[OSM-dev] The wiki defines the database

[Ben Supnik]

Hi Y'all,

I am a little bit concerned about what some of you all are saying, in 
particular its effect on new users.  Having been working on OSM now for 
about 3 days (writing Wiki articles, processing map extracts, and fixing 
a few roads in my neighborhood for fun), this is my perspective as 
someone with no clue:

Having a schism between the Wiki and "ground reality" (meaning what is 
in the database and what the tools promote) is problematic for a new 
user.  As a new user, I went to the Wiki to look for answers to questions...

- What tags do I need to use.
- What is the best way to tag.
- What does this existing tag mean.

As a new user, my source for answers is going to be:

1. What the tools do/make easy.  If potlatch gave me a red flag and said 
"you must add tag X before continuing", I would have done it. :-)

2. What is in the map _locally_ (in the spatial sense).

3. What the Wiki says.

4. What is in the map globally.

To put it simply: to me it seems crazy to not have emerging data 
standards from the map documented on the Wiki.

In an attempt to provide a useful suggestion...

Perhaps there could be integration between the Wiki and some of the DB 
analysis tools (like the tag-finders) and the editing tools?

My thought is that if the Wiki engine could use the same "preset" format 
as JOSM or Potlatch, then the Wiki could automatically indicate whether 
a tag is going to be part of an editor, which to me is a very important 
endorsement of a tag (and provides a more sane place to create a 
"schema", if I dare use the word).  Similarly, if the Wiki page for a 
tag included its usage statistics, then a user could easily see that 
tag=fluffernut has 8 pages of discussion but has been used only once.

In other words, tie the Wiki to "ground reality" by feeding it from the 
toolset, rather than accept that the Wiki is going to be an alternate 
reality.

As a new user, I think I only want a few things, and they seem like 
reasonable things to want (to me):

- Answers to the question "What tag do I use".
- Only one possible choice of tag.
- The answer to be in a place that's easy to find.

If a command-line tool had a thousand switches and the man page 
documented a whole bunch of them wrong, we'd all go "what's up with 
that, let's fix the man page"!

Okay - sorry, I'm done...I'll go finish my coffee.

cheers
Ben




-- 
Scenery Home Page: http://scenery.x-plane.com/
Scenery blog: http://xplanescenery.blogspot.com/
Plugin SDK: http://www.xsquawkbox.net/xpsdk/
X-Plane Wiki: http://wiki.x-plane.com/
Scenery mailing list: x-plane-scenery at yahoogroups.com
Developer mailing list: x-plane-dev at yahoogroups.com