Re: [OSM-talk] our Q site help.openstreetmap.org is dying

[Andy Townsend]

On 20/05/2020 22:43, Lester Caine wrote:

On 20/05/2020 20:32, Frederik Ramm wrote:

Not copying past answers, at least the last two years or so, would mean
we'd have to write all these answers again because the questions will
inevitably be asked.


I'm with you on that ... I've seen far too much material simply 
ditched because it been to difficult to 'recover' it after systems 
stopped working.


So where would I head to get my hands on an XML dump of the current 
data to see if I can push it into the copy of Q2A I've just set up ...


On that specific question - if you haven't already had a private reply 
-  I'd ask the system admins directly?


More generally I presume there would be a bunch of requirements that the 
admins would have about any new system to be hosted at 
openstreetmap.org, so presumably it'd be worth making sure that anyone 
looking after a migration knew what they were before putting significant 
work into it.


Best Regards,

Andy



___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] our Q site help.openstreetmap.org is dying

[Mateusz Konieczny via talk]

May 22, 2020, 17:55 by al...@mustard.net:

> Bearing in mind Mateusz's admonition, "Wait for someone to volunteer and
> fix? It would be nice, but not sure what are chances of that," perhaps
> we have reached the outer limits of what the do-ocracy can accomplish in
> this case.
>
Maybe OSMF can try to more actively look for someone?

Post request in dev/talk/etc mailing list, on Telegram channels, on US Slack
channels etc? Banner on the main page is probably an overkill, 
but going through all channels and posting there once should be OK.

And on blog, Twitter (if there is an account there) etc?

Not sure about chance that someone will volunteer but maybe it will work?
Even if chances are 1% of finding someone wiling and able to help
maybe it would be worth doing?

(I am active in some of them and will post/link if anyone will prepare such 
call for help)

> TomH suggests migrating to StackExchange and says it's a process he's
> familiar with.  It's beyond my technical knowledge so I cannot really
> comment.  Presumably we would have to pay someone to handle the
> migration.  I have no idea what the volume of work would be or how much
> it would cost.
>
It seems that in such case main cost is social one.
OSM community would no longer control QA site (via OSMF)
, it would be controlled by StackExchange company.

That is a relatively OK company, but things were going in clearly bad direction
recently, though there are signs that maybe collapse was stopped.

And it seems there would be nothing to migrate as help.openstreetmap is
CC BY-SA 2.0 licensed and from what I see new content on StackExchange
sites is CC BY-SA 4.0.

Is it possible for OSMF to relicense answers and questions text?
___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] our Q site help.openstreetmap.org is dying

[Allan Mustard]

g, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
>>> than "Re: Contents of talk digest..."
>>>
>>>
>>> Today's Topics:
>>>
>>>1. Re: our Q site help.openstreetmap.org is dying
>>>   (Mateusz Konieczny)
>>>2. Re: our Q site help.openstreetmap.org is dying (Tom Hughes)
>>>3. Re: our Q site help.openstreetmap.org is dying (Lester Caine)
>>>4. Re: our Q site help.openstreetmap.org is dying (Simon Poole)
>>>5. Re: our Q site help.openstreetmap.org is dying (Tobias Wrede)
>>>6. Re: our Q site help.openstreetmap.org is dying (Frederik Ramm)
>>>7. Re: our Q site help.openstreetmap.org is dying (Tobias Wrede)
>>>8. Re: our Q site help.openstreetmap.org is dying (James)
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>>
>>> Message: 1
>>> Date: Wed, 20 May 2020 15:48:27 +0200 (CEST)
>>> From: Mateusz Konieczny 
>>> To: Tobias Wrede 
>>> Cc: Talk 
>>> Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] our Q site help.openstreetmap.org is dying
>>> Message-ID: 
>>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> May 20, 2020, 09:28 by l...@tobias-wrede.de:
>>>
>>>> Can we involve any of the OSM organizations to find, maybe pay, someone? 
>>>>
>>> The question is about the plan. Life support for this specific platform?
>>>
>>> It sounds like an endless pit that can consume plenty of resources,
>>> but maybe I am too pessimistic.
>>>
>>> Migrate to Stack Exchange? Even assuming that this company will agree
>>> it has plenty of potential issues.
>>>
>>> Wait for someone to volunteer and fix? It would be nice, but not sure what
>>> are chances of that.
>>> -- next part --
>>> An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
>>> URL: 
>>> <http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk/attachments/20200520/1710766f/attachment-0001.htm>
>>>
>>> --
>>>
>>> Message: 2
>>> Date: Wed, 20 May 2020 15:12:58 +0100
>>> From: Tom Hughes 
>>> To: Mateusz Konieczny , Tobias Wrede
>>> 
>>> Cc: Talk 
>>> Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] our Q site help.openstreetmap.org is dying
>>> Message-ID: <15f2bcdf-981f-19e7-224f-8b92f6574...@compton.nu>
>>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed
>>>
>>> On 20/05/2020 14:48, Mateusz Konieczny via talk wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> Migrate to Stack Exchange? Even assuming that this company will agree
>>>> it has plenty of potential issues.
>>> They have a public process for proposing new sites:
>>>
>>>https://area51.stackexchange.com/faq
>>>
>>> So long as enough people are interested it shouldn't be an issue. I've
>>> been through the process with another site.
>>>
>>> Tom
>>>
>> ___
>> talk mailing list
>> talk@openstreetmap.org
>> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
> -- next part --
> An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
> URL: 
> <http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk/attachments/20200521/e1dac7be/attachment-0001.htm>
> -- next part --
> A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
> Name: signature.asc
> Type: application/pgp-signature
> Size: 488 bytes
> Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
> URL: 
> <http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk/attachments/20200521/e1dac7be/attachment-0001.sig>
>
> --
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Fri, 22 May 2020 10:52:13 +0200
> From: Jean-Marc Liotier 
> To: OpenStreetMap , talk-sn
>   
> Subject: [OSM-talk] mspray stealth organized mapping
> Message-ID: <988d54e4-67c5-d5d0-4760-1e357043f...@liotier.org>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"; Format="flowed"
>
> I just noticed a serie of mspray[numerical suffix] (mspray16 
> <https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/mspray16>, mspray15 
> <https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/mspray15>, mspray13 
> <https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/mspray13> and mspray4 
> <https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/mspray4> for example) are are 
> mapping many buildings in Senegal, some of which of dubious quality. 
> This looks like organized mapping but I do not see any description of it 
> in https://wiki.ope

Re: [OSM-talk] our Q site help.openstreetmap.org is dying

[Lester Caine]

On 20/05/2020 20:32, Frederik Ramm wrote:

Not copying past answers, at least the last two years or so, would mean
we'd have to write all these answers again because the questions will
inevitably be asked.


I'm with you on that ... I've seen far too much material simply ditched 
because it been to difficult to 'recover' it after systems stopped working.


So where would I head to get my hands on an XML dump of the current data 
to see if I can push it into the copy of Q2A I've just set up ...


--
Lester Caine - G8HFL
-
Contact - https://lsces.uk/wiki/Contact
L.S.Caine Electronic Services - https://lsces.uk
Model Engineers Digital Workshop - https://medw.uk
Rainbow Digital Media - https://rainbowdigitalmedia.uk

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] our Q site help.openstreetmap.org is dying

[Andrew Hain]

We could also look at the software Codidact and Topanswers have been writing.

--
Andrew

From: Mateusz Konieczny via talk 
Sent: 20 May 2020 14:48
To: Tobias Wrede 
Cc: Talk 
Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] our Q site help.openstreetmap.org is dying




May 20, 2020, 09:28 by l...@tobias-wrede.de:
Can we involve any of the OSM organizations to find, maybe pay, someone?
The question is about the plan. Life support for this specific platform?

It sounds like an endless pit that can consume plenty of resources,
but maybe I am too pessimistic.

Migrate to Stack Exchange? Even assuming that this company will agree
it has plenty of potential issues.

Wait for someone to volunteer and fix? It would be nice, but not sure what
are chances of that.
___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] our Q site help.openstreetmap.org is dying

[James]

Has the code base diverged from OSQA? If we were to submit changes would we
need to provide source code as the original code is GPL3?

On Wed., May 20, 2020, 4:25 p.m. Tobias Wrede,  wrote:

> Am 20.05.2020 um 21:32 schrieb Frederik Ramm:
> >
> > We've taken great care to write our replies in a generic fashion where
> > possible, with the aim of collecting knowledge that others can profit
> > from (instead of asking the same question over and over again).
> >
> > Not copying past answers, at least the last two years or so, would mean
> > we'd have to write all these answers again because the questions will
> > inevitably be asked.
> >
> > I think it would be rather disrespectful to those who have invested a
> > lot of time into building a good body of knowledge in the old system to
> > say "let's throw away this content, main thing is we get a shiny new
> > system". And the alternative of having to keep the old system around in
> > a read-only fashion is not super attractive either.
>
> Hi Frederik,
>
> I'm myself among the more frequent contributors on the site. I'm not
> saying to throw everything away and would appreciate if one could still
> refer to the the old answers. But considering how long this issue has
> been hanging in the air without resolution I would favor a practical way
> over one that will let us wait another few years before something
> happens. In my view it should be possible to leave the old site in a
> read only state and start a new site from zero. We could still link to
> answers on the archived site. Of course I'd welcomed if there was a
> reasonably fast way of moving and migrating all the old Q
>
> Tobias
>
>
> ___
> 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] our Q site help.openstreetmap.org is dying

[Tobias Wrede]

Am 20.05.2020 um 21:32 schrieb Frederik Ramm:


We've taken great care to write our replies in a generic fashion where
possible, with the aim of collecting knowledge that others can profit
from (instead of asking the same question over and over again).

Not copying past answers, at least the last two years or so, would mean
we'd have to write all these answers again because the questions will
inevitably be asked.

I think it would be rather disrespectful to those who have invested a
lot of time into building a good body of knowledge in the old system to
say "let's throw away this content, main thing is we get a shiny new
system". And the alternative of having to keep the old system around in
a read-only fashion is not super attractive either.


Hi Frederik,

I'm myself among the more frequent contributors on the site. I'm not 
saying to throw everything away and would appreciate if one could still 
refer to the the old answers. But considering how long this issue has 
been hanging in the air without resolution I would favor a practical way 
over one that will let us wait another few years before something 
happens. In my view it should be possible to leave the old site in a 
read only state and start a new site from zero. We could still link to 
answers on the archived site. Of course I'd welcomed if there was a 
reasonably fast way of moving and migrating all the old Q


Tobias


___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] our Q site help.openstreetmap.org is dying

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

On 5/20/20 17:37, Tobias Wrede wrote:
> I wouldn't worry too much about migrating past material to the new site.
> Of course that would be a plus but not doing so shouldn't stop us from
> migrating to something new and lasting soon.

We've taken great care to write our replies in a generic fashion where
possible, with the aim of collecting knowledge that others can profit
from (instead of asking the same question over and over again).

Not copying past answers, at least the last two years or so, would mean
we'd have to write all these answers again because the questions will
inevitably be asked.

I think it would be rather disrespectful to those who have invested a
lot of time into building a good body of knowledge in the old system to
say "let's throw away this content, main thing is we get a shiny new
system". And the alternative of having to keep the old system around in
a read-only fashion is not super attractive either.

Bye
Frederik
(frequent provider of answers on help.osm)

-- 
Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frede...@remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] our Q site help.openstreetmap.org is dying

[Tobias Wrede]

Am 20.05.2020 um 16:04 schrieb Lester Caine:
... offers a hope that there is potential to pump existing material 
across?


I wouldn't worry too much about migrating past material to the new site. 
Of course that would be a plus but not doing so shouldn't stop us from 
migrating to something new and lasting soon.


Tobias


___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] our Q site help.openstreetmap.org is dying

[Simon Poole]

Am 20.05.2020 um 15:45 schrieb Mateusz Konieczny via talk:
> Well, if nobody will volunteer to fix it then we will need to select
> between
> stack exchange migration and simply killing the QA site.

We could simply pay for the migration (and if necessary for some support
going forward), the thing is that we would rather sprinkle fairy dust
around (see below).

>
> And from going through microgrants proposals nobody is willing to
> work on this even with a subsidy.

It is clearly outside of the scope of the micro grants, well at least it
was, it is unclear if the whole concept has morphed away from what was
originally presented (aka to contain stuff  that should be in the
regular budgets of the OSMF and LCs).

Simon




signature.asc
Description: OpenPGP digital signature
___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] our Q site help.openstreetmap.org is dying

[Lester Caine]

On 20/05/2020 08:28, Tobias Wrede wrote:


The site is based on OSQA, a software which has not been maintained in 
some time. Some application errors have surface in the past but had to 
be ignored since no fixes are coming from OSQA any more. Until now we 
could live with that. They were annoying but not critical. There are 
open tickets on OSM github to move the help site to some other framework 
(https://github.com/openstreetmap/operations/issues/149, 
https://github.com/openstreetmap/operations/issues/377) but there isn't 
exactly an abundance of volunteers to take care of that.


Question2Answer looks like it's being well supported. At least it has a 
release that works on the latest PHP and while it's a little long in the 
tooth, https://github.com/jamesspittal/osqa-q2a offers a hope that there 
is potential to pump existing material across?


--
Lester Caine - G8HFL
-
Contact - https://lsces.uk/wiki/Contact
L.S.Caine Electronic Services - https://lsces.uk
Model Engineers Digital Workshop - https://medw.uk
Rainbow Digital Media - https://rainbowdigitalmedia.uk

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] our Q site help.openstreetmap.org is dying

[Tom Hughes via talk]

On 20/05/2020 14:48, Mateusz Konieczny via talk wrote:



Migrate to Stack Exchange? Even assuming that this company will agree
it has plenty of potential issues.


They have a public process for proposing new sites:

  https://area51.stackexchange.com/faq

So long as enough people are interested it shouldn't be an issue. I've
been through the process with another site.

Tom

--
Tom Hughes (t...@compton.nu)
http://compton.nu/

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] our Q site help.openstreetmap.org is dying

[Mateusz Konieczny via talk]

May 20, 2020, 09:28 by l...@tobias-wrede.de:

> Can we involve any of the OSM organizations to find, maybe pay, someone? 
>
The question is about the plan. Life support for this specific platform?

It sounds like an endless pit that can consume plenty of resources,
but maybe I am too pessimistic.

Migrate to Stack Exchange? Even assuming that this company will agree
it has plenty of potential issues.

Wait for someone to volunteer and fix? It would be nice, but not sure what
are chances of that.
___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] our Q site help.openstreetmap.org is dying

[Mateusz Konieczny via talk]

May 20, 2020, 15:25 by talk@openstreetmap.org:

> Personally my preference would be to close help.osm.org and move to a
> proper SO site via the Area 51 process which should be no problem for a
> community of our size.
>
> I imagine that will be unpopular with a subset of our users however.
>
> The alternative if it's going to stay alive is that somebody needs to
> find a way to migrate the data to something like Askbot that is at least
> semi-conscious.
>
Well, if nobody will volunteer to fix it then we will need to select between
stack exchange migration and simply killing the QA site.

And from going through microgrants proposals nobody is willing to 
work on this even with a subsidy.
___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] our Q site help.openstreetmap.org is dying

[Tom Hughes via talk]

Where on earth do you get the idea that they're using the same software?

They're not.

In fact OSQA and all the other similar open source projects are attempts
to recreate the Stack Overflow experience and they're basically all dead
or, if still on life support, then very poor clones.

Personally my preference would be to close help.osm.org and move to a
proper SO site via the Area 51 process which should be no problem for a
community of our size.

I imagine that will be unpopular with a subset of our users however.

The alternative if it's going to stay alive is that somebody needs to
find a way to migrate the data to something like Askbot that is at least
semi-conscious.

Tom

On 20/05/2020 13:52, Andreas Vilén wrote:
Stack overflow seems to use the same software and is highly active. This 
seems to be updated? Can't we update as they do?


https://stackoverflow.com/questions

/Andreas

On Wed, May 20, 2020 at 9:34 AM Tobias Wrede > wrote:


Hi,

we have several channels in OSM to facilitate discussions and support.
First touch point for new users is often help.openstreetmap.org
.
Questions relating to mapping in general, tagging, editors,
development,
OSM based applications are asked there and get answered in most cases.

The site is based on OSQA, a software which has not been maintained in
some time. Some application errors have surface in the past but had to
be ignored since no fixes are coming from OSQA any more. Until now we
could live with that. They were annoying but not critical. There are
open tickets on OSM github to move the help site to some other
framework
(https://github.com/openstreetmap/operations/issues/149,
https://github.com/openstreetmap/operations/issues/377) but there isn't
exactly an abundance of volunteers to take care of that.

Usability of help.openstreetmap.org 
has now seriously worsened over the
past few days with some js error popping up for longer and longer times

(https://help.openstreetmap.org/questions/74831/why-does-the-add-a-new-comment-button-sometimes-not-work).

Buttons to support formatting questions and answers are gone, comments
cannot be added and moderation functions (reporting, converting
questions to comments etc.) are not working anymore.

If this continuous we can shut down the site soon. Even if this problem
got resolved somehow it's only a matter of time until a new problem
arises. The site provides a low entry hurdles place to ask questions
that can be solved by simple answers. I'd hate so see it gone.

I'm neither a programmer who could help out on the technical side
nor am
I involved in OSM organization and politics to have an idea on how this
could be sorted out. Question around: Can we find someone to take care
of the technical side? Can we involve any of the OSM organizations to
find, maybe pay, someone? Does the community even find it worthwhile
keeping the site?

cheers,

Tobias




___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org 
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk


___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk




--
Tom Hughes (t...@compton.nu)
http://compton.nu/

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] our Q site help.openstreetmap.org is dying

[Mateusz Konieczny via talk]

Stack Overflow is using the same type as software, not the same software.

May 20, 2020, 14:52 by andreas.vi...@gmail.com:

> Can't we update as they do?
>
Stack Exchange is running private proprietary software, that is a separate 
platform.

And yes, you can pay them to run your own instance.

At 5$/per user - every month ( https://stackoverflow.com/teams/pricing )

At 12$/per user every month if you want any moderation tools.

Some OSM content is on topic on https://gis.stackexchange.com/
(I used to be active there but 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stack_Exchange#Declining_relationship_between_users_and_company
https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/333965/firing-mods-and-forced-relicensing-is-stack-exchange-still-interested-in-cooper
etc happened)

May 20, 2020, 14:52 by andreas.vi...@gmail.com:

> Stack overflow seems to use the same software and is highly active. This 
> seems to be updated? Can't we update as they do?
>
> https://stackoverflow.com/questions>  
>
> /Andreas 
>
> On Wed, May 20, 2020 at 9:34 AM Tobias Wrede <> l...@tobias-wrede.de> > wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>  
>>  we have several channels in OSM to facilitate discussions and support. 
>>  First touch point for new users is often >> help.openstreetmap.org 
>> >> . 
>>  Questions relating to mapping in general, tagging, editors, development, 
>>  OSM based applications are asked there and get answered in most cases.
>>  
>>  The site is based on OSQA, a software which has not been maintained in 
>>  some time. Some application errors have surface in the past but had to 
>>  be ignored since no fixes are coming from OSQA any more. Until now we 
>>  could live with that. They were annoying but not critical. There are 
>>  open tickets on OSM github to move the help site to some other framework 
>>  (>> https://github.com/openstreetmap/operations/issues/149>> , 
>>  >> https://github.com/openstreetmap/operations/issues/377>> ) but there 
>> isn't 
>>  exactly an abundance of volunteers to take care of that.
>>  
>>  Usability of >> help.openstreetmap.org >>  
>> has now seriously worsened over the 
>>  past few days with some js error popping up for longer and longer times 
>>  (>> 
>> https://help.openstreetmap.org/questions/74831/why-does-the-add-a-new-comment-button-sometimes-not-work>>
>>  ). 
>>  Buttons to support formatting questions and answers are gone, comments 
>>  cannot be added and moderation functions (reporting, converting 
>>  questions to comments etc.) are not working anymore.
>>  
>>  If this continuous we can shut down the site soon. Even if this problem 
>>  got resolved somehow it's only a matter of time until a new problem 
>>  arises. The site provides a low entry hurdles place to ask questions 
>>  that can be solved by simple answers. I'd hate so see it gone.
>>  
>>  I'm neither a programmer who could help out on the technical side nor am 
>>  I involved in OSM organization and politics to have an idea on how this 
>>  could be sorted out. Question around: Can we find someone to take care 
>>  of the technical side? Can we involve any of the OSM organizations to 
>>  find, maybe pay, someone? Does the community even find it worthwhile 
>>  keeping the site?
>>  
>>  cheers,
>>  
>>  Tobias
>>  
>>  
>>  
>>  
>>  ___
>>  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] our Q site help.openstreetmap.org is dying

[Andreas Vilén]

Stack overflow seems to use the same software and is highly active. This
seems to be updated? Can't we update as they do?

https://stackoverflow.com/questions

/Andreas

On Wed, May 20, 2020 at 9:34 AM Tobias Wrede  wrote:

> Hi,
>
> we have several channels in OSM to facilitate discussions and support.
> First touch point for new users is often help.openstreetmap.org.
> Questions relating to mapping in general, tagging, editors, development,
> OSM based applications are asked there and get answered in most cases.
>
> The site is based on OSQA, a software which has not been maintained in
> some time. Some application errors have surface in the past but had to
> be ignored since no fixes are coming from OSQA any more. Until now we
> could live with that. They were annoying but not critical. There are
> open tickets on OSM github to move the help site to some other framework
> (https://github.com/openstreetmap/operations/issues/149,
> https://github.com/openstreetmap/operations/issues/377) but there isn't
> exactly an abundance of volunteers to take care of that.
>
> Usability of help.openstreetmap.org has now seriously worsened over the
> past few days with some js error popping up for longer and longer times
> (
> https://help.openstreetmap.org/questions/74831/why-does-the-add-a-new-comment-button-sometimes-not-work).
>
> Buttons to support formatting questions and answers are gone, comments
> cannot be added and moderation functions (reporting, converting
> questions to comments etc.) are not working anymore.
>
> If this continuous we can shut down the site soon. Even if this problem
> got resolved somehow it's only a matter of time until a new problem
> arises. The site provides a low entry hurdles place to ask questions
> that can be solved by simple answers. I'd hate so see it gone.
>
> I'm neither a programmer who could help out on the technical side nor am
> I involved in OSM organization and politics to have an idea on how this
> could be sorted out. Question around: Can we find someone to take care
> of the technical side? Can we involve any of the OSM organizations to
> find, maybe pay, someone? Does the community even find it worthwhile
> keeping the site?
>
> cheers,
>
> Tobias
>
>
>
>
> ___
> talk mailing list
> talk@openstreetmap.org
> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
>
___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

[OSM-talk] our Q site help.openstreetmap.org is dying

[Tobias Wrede]

Hi,

we have several channels in OSM to facilitate discussions and support. 
First touch point for new users is often help.openstreetmap.org. 
Questions relating to mapping in general, tagging, editors, development, 
OSM based applications are asked there and get answered in most cases.


The site is based on OSQA, a software which has not been maintained in 
some time. Some application errors have surface in the past but had to 
be ignored since no fixes are coming from OSQA any more. Until now we 
could live with that. They were annoying but not critical. There are 
open tickets on OSM github to move the help site to some other framework 
(https://github.com/openstreetmap/operations/issues/149, 
https://github.com/openstreetmap/operations/issues/377) but there isn't 
exactly an abundance of volunteers to take care of that.


Usability of help.openstreetmap.org has now seriously worsened over the 
past few days with some js error popping up for longer and longer times 
(https://help.openstreetmap.org/questions/74831/why-does-the-add-a-new-comment-button-sometimes-not-work). 
Buttons to support formatting questions and answers are gone, comments 
cannot be added and moderation functions (reporting, converting 
questions to comments etc.) are not working anymore.


If this continuous we can shut down the site soon. Even if this problem 
got resolved somehow it's only a matter of time until a new problem 
arises. The site provides a low entry hurdles place to ask questions 
that can be solved by simple answers. I'd hate so see it gone.


I'm neither a programmer who could help out on the technical side nor am 
I involved in OSM organization and politics to have an idea on how this 
could be sorted out. Question around: Can we find someone to take care 
of the technical side? Can we involve any of the OSM organizations to 
find, maybe pay, someone? Does the community even find it worthwhile 
keeping the site?


cheers,

Tobias




___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk