives me some hope for the future. Cheerio John On 5 January 2015 at 20:25, Michał Brzozowski www.ha...@gmail.com wrote: OSM is not mature IMO: * People are making discussions that come to no conclusion, this is so notorious. * OSMF does very little work to actually promote OSM and improve its ecosystem (the only things they do that matter are providing servers and the SOTM) * There is very little collaboration between OSM-related software developers who aren't exactly aware how their actions shape OSM (on the top of this would need much coding attitude of some - so why did you choose to maintain it?) * The enforcement of editing standards is very hard. There is always that user who doesn't bother to ever come by the community forum. (compare with Wikipedia) * Software for monitoring OSM changes is still very rudimentary. I wanna be the f**king NSA. It's incredibly hard to check newbies' work quickly (eg. you have to load every changeset separately into OSMHV). * Why do these newbies make so many mistakes? The documentation is a mess, editor presets are incomplete (whereas they should include all approved and other widely used features) * Many important people are so defensive there is stagnation instead of doing. You can only fully evaluate a concept by implementing it. * Data consumers not exactly make OSM appear professional. It's hard to come by apps that are nearly as professional as Google Maps or Here Maps. They also almost never bother to consider country-specific stuff (like how is an address written, proper handling of abbreviations). Michał On Mon, Jan 5, 2015 at 10:05 PM, Rob Nickerson rob.j.nicker...@gmail.com wrote: There have been a couple of threads on OpenStreetMap’s mailing list this month to do with change. The first, entitled “Request for feedback: new building colours in openstreetmap-carto”, is all to do with a change to the way the default map style *looks* on openstreetmap.org. The second, “MEP – pipelines”, refers to a mechanical edit of the OpenStreetMap *data*. Both have been met with some level of resistance – but is this proportionate? Head over to http://www.mappa-mercia.org/2015/01/change-how-mature-is-openstreetmap.html and find out what I think :-) Your thoughts? I’d love to hear your thoughts on this – where is OpenStreetMap in its maturity and what level of change is appropriate? Is there anything you would like to see changed? And is there anything that must stay the same? ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Change: How mature is OpenStreetMap?
On 1/6/2015 2:25 AM, Michał Brzozowski wrote: * Software for monitoring OSM changes is still very rudimentary. I wanna be the f**king NSA. It's incredibly hard to check newbies' work quickly (eg. you have to load every changeset separately into OSMHV). Have you seen this tool and/or does it help with this item in your list? http://overpass-api.de/achavi/ It can be kind of slow so a little patience helps as do smaller bboxes and shorter time periods. It is also designed so you can bookmark the permalink (lower right corner) and it will load the change info since the last time you loaded the page, which is nice. (via Pierre Béland) Cheers Blake ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Change: How mature is OpenStreetMap?
dear Michal, This is an interesting set of comprehensive criticisms that gives OSM something to aim for in terms of a classical maturity model. However, I wonder what you bring to the party apart from critique. What are your contributions to OSM? Jo / zool * People are making discussions that come to no conclusion, this is so notorious. * OSMF does very little work to actually promote OSM and improve its ecosystem (the only things they do that matter are providing servers and the SOTM) * There is very little collaboration between OSM-related software developers who aren't exactly aware how their actions shape OSM (on the top of this would need much coding attitude of some - so why did you choose to maintain it?) * The enforcement of editing standards is very hard. There is always that user who doesn't bother to ever come by the community forum. (compare with Wikipedia) * Software for monitoring OSM changes is still very rudimentary. I wanna be the f**king NSA. It's incredibly hard to check newbies' work quickly (eg. you have to load every changeset separately into OSMHV). * Why do these newbies make so many mistakes? The documentation is a mess, editor presets are incomplete (whereas they should include all approved and other widely used features) * Many important people are so defensive there is stagnation instead of doing. You can only fully evaluate a concept by implementing it. * Data consumers not exactly make OSM appear professional. It's hard to come by apps that are nearly as professional as Google Maps or Here Maps. They also almost never bother to consider country-specific stuff (like how is an address written, proper handling of abbreviations). ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
[OSM-talk] Change: How mature is OpenStreetMap?
There have been a couple of threads on OpenStreetMap’s mailing list this month to do with change. The first, entitled “Request for feedback: new building colours in openstreetmap-carto”, is all to do with a change to the way the default map style *looks* on openstreetmap.org. The second, “MEP – pipelines”, refers to a mechanical edit of the OpenStreetMap *data*. Both have been met with some level of resistance – but is this proportionate? Head over to http://www.mappa-mercia.org/2015/01/change-how-mature-is-openstreetmap.html and find out what I think :-) Your thoughts? I’d love to hear your thoughts on this – where is OpenStreetMap in its maturity and what level of change is appropriate? Is there anything you would like to see changed? And is there anything that must stay the same? ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
