On Wed, May 4, 2011 at 2:07 AM, Frederik Ramm <frede...@remote.org> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On 05/04/11 03:23, Serge Wroclawski wrote:
>>
>> Dave, if you have a suggestion that would let us communicate in real
>> time (not over weeks via email) then please share this with the group.
>
> The alternative to communicating in real-time is fundamentally changing your
> organisational structure to reduce international decision-making to an
> absolute bare minimum by devolution.
>
> For example, move to a kind of distributed software/database architecture,
> incorporate OpenStreetMap Australia, let them collect their own funds,
> operate their own database, make their own decisions, have their own logo,
> have their own project main page, have their own strategy working group,
> have their own license, and so on.
I've thought about this myself; would it be better to have separate,
smaller instances of OSM, the way Wikipedia does.
In the end I concluded not, but I thought I'd lay out the argument,
just for discussion sake.
Arguments for Breaking OSM up:
1. Removes project language barrier
OSM is nearly entirely Anglo-centric. We have a large number of German
speakers, but the project, as its core, is English. This creates a
barrier to entry for many folks.
2. Allows for more adoption of local-centric tagging.
If one country has road classifications that make sense, it can use
them, and not need to adopt OSM standards.
3. It allows for local features
Some features only exist in certain places, and so it makes sense for
those local features to be in a local tagging set, but not another.
4. It eliminates part of the issue we have around times/timezones.
Unless you live in Russia, your country has a small number of
timezones, and so organizing meetings and events is not as
challenging.
Ultimately, though, I think this is the wrong approach, and here's why:
1. Translation software exists.
Tags don't need to be displayed to the end user unless they want to
see them, just as few people see raw column names when they edit a
form on a web site.
As editors become increasingly sophisticated, the issues around
translation will reduce over time.
2. OSM is its own de-faco standards body.
By needing to classifications from various countries, I find the OSM
{tax|folks}onomy to overall be very robust. Since we have to deal with
so many variations, we tend to create classifications that work at a
very granular level, but because we're human beings mapping on the
ground, the classifications tend to be useful for other human beings
in a way that's largely intuitive.
I don't think we'd have that kind of clean tagging across the board
unless we had the necessity.
3. Local features are interesting, and the discussions we have on
meaning is educational
I like to bring up this discussion when talking about OSM tagging to
strangers. Someone on the list wanted to create a tag for US "Notary
Publics", often just called "Notaries".
Someone in France spoke up and said "I agree, we should have a tag for
lawyers and notaries".
This brought up a very interesting discussion on the differences
between the legal systems of the US, France, the UK, and Australia.
Each of these countries had a slightly different meaning for the word
notary, along with a different role that a notary plays.
By discussing this difference up front, all of us received some
education on legal systems, but were also then forced to define our
terms, which bring us back to our robust tagging system.
5. If we don't unify the tags up front, we have to unify them later.
Our users have gotten used to maps that "just work" across the world.
If they get broken up, someone will later have to re-assemble them,
and they're bound to do it badly because of the lack of the robust
discussions that happen.
6. Wikipedia's break is not purely country-based
Let's not forget that Wikipedia needs to break itself up because of
linguistic issues, as well as some cultural ones.
We have done very well unifiying our datasets.
7. No turf wars
Right now, I'm as largely comfortable mapping wherever I am. With
separate instances, I could easily be setting myself up for all kinds
of issues, from the technical (getting a different set of credentials)
to tagging, to mores of "You aren't to map this area because our local
rules say it belongs to BigMeanUser."
8. OSM can be more robust than the nations themselves.
It's hard to realize sometimes, but in the last year, look at how much
political unrest has occurred in the Middle East. And I'm old enough
to remember all the new maps that needed to be created after the
Soviet Union fell. OSM may end up being more long lasting than the
nations it maps. So let's not tie ourselves to them.
Anyway it's just a thought exercise, and I'm fairly sure Frederik was
joking (I don't get German humor).
- Serge
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