Hi,
On 12.05.2013 14:24, NopMap wrote:
There are ongoing discussions in the German boards about iD easily and/or
inadvertently breaking data [1].
Just like they've been saying about Potlatch for the last N years you
mean?
Are you implying that any comments on iD are to be discarded
indiscriminately because there was another discussion about another editor
at another time?
On the whole, I don't think the project has benefited from the "anti
Potlatch spirit" that was prevalent especially in the German community.
(I think the situation has markedly improved with P2.) New users started
out with Potlatch and were occasionally treated like imbeciles because
they used that editor - especially in the beginning when the Potlatch
feature set (and the priorities in fixing Potlatch bugs on the part of
the authors) didn't exactly meet the expectations of the German community.
(Yes, I know, they didn't do much to fix things either.)
I would like to avoid repeating this with iD.
I would expect from the German community a certain willingness to accept
that not every editor must be "feature complete". It is perfectly ok if
certain operations are outside the reach of a mapper using iD, and we
shouldn't belittle iD or the people using it because of such legitimate
design decisions.
At the same time, if there should really be situations where even a
diligent newcomer can cause significant breakage with iD without even
noticing, then that should definitely be treated as a show stopper for
making iD the default editor - not because a little damage is caused to
our data, but because the new mapper will have a terrible experience
when after his first few steps of contributing to OSM they already get
messages telling them that they broke something.
I haven't followed the discussion and I don't know just how arcane the
issues are that people have with iD. I remember that when Potlatch was
introduced, the overarching goal was a slick UI. More than once Richard
has joked about the multitude of popup messages that JOSM can confront
you with, and not without reason. Popup messages are considered bad
style among UI designers and can severely disrupt the workflow. On the
other hand, too little feedback about what you're doing or have just
done is bad too - it pretends to take responsibility away from the user,
but the messages that they'll receive in their inbox will not have any
of that. They will ask "why did you <X>", and if the editor didn't make
the user aware that <X> was being done, that's not a good user
experience either. (I think that with time, Potlatch in some places
introduced those little fade-away messages that informed you of
something you had done - i.e. not like JOSM "are you sure you want to
<X>" but rather "I did <X> for you". Those seemed like a reasonable
compromise.)
I know that many people are either unaware of the multitude of complex
relations used by mappers in Germany, or even think that they're some
useless play thing the Germans create because they've already mapped
every lamp post. And it is everyone's right to think or say that if
that's their opinion. However, if there should really be (and I repeat,
I haven't even investigated the details!) ample possibility to
unknowingly upset relations with iD then I suggest that the matter
should be taken seriously - not because a handful of Germans complain,
but because we'd be sending new mappers to their doom, at least in
Germany, and pave the way for another five years of "right editor vs.
wrong editor".
Bye
Frederik
--
Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33"
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