On 2015-04-04 05:23, Serge Wroclawski wrote:
On Sat, Apr 4, 2015 at 12:31 AM, Russ Nelson <nel...@crynwr.com> wrote:
Brad Neuhauser writes:
If you want to know how serious abandonfans are, I've see people go
looking in farmer's fields with a metal detector looking for spikes,
and dig down 12" to find one. I've seen people go into a farmer's field
looking for chunks of coal that fell off coal trains. I've knocked on
people's doors to ask them if they know anything about the railroad in
their backyard.
That shows an incredible level of dedication, but in OSM we generally
don't require specialized equipment to contribute, including
validation.
The evidence of dismantled railroads is out there, and it should be in
OSM to help people find it.
What would you do about someone who was cleverly adding tracks that
didn't exist?
Imagine if there was a vandal who was clever. We'll call this vandal
User V. User V decides to have a bit of fun and makes dismantled
railroad ways.
How do you propose we, as a community, handle User V? My normal way of
handling such a matter, in or out of a DWG context, would be to go to
the place and see if I see what they see. But my understanding from
your mail (and you can correct me if I'm wrong) is that I personally
have the expertise to make that determination?
Who does? What makes one mapper more qualified than another mapper?
This question gets to the heart of this project, which is that we
don't make people take tests to map in OSM. This is such a generalist
project that anyone can contribute. Now you're saying that, in
essence, some features can only be evaluated by certain users.
I don't think that's really what you mean, but that's what I'm hearing.
Let me reframe the question. Instead of "Yes they should be in OSM" or
"No they shouldn't be in OSM", here's the new question:
If a user deleted an object that a layperson can't see in OSM, what do
you think the process be for evaluating that edit should be?
I appreciate your emphasis on verification. The community necessarily
puts in a lot of effort into data integrity, but we don't really promote
the more manual side of QA. As OSM grows in profile, our defenses
against vandalism will increasingly be tested. Personally, I don't find
ground verification to be nearly as fun as mapping, but if someone's
going to volunteer to do that work, we shouldn't throw needless
obstacles in their way.
We should assume that verifiers are every bit as diverse as the OSM
community at large, rather than a lowest common denominator group of
laypeople. I'd be much better at verifying administrative boundaries
than mountain biking trails. You shouldn't trust me to make good calls
on mtb:scale= values, but don't stop a skilled cyclist from using that
important tag and another skilled cyclist from verifying it.
On the other hand, mappers who feel the need to rely on detective work
should document that work, for example by adding a note= tag or
accompanying that railway=abandoned with some additional clues. If it
really comes down to spikes you've dug out of the ground, an OSM diary
post with photos can go a long way. We all love a good story!
--
m...@nguyen.cincinnati.oh.us
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