On 21/03/2020 20:59, Greg Troxel wrote:
This really seems unfair. When someone maps for OSM because they want to, they have goals and a typically a good attitude about community norms. When someone is a a paid mapper, their goals come from the person who is paying them, and they don't necessarily care about the overall health of OSM. So this "paid mapping is a bit scary" notion is 100% accurate.
You've made a leap in logic there. From guessing to 100% true.
That doesn't mean all paid apping is bad; were I to take money from the local chamber of commerce to make sure all their businesses were on the map with opening hours and other details, all of it would be done in a way that other mappers would think is correct, or at least just as correct as if I were doing it for fun. But the idea that people are hired into a position and given instructions might lead to bad outcomes is quite sensible. Really these edits are not so different from mechanical edits, and I think the organizers need to own the responsibilility for high quality, and the standard should be quite a bit better than normal hand mapping norms.
What's the betting you'd be the first to complain when your parcel is 30 minutes after it's allocated delivery time, because the driver couldn't find the right driveway.
This is all AL are doing, completing the final quarter of a mile of their journey in areas not easily accessible to the general public. It is *not* a mechanical* edit, but taken from on the ground surveys using GPS, in *exactly* the same way many voluntary contributors map.
Please don;t assume, go on the evidence of the contributions. I believe they're improving the quality of the OSM database.
* Similarly the way 'mechanical edits' are perceived needs to change. They should be accesses on *quality*, not quantity.
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