On Sat, Nov 09, 2013 at 07:28:16PM +0000, Matthijs Melissen wrote: > On Nov 9, 2013 5:39 PM, "Jochen Topf" <joc...@remote.org> wrote; > > On Sat, Nov 09, 2013 at 03:25:35PM +0000, Rob Nickerson wrote: > > > Perhaps some way of tracking our data consumers would be useful. Or > maybe > > > we need a way for them to say which tags they are interested in so that > > > they can receive mail just about these. > > > That's the wrong way around. If you are using OSM data it is your job to > keep > > abreast of developments in OSM. A volunteer project like OSM can't keep > track > > of all their "customers" the way a commercial company might. That's not to > > say that we should change things willy-nilly, we should announce changes > > beforehand etc. But we do that on our mailing lists etc. And yes, that > puts > > a lot of burden on the users of OSM data, but they get it for free, so > there. > > At the moment it is indeed not that easy for data consumers to keep track > of changes. The tagging mailing list had quite high traffic, and most posts > there are not directly relevant for data consumers. > > I have been thinking about how we can improve this situation. Would it be > an idea to create a separate mailing list that just serves to announce > changes in the tagging scheme? That way we can separate the discussion on > creating tagging schemes (which data consumers can ignore if they wish) > from the announcements of new schemes. > > Typically changes correspond to accepted proposals on the tagging mailing > list. We could add to the procedure of proposing tags that the proposer > should make an announcement to this list when hits proposal is accepted.
Unfortunately the tagging discussions and voting doesn't actually matter that much. It is not important what some people think or have agreed on what tags should or should not be used in what situations. What is important to data users is how the tags are *actually* used in the database. And I don't see that much correlation between actual use and this proposal procedure. A change in an editor configuration might have more impact than a vote in the proposal process. This situation isn't great, but it is what we have. Data users have to familiarize themselves with what's there. They have to read wiki pages, look at taginfo, look at discussions on mailing lists and they have to try out different interpretations of the data and find out what works for them. There is no shortcut to this process. There are many ways of making this easier, one is writing better wiki documentation, one is finding better ways of putting these information into taginfo. But highlighting results from a proposal process that doesn't matter all that much, isn't one of them. (btw I would welcome some university research on whether my assertions above are actually true. I'd love to have some data that tells us how tagging in the actual database is driven by tagging proposals, or editor choices, or people just inventing tags they like, or local fashions etc.) Jochen -- Jochen Topf joc...@remote.org http://www.jochentopf.com/ +49-721-388298 _______________________________________________ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
