On Tue, 6 Dec 2011 22:11:03 -0700 Martijn van Exel <m...@rtijn.org> wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 6, 2011 at 9:23 PM, mick <bare...@tpg.com.au> wrote: > [..] > >> If OSM is taught in the classroom and this results in lots of errors, > >> then either OSM was not the right subject to teach, or was not taught > >> well ;) > > > > Letting utter novices loose on live data strikes me as crazy, they will > > make dumb mistakes that even a GOOD instructor could easily miss, what > > would it take to provide a 'dummy' server that could be readily be > > downloaded and installed at the training site, perhaps along the lines of a > > 'LiveCD'. > > That's an interesting thought, but part of the excitement of > contributing to OSM is the instant gratification of seeing your own > improvements on the map and being able to share your knowledge with > the world right away. Having new contributors make their first > contributions in a sandbox environment takes away a lot of that > excitement. Moreover, I think it's important for novices to feel the > responsibility and power of > editing a live database, something they will only be able to > appreciate if they actually do it. The logic?? behind my suggestion for a sandbox is that, especially in the earliest stages is that the stupid mistakes can be made and a form of instant gratification is presented by the dummy server/site which is running a sacrificial subset of OSM. This also allows demonstration of some of the uglier mistakes novices make. Based on my experience school boys are sure to do things an sane adult will see as dangerous and/or destructive. Once they meet a basic standard they would move on to the live data. I have been 'playing' with computer mapping, on and off, since about 1996 and still mess up my data to the point that deleting the lot and starting again is the easiest option, especially since I started trying to make sense of the sometimes anarchic tagging I have encountered in OSM and OS Open Data's separation of labels from the objects they apply to. > > Sure, they will make mistakes at first. Everyone does. It's no big > deal, as long as people are willing to improve and learn. I for one am > glad that not many of my early 2007 edits are still around. I have to admit that my idea of a dummy or testing/learning server would help me with my own project - mapping of historic objects that may only remain as stains and other archaeology under the ground, such as Roman Roads, Marching Camps etc. mick _______________________________________________ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
