<div dir="ltr"><div><span style="color:rgb(80,0,80);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">On Thursday 19 June 2014, Frederik Ramm wrote:</span><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><br></span></div>
<div><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><The discussion has been led here on talk and on osmf-talk. A statement</span><br></div><div><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">by Emilie Laffray on osmf-talk best summarizes the idea:</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">
<br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">"Ultimately, map data is pretty much fact and whether it exists or not</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">
<span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">is a binary statement. Now, could someone slip "advertisement" like</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">places of all shops of a specific brand? Yes! Do we care? No, as long as</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">
<span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">the data is factual. I don't care if someone is being paid to put data</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">in OpenStreetMap as long as this data is correct and valid..."></span><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><br>
</span></div><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><div><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><br></span></div><div><All these are judgment calls where we trust our mappers to make the<br>
right decision. All these are a far cry from the "binary statement" and<br>the easy fact checking that people often ascribe to OSM.><br></div><div><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><br>
</span></div><But this should not make ourselves blind to the fact that there's also</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">quite a lot of stuff in our database that is not as easy to fact-check.</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">
<span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">I believe there is ample room to "interpret" reality in a way that is</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">not outright wrong, but has a "spin" on it - in OSM as in Wikipedia.></span><br>
<div><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">At SOTM Birmingham a workshop was aimed at mappers who wanted to share their dreams for OSM in, say, 2020. Results can be found here: </span><font face="arial, sans-serif"><a href="http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Future/Dreams">http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Future/Dreams</a></font></div>
<div><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">On the aspect of technique, editing, tools some dreams were:</span></div><div><ul style="line-height:19.200000762939453px;margin:0.3em 0px 0px 1.6em;padding:0px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:undefined,sans-serif;font-size:13px">
<li style="margin-bottom:0.1em">Easy for non-techies to add data</li><li style="margin-bottom:0.1em">Consistent tagging format or rules (described)</li><li style="margin-bottom:0.1em">No federated tagging / worldwide consistency / no federational mappers</li>
<li style="margin-bottom:0.1em">Ability to move on from poor initial tagging conventions</li></ul><div><font color="#000000" face="undefined, sans-serif"><span style="line-height:19.200000762939453px"><br></span></font></div>
</div><div><font color="#000000" face="undefined, sans-serif"><span style="line-height:19.200000762939453px">In my work I have to deal with guidelines involving ultimately some billions of euros per year. As a professor I spoke about them wisely said: "you should always try to limit interpretation by improving the guidelines, but there will always remain room for interpretation no matter how strict the guidelines are". I think this combination can also work for OSM: continuously keep on improving the map features (as stated in the dreams), which are applicable to any mapper, paid or unpaid. Sometimes that leads to easy black-and-white situations: a motorway should not be mapped as a footway. But indeed, to a certain extent grey situations will remain. And the grey situations need interpretation. As a core value, respect will also mean mappers communicating about the reasons for their interpretation.</span></font></div>
<div><br></div><div>Cheers, Johan</div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">2014-06-19 12:06 GMT+02:00 Frederik Ramm <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:frederik@remote.org" target="_blank">frederik@remote.org</a>></span>:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">Hi,<br>
<br>
this is an offspring from the discussion about whether or not we are<br>
well advised to follow Wikimedia's example of requiring the disclosure<br>
of paid contributions.<br>
<br>
The discussion has been led here on talk and on osmf-talk. A statement<br>
by Emilie Laffray on osmf-talk best summarizes the idea:<br>
<br>
"Ultimately, map data is pretty much fact and whether it exists or not<br>
is a binary statement. Now, could someone slip "advertisement" like<br>
places of all shops of a specific brand? Yes! Do we care? No, as long as<br>
the data is factual. I don't care if someone is being paid to put data<br>
in OpenStreetMap as long as this data is correct and valid..."<br>
<br>
Let us go back in time to when Wikipedia was started. I wasn't there<br>
then but I am pretty sure that there would have been many at the time<br>
who naively said something like: "An encyclopedia is a collection of<br>
facts and knowledge. We can argue how the facts are organised and<br>
presented but the content is verifiable and clear."<br>
<br>
I would probably have agreed. Where and when a composer was born and<br>
what their most famous work is - clearly a fact, no?<br>
<br>
Fast-forward to the present. Wikipedia has learned the hard way that<br>
there is much less fact and much more open to interpretation than<br>
initially believed. Meanwhile in OSM, people say: "We don't have the<br>
same kind of problems as Wikipedia because ours is effectively a<br>
database of verifiable facts."...<br>
<br>
This is undoubtedly true for a number of things in our database - but<br>
the number of exceptions is much higher than you would naively expect.<br>
<br>
Firstly, there are cultural issues mostly to do with names. We have edit<br>
wars about name tags (most recently, disputed islands in South East Asia<br>
and territories between Ukraine and Russia) - what is the "name on the<br>
ground" in an area with active movement of troops?<br>
<br>
Another very recent example is a long discussion-cum-edit-war in Germany<br>
about whether or not something really *has* a German name X<br>
("name:de=X") or if that is a thing of past occupation<br>
("old_name:de=X"). This is not a fact that you can simply check, it is<br>
something that requires research and brings us quite far into the<br>
"[citation needed]" terrain already.<br>
<br>
But there are other and much less obscure issues, starting with the<br>
highway classification. There are no hard and fast rules about what is,<br>
for example, a primary or a secondary road; this is mainly a distinction<br>
that we leave to the local mapping community, and yes, there are edit<br>
wars about that too, and there is potential for edits with an ulterior<br>
motive (someone who lives on a street might downgrade it from primary to<br>
secondary to have less vehicles routed there, or to make his property<br>
look more attractive to a potential buyer).<br>
<br>
We have many other situations in which we trust the mapper to do the<br>
right thing without being 100% verifiable. Track types are an example,<br>
or indeed the infamous "smoothness" tag. When we map which areas are<br>
"residential" and which "commercial", there's quite a bit of leeway<br>
there as well - you can gloss over a supermarket in a residential area,<br>
or you can cut a hole in the area and mark it differently; you can map<br>
the whole supermarket parking lot as a parking lot or you can map the<br>
trees and the little bushes between the rows of cars and make it look<br>
almost like a park.<br>
<br>
Is something just a stream or already a river? Is something just a town<br>
or already a city? Does the office of a private music teacher count as a<br>
music school, thereby increasing the quarter's school density?<br>
<br>
All these are judgment calls where we trust our mappers to make the<br>
right decision. All these are a far cry from the "binary statement" and<br>
the easy fact checking that people often ascribe to OSM.<br>
<br>
I believe that it is still true that most of what we collect *is* facts,<br>
and as long as we stick to the facts we're in the green. It may be<br>
disputable whether something is tracktype=grade1 or tracktype=grade2 but<br>
the fact that there is some kind of track in that location is not up for<br>
discussion.<br>
<br>
But this should not make ourselves blind to the fact that there's also<br>
quite a lot of stuff in our database that is not as easy to fact-check.<br>
I believe there is ample room to "interpret" reality in a way that is<br>
not outright wrong, but has a "spin" on it - in OSM as in Wikipedia.<br>
<br>
Bye<br>
<span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888">Frederik<br>
<br>
--<br>
Frederik Ramm ## eMail <a href="mailto:frederik@remote.org">frederik@remote.org</a> ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33"<br>
<br>
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</font></span></blockquote></div><br></div>