On Sep 6, 2018, at 1:14 PM, john whelan <jwhelan0...@gmail.com> wrote (replying to me, stevea): > > Hm, we tried to revive the wiki, a tried-and-true OSM methodology for doing > > EXACTLY that. Is there something wrong with that idea? > > No this project was initiated by Stats Canada, but without clear requirements > or feedback about what had been achieved. The Stats Can side wasn't > dependant on normal OSM mappers but my understanding was it was hoping to > draw in new mappers.
John, BC2020i (note the i) was initiated by Stats Canada. Threads here, consensus and the wiki declared it dead, as it failed on a number of fronts, primarily that it didn't respect OSM in certain ways in which OSM must be respected. It MIGHT have become resurrected as BC2020 (no i) and the wiki were attempts to do that, especially as Stats Canada was out of the picture by then, as they weren't going to contribute to either the wiki or the BC2020 itself, though, like anybody who "takes" (uses, and not in a bad way) OSM data, StatsCanada would be welcome to the results of BC2020 (and BC2020i is dead, I'll say it one more time). We stripped away what was wrong with "i" and slightly renamed the project to conform to the way that OSM has, can, does and will complete projects (including, but requiring that we use wikis). BC2020 seems to have become moribund and ineffective, though I continue to hold out high hopes that it can be successful. OSM actually DOES have clear requirements or feedback, part of those are naturally "built in" to crowdsourced projects, part of those need a bit of goosing along by prompting volunteers to communicate well (wiki is ONE way, not the only way) via simple things like reporting progress and/or continuing to sharpen up focus because tagging started out as an early draft, but now is a "more complete" or "final" draft. Sure, any good project wants to start out with clear goals (and should) but a modest bit of mid-course correction certainly won't prevent successful completion. > Fine but a couple of maperthons that were organised had data quality issues > and no clear guidance about what tags were most valuable. That's because no QA was planned up front, just like I suggested to do last year and into January of this year. And I'm not boasting, but I did put some effort into the richest set of potential tags (harvested from our wikis) than I believe anybody else did, and I don't really have any specific interest in the project, except that it be a WELL RUN project. (So I tried very hard to "seed it well"). In crowdsourcing, yes, this can be challenging, but communication is the lynchpin that allows it. Wikis, at least in OSM can be and often are a critical component of the successful ongoing (status reporting, etc.) and completion of projects. > I could be wrong but I'm not aware of any significant movement on the project. OSM (worldwide, not "just" in Canada or any particular country) seems to be in a communication crisis, where everybody thinks that some sort of "secret-special-sauce walkie-talkie" (like GitHub or Slack) will solve everything. No. While those have their place (let me emphasize, I truly mean that) they will continue to Balkanize (fracture) and legally bind (have you READ the contracts GitHub and Slack ask you to agree to?!) OSM volunteers far past the state of hobble-and-wobble, it will kill us. Talking about GitHub is like pilot-radio-chatter: specialized, harmful to BUILDING new community (which is CRITICAL in BC2020) and will keep you grounded as certain as a hurricane. OSM Canada knows how to crawl, and even walk. To run, and even fly, especially with BC2020, use what we have. The fancy stuff might (MIGHT!) be used later. SteveA _______________________________________________ Talk-ca mailing list Talk-ca@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-ca
