Re: [Talk-us] Why we really don't get new users

2014-03-21 Thread Martijn van Exel 
The fact of the matter is that we don't have any numbers to back any
of these claims up. Perhaps out ontology puts people off - perhaps
not. Perhaps the launch of iD has led to more new sign-ups becoming
recurring mappers - perhaps not. Maybe the increased visibility of OSM
is a factor? Maybe the edit-a-thons have something to do with it?

We just don't know.

That does not mean we should stop trying. All the things people have
pointed out that may put new mappers off need attention. I don't think
there is any one secret recipe to attracting and retaining new
mappers. There are simple things everyone can do today and that do not
require months of discussion and building new tools: offer a warm
welcome to new mappers: be courteous, friendly and reach out a helping
hand. Subscribe to an RSS feed for local new mappers[1] and send them
a welcome email[2]. Start or become active in a local group.

Best
Martijn

[1] map here: http://resultmaps.neis-one.org/newestosm.php - you can
create your own RSS feed there - here's a recipe to send notifications
to your smartphone: https://ifttt.com/myrecipes/personal/1634033
[2] some examples here:
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User:Mvexel/Welcome_Working_Group#New_mapper_messages

On Fri, Mar 21, 2014 at 5:59 AM, Richard Weait  wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 17, 2014 at 2:17 PM,   wrote:
>>
>> I'm going to just point out the elephant in the room here. I don't think any
>> normal user cares about the license at all. I think the actual reason its 
>> hard
>> to get new mappers, especially those that are not nerdy and obsessive like
>> myself is that *the ontology sucks*. There, I said it, so you don't have to.
>
> I think that you are combining two separate issues.  Perhaps there is
> no causation from sucky ontology to  "hard to get new mappers".
>
> On the matter of getting new mappers.  Perhaps we'll just won't be
> satisfied until everybody on the planet is also an OpenStreetMap
> contributor.  That would be awesome.  I've written about mapper
> motivation and outreach before.  I'll leave that one alone for now.
>
> You aren't the first to suggest that "the ontology sucks".  There have
> been previous similar declarations.  I recall a presentation at State
> of the Map 2010 in Girona, Spain.  Have a look at the slides and video
> by David Earl and see if things have changed at all.
>
> http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/SotM_2010_session:_Tag_Central:_a_Schema_for_OSM
>
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-- 
Martijn van Exel
President, US Chapter
OpenStreetMap
http://openstreetmap.us/
http://osm.org/

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Re: [Talk-us] Why we really don't get new users

2014-03-21 Thread Richard Weait 
On Mon, Mar 17, 2014 at 2:17 PM,   wrote:
>
> I'm going to just point out the elephant in the room here. I don't think any
> normal user cares about the license at all. I think the actual reason its hard
> to get new mappers, especially those that are not nerdy and obsessive like
> myself is that *the ontology sucks*. There, I said it, so you don't have to.

I think that you are combining two separate issues.  Perhaps there is
no causation from sucky ontology to  "hard to get new mappers".

On the matter of getting new mappers.  Perhaps we'll just won't be
satisfied until everybody on the planet is also an OpenStreetMap
contributor.  That would be awesome.  I've written about mapper
motivation and outreach before.  I'll leave that one alone for now.

You aren't the first to suggest that "the ontology sucks".  There have
been previous similar declarations.  I recall a presentation at State
of the Map 2010 in Girona, Spain.  Have a look at the slides and video
by David Earl and see if things have changed at all.

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/SotM_2010_session:_Tag_Central:_a_Schema_for_OSM

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Re: [Talk-us] Why we really don't get new users

2014-03-19 Thread Paul Johnson 
On Mar 17, 2014 9:02 PM, "Shawn K. Quinn"  wrote:

> a. The pot shops need to be standardized, one way or another. I can see
> different tagging for recreational versus medical but either way, I'd
> like to see us standardize on something for each and be done with it.

I definitely agree.  My general bounding box of focus these days is bound
to the north by Gunnison, Colorado; west by Lake City, Colorado; and
southeast by Little Rock.  This puts already legal Colorado, soon to be
legal Missouri, and soon to be no longer enforcing prohibition Tulsa
County, Oklahoma in my home range.  And even where it's not legal, how do
you handle shops that specializes in selling supplies, ostensibly calling
them "tobacco supplies", but everyone knows it's a head shop?

> > 4. The wiki is a terrible platform for documenting the ontology because
> > it's not machine readable and it's just a slow way to get information.
>
> What do you propose we replace it with?

I think the complaint is valid, but standardizing the layout a bit more
(think like man pages or the DOS 3.33 manuals) may help in making something
that's still human friendly while making machine parsing easier.
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Re: [Talk-us] Why we really don't get new users

2014-03-19 Thread Russell Deffner 
Oh, thanks for mentioning - I'm looking for someone to take over this
proposal:

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Proposed_features/shop%3Dmarijuana 

 

Don't need to let me know, if you know how, but ask if not:
russdeff...@gmail.com

 

From: Paul Johnson [mailto:ba...@ursamundi.org] 
Sent: Wednesday, March 19, 2014 1:04 PM
To: OpenStreetMap talk-us list
Subject: Re: [Talk-us] Why we really don't get new users

 


On Mar 17, 2014 9:02 PM, "Shawn K. Quinn"  wrote:

> a. The pot shops need to be standardized, one way or another. I can see
> different tagging for recreational versus medical but either way, I'd
> like to see us standardize on something for each and be done with it.

I definitely agree.  My general bounding box of focus these days is bound to
the north by Gunnison, Colorado; west by Lake City, Colorado; and southeast
by Little Rock.  This puts already legal Colorado, soon to be legal
Missouri, and soon to be no longer enforcing prohibition Tulsa County,
Oklahoma in my home range.  And even where it's not legal, how do you handle
shops that specializes in selling supplies, ostensibly calling them "tobacco
supplies", but everyone knows it's a head shop?

> > 4. The wiki is a terrible platform for documenting the ontology because
> > it's not machine readable and it's just a slow way to get information.
>
> What do you propose we replace it with?

I think the complaint is valid, but standardizing the layout a bit more
(think like man pages or the DOS 3.33 manuals) may help in making something
that's still human friendly while making machine parsing easier. 

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Re: [Talk-us] Why we really don't get new users

2014-03-17 Thread Shawn K. Quinn 
On Mon, Mar 17, 2014, at 01:17 PM, o...@charles.derkarl.org wrote:
> 
> I'm going to just point out the elephant in the room here. I don't think
> any normal user cares about the license at all. I think the actual reason its
> hard to get new mappers, especially those that are not nerdy and obsessive
> like myself is that *the ontology sucks*. There, I said it, so you don't have
> to.
> 
> It's actually a few things related to how the ontology sucks:
> 
> 1. The tagging of things bears little resemblance to things in the real
> world:
>   a. A lot of common things just don't have standard tags: examples: tax 
> preparers like H&R Block, investment brokers like Charles Schwab, medical 
> marijuana despensers here in California, recreational MJ shops in
> Colorado. I 
> could go on. 
>   b. the whole shop/amenity debate
>   c. common things that have really stupid tags, like barber shops

a. The pot shops need to be standardized, one way or another. I can see
different tagging for recreational versus medical but either way, I'd
like to see us standardize on something for each and be done with it.
b. Not well versed on this one...
c. If they are really stupid, we should either find something better, or
if there is nothing better just stick with what we have with a note to
the effect of "we know this is stupid."

> 2. To be a useful mapper, one needs to memorize these arbitrary tags. It 
> wouldn't be so hard if it weren't arbitrary (a salon is a shop? and it's 
> called a hairdresser‽). But even if it weren't arbitrary, it'd still be
> hard to remember because things have synonyms, and no shop is called a chemist
> in the US.

That's where editors like iD come in that remember the idiosyncratic
cases for you. Or at least, that's what I thought that feature of iD was
for. I find the UK-centric terminology a bit annoying as well but I've
learned to deal with it.

> Corrolary: A bagel shop is a bagel shop, no muggle cares that a bagel
> shop is fast_food amenity that sells the bagel cuisine.

shop=bagel you mean?

I don't really like this one, I would prefer amenity=cafe (or
amenity=fast_food) and cuisine=bagel myself.

> 3. I went to a shop recently that sells espresso drinks, and gelato, but 
> markets itself as a chocolate maker. (Specifically: Snake & Butterfly,
> Campbell, CA). There is absolutely no sane way to tag this in OSM today.

amenity=cafe
cuisine=coffee_shop;ice_cream
shop=chocolate

That's the best I can think of. Yes, it's a bit ugly.

> 4. The wiki is a terrible platform for documenting the ontology because
> it's not machine readable and it's just a slow way to get information.

What do you propose we replace it with?

-- 
  Shawn K. Quinn
  skqu...@rushpost.com

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Re: [Talk-us] Why we really don't get new users

2014-03-17 Thread Martin Koppenhoefer 
2014-03-18 1:32 GMT+01:00 Mike Dupont :

> On Mon, Mar 17, 2014 at 1:17 PM,  wrote:
>
>> The tagging of things bears little resemblance to things in the real
>> world:
>
>
> I agree, first of all, i tried to explain to someone how to tag a cafe/bar
> and he was confused and so was I.
>


amenity=cafe, is this really so difficult?



> why would americans want to learn british names for things?
>


actually they should learn "tags" (or use some abstraction layer like
presets) not "British names". If we all used tags in our native languages
it would maybe complicate stuff? Would be interesting to see what you wrote
if americans had to deal with German or Russian tags ;-)
You can translate this to a certain point, but you'll get more blur about
the meaning of a tag I guess, maybe up to the point where it gets useless,
but at least you'll loose the details. Ever read an automatically
translated appliance manual?

cheers,
Martin
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Re: [Talk-us] Why we really don't get new users

2014-03-17 Thread Darrell Fuhriman 
I made exactly this point a while back on the diversity-talk list.

The consequence of this is that by self-limiting *who* the mappers are, we also 
limit the types of things that will ever appear on the map.

It’s even evident in your statement "This map geek and his son?” — a point that 
well made by Alyssa Wright in her discussion at SotM of the gendered nature of 
OSM data.

Plus, most (all?) of the tools assume you might want to edit anything and 
everything on the map. Most people probably don’t, and seeing streets and ways 
and relations when all you really wanted to do was add your child’s school, or 
the new bike path for them to get school is going to be an immediate turn off.

That being said, things like PushPin and iD have gone a long way to lowering 
the barrier to entry, but it’s still pretty damn substantial.

Darrell


On Mar 17, 2014, at 5:13 PM, Bryce Nesbitt  wrote:

> On Mon, Mar 17, 2014 at 11:17 AM,  wrote:
> 
> I'm going to just point out the elephant in the room here. I don't think any
> normal user cares about the license at all. I think the actual reason its hard
> to get new mappers, especially those that are not nerdy and obsessive like
> myself is that *the ontology sucks*. There, I said it, so you don't have to.
> 
> I think the real reason is that there's just one model: mapping as an end to 
> itself.
> Just look at the outreach material: it talks about mapping as an end, and 
> encourages
> people to get involved in this nebulous thing called mapping, as if that was 
> enough.
> 
> Map geeks?  Check.
> This map geek and his son? Check.
> Other people?  Hmm.
> 
> How about "map all the pubs in your area"?  Or "Find the world's best map of 
> hiking trails
> and help keep the map strong by editing if needed"?  Or "contribute to the 
> world's
> best map of speed cameras"?  Or "Map free library locations (e.g. 
> http://littlefreelibrary.org/ and clones)?
> 
> Maybe the pool of obsessive mappers is drawing thin.
> The pool of pub enthusiasts, however, is as strong as ever.
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Re: [Talk-us] Why we really don't get new users

2014-03-17 Thread Mike Dupont 
On Mon, Mar 17, 2014 at 1:17 PM,  wrote:

> The tagging of things bears little resemblance to things in the real world:


I agree, first of all, i tried to explain to someone how to tag a cafe/bar
and he was confused and so was I.
why would americans want to learn british names for things?
why is there such european influence on the local us groups? what about
localization? that would make people here more comfortable.
mike


-- 
James Michael DuPont
Member of Free Libre Open Source Software Kosova http://www.flossk.org
Saving Wikipedia(tm) articles from deletion http://SpeedyDeletion.wikia.com
Mozilla Rep https://reps.mozilla.org/u/h4ck3rm1k3
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Re: [Talk-us] Why we really don't get new users

2014-03-17 Thread Bryce Nesbitt 
On Mon, Mar 17, 2014 at 11:17 AM,  wrote:

>
> I'm going to just point out the elephant in the room here. I don't think
> any
> normal user cares about the license at all. I think the actual reason its
> hard
> to get new mappers, especially those that are not nerdy and obsessive like
> myself is that *the ontology sucks*. There, I said it, so you don't have
> to.
>

I think the real reason is that there's just one model: *mapping as an end
to itself.*
Just look at the outreach material: it talks about mapping as an end, and
encourages
people to get involved in this nebulous thing called mapping, as if that
was enough.

Map geeks?  Check.
This map geek and his son? Check.
Other people?  Hmm.



*How about "map all the pubs in your area"?  Or "Find the world's best map
of hiking trailsand help keep the map strong by editing if needed"?  Or
"contribute to the world's best map of speed cameras"?  Or "Map free
library locations (e.g. *
*http://littlefreelibrary.org/  and clones)?*
Maybe the pool of obsessive mappers is drawing thin.
The pool of pub enthusiasts, however, is as strong as ever.
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Re: [Talk-us] Why we really don't get new users

2014-03-17 Thread Saikrishna Arcot 
JOSM also has a plugin that provides a UI for entering opening_hours.

That being said, this UI is in JOSM, but new users are probably going to use iD 
since it's easy to use and is right there (quick availability).

-- 
Saikrishna Arcot
On Monday, March 17, 2014 01:20:12 PM Ian Dees wrote:


Such a thing already mostly exists in the preset system. iD has a fairly 
extensive and growing set of presets that I encourage you to try (it follows 
the example you give).


JOSM also has a preset system, but it's not nearly as obvious or as complete 
(at least for the mapping I do). You access it by hitting F3 on your keyboard 
when mapping. 


On Mon, Mar 17, 2014 at 1:17 PM,  wrote:



Talk-us@openstreetmap.org[2]
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us[3]







[1] mailto:o...@charles.derkarl.org
[2] mailto:Talk-us@openstreetmap.org
[3] https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
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Re: [Talk-us] Why we really don't get new users

2014-03-17 Thread John Firebaugh 
Hi Charles,

Have you looked at iD's preset-based feature editing UI? It's very close to
what you describe:

- Machine readable
ontology
- Search-based UI
- No detailed knowledge of tagging schemes necessary
- Customized UI for specific fields

We haven't yet gotten to the level of detail necessary to support query
terms as specific as "bagel", nor to cover the immense complexity of the
opening_hours format, but contributions are welcome.

A related project is the Name Suggestion
Index,
which provides automatic tags for search terms like "Walmart" or
"Raiffeisenbank".

John


On Mon, Mar 17, 2014 at 11:17 AM,  wrote:

>
> I'm going to just point out the elephant in the room here. I don't think
> any
> normal user cares about the license at all. I think the actual reason its
> hard
> to get new mappers, especially those that are not nerdy and obsessive like
> myself is that *the ontology sucks*. There, I said it, so you don't have
> to.
>
> It's actually a few things related to how the ontology sucks:
>
> 1. The tagging of things bears little resemblance to things in the real
> world:
> a. A lot of common things just don't have standard tags: examples:
> tax
> preparers like H&R Block, investment brokers like Charles Schwab, medical
> marijuana despensers here in California, recreational MJ shops in
> Colorado. I
> could go on.
> b. the whole shop/amenity debate
> c. common things that have really stupid tags, like barber shops
>
> 2. To be a useful mapper, one needs to memorize these arbitrary tags. It
> wouldn't be so hard if it weren't arbitrary (a salon is a shop? and it's
> called a hairdresser‽). But even if it weren't arbitrary, it'd still be
> hard
> to remember because things have synonyms, and no shop is called a chemist
> in
> the US.
>
> Corrolary: A bagel shop is a bagel shop, no muggle cares that a bagel shop
> is
> fast_food amenity that sells the bagel cuisine.
>
> 3. I went to a shop recently that sells espresso drinks, and gelato, but
> markets itself as a chocolate maker. (Specifically: Snake & Butterfly,
> Campbell,
> CA). There is absolutely no sane way to tag this in OSM today.
>
> 4. The wiki is a terrible platform for documenting the ontology because
> it's
> not machine readable and it's just a slow way to get information.
>
> I don't just mean to moan, though. What I'd like to do is propose a
> machine-
> readable ontology that we could provide to JOSM, Vespucci, etc, that would
> allow newbies to edit the map. I imagine a dictionary and associated tags.
> A
> user could type in "bagel" and all the reasonable properties show up, along
> with a description of what they're entering:
>
> (A shop that sells primarily bagels, baked goods and breakfast
> foods)
> (not what you're looking for? try  or )
> name: [ textbox ]
> opening hours: (a *UI* to enter times of week)
> vegetarian ( ) friendly ( ) unfriendly ( ) exclusively
> house number: [ textbox]
> etc
>
> And by filling these properties in, the software would automatically
> convert it
> to the OSM ontology. All the client software would need to do is be able to
> parse our ontology file to provide all of this. And provide a sane UI, at
> last,
> for entering opening_hours.
>
> Charles
>
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Re: [Talk-us] Why we really don't get new users

2014-03-17 Thread Ian Dees 
Such a thing already mostly exists in the preset system. iD has a fairly
extensive and growing set of presets that I encourage you to try (it
follows the example you give).

JOSM also has a preset system, but it's not nearly as obvious or as
complete (at least for the mapping I do). You access it by hitting F3 on
your keyboard when mapping.


On Mon, Mar 17, 2014 at 1:17 PM,  wrote:

>
> I'm going to just point out the elephant in the room here. I don't think
> any
> normal user cares about the license at all. I think the actual reason its
> hard
> to get new mappers, especially those that are not nerdy and obsessive like
> myself is that *the ontology sucks*. There, I said it, so you don't have
> to.
>
> It's actually a few things related to how the ontology sucks:
>
> 1. The tagging of things bears little resemblance to things in the real
> world:
> a. A lot of common things just don't have standard tags: examples:
> tax
> preparers like H&R Block, investment brokers like Charles Schwab, medical
> marijuana despensers here in California, recreational MJ shops in
> Colorado. I
> could go on.
> b. the whole shop/amenity debate
> c. common things that have really stupid tags, like barber shops
>
> 2. To be a useful mapper, one needs to memorize these arbitrary tags. It
> wouldn't be so hard if it weren't arbitrary (a salon is a shop? and it's
> called a hairdresser‽). But even if it weren't arbitrary, it'd still be
> hard
> to remember because things have synonyms, and no shop is called a chemist
> in
> the US.
>
> Corrolary: A bagel shop is a bagel shop, no muggle cares that a bagel shop
> is
> fast_food amenity that sells the bagel cuisine.
>
> 3. I went to a shop recently that sells espresso drinks, and gelato, but
> markets itself as a chocolate maker. (Specifically: Snake & Butterfly,
> Campbell,
> CA). There is absolutely no sane way to tag this in OSM today.
>
> 4. The wiki is a terrible platform for documenting the ontology because
> it's
> not machine readable and it's just a slow way to get information.
>
> I don't just mean to moan, though. What I'd like to do is propose a
> machine-
> readable ontology that we could provide to JOSM, Vespucci, etc, that would
> allow newbies to edit the map. I imagine a dictionary and associated tags.
> A
> user could type in "bagel" and all the reasonable properties show up, along
> with a description of what they're entering:
>
> (A shop that sells primarily bagels, baked goods and breakfast
> foods)
> (not what you're looking for? try  or )
> name: [ textbox ]
> opening hours: (a *UI* to enter times of week)
> vegetarian ( ) friendly ( ) unfriendly ( ) exclusively
> house number: [ textbox]
> etc
>
> And by filling these properties in, the software would automatically
> convert it
> to the OSM ontology. All the client software would need to do is be able to
> parse our ontology file to provide all of this. And provide a sane UI, at
> last,
> for entering opening_hours.
>
> Charles
>
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[Talk-us] Why we really don't get new users

2014-03-17 Thread osm 

I'm going to just point out the elephant in the room here. I don't think any 
normal user cares about the license at all. I think the actual reason its hard 
to get new mappers, especially those that are not nerdy and obsessive like 
myself is that *the ontology sucks*. There, I said it, so you don't have to.

It's actually a few things related to how the ontology sucks:

1. The tagging of things bears little resemblance to things in the real world:
a. A lot of common things just don't have standard tags: examples: tax 
preparers like H&R Block, investment brokers like Charles Schwab, medical 
marijuana despensers here in California, recreational MJ shops in Colorado. I 
could go on. 
b. the whole shop/amenity debate
c. common things that have really stupid tags, like barber shops

2. To be a useful mapper, one needs to memorize these arbitrary tags. It 
wouldn't be so hard if it weren't arbitrary (a salon is a shop? and it's 
called a hairdresser‽). But even if it weren't arbitrary, it'd still be hard 
to remember because things have synonyms, and no shop is called a chemist in 
the US.

Corrolary: A bagel shop is a bagel shop, no muggle cares that a bagel shop is  
fast_food amenity that sells the bagel cuisine.

3. I went to a shop recently that sells espresso drinks, and gelato, but 
markets itself as a chocolate maker. (Specifically: Snake & Butterfly, 
Campbell, 
CA). There is absolutely no sane way to tag this in OSM today.

4. The wiki is a terrible platform for documenting the ontology because it's 
not machine readable and it's just a slow way to get information.

I don't just mean to moan, though. What I'd like to do is propose a machine-
readable ontology that we could provide to JOSM, Vespucci, etc, that would 
allow newbies to edit the map. I imagine a dictionary and associated tags. A 
user could type in "bagel" and all the reasonable properties show up, along 
with a description of what they're entering:

(A shop that sells primarily bagels, baked goods and breakfast foods)
(not what you're looking for? try  or )
name: [ textbox ]
opening hours: (a *UI* to enter times of week)
vegetarian ( ) friendly ( ) unfriendly ( ) exclusively
house number: [ textbox]
etc

And by filling these properties in, the software would automatically convert it 
to the OSM ontology. All the client software would need to do is be able to 
parse our ontology file to provide all of this. And provide a sane UI, at last, 
for entering opening_hours.

Charles

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