[OSM-dev] OSM Wishlist

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

On 10/12/2012 02:14 AM, Andy Allan wrote:
> As for all-new things,
> I'd like to explore how to integrate all the various QA feeds into a
> combined overview, rather than having to hunt around different sites.

That would be a great thing to have, and one that has been eluding us 
for quite a while. I remember SteveC bringing that up years ago - the 
bug platform to end all bug platforms, if you will.

Jochen and I had a little discussion about this with the MapQuest guys 
when their involvement in OSM started, with the aim of potentially 
building such a platform for them, but that didn't lead anywhere.

As the operator of OSM Inspector, I am occasionally contacted about 
adding "third-party" layers to it, and OSMI meanwhile has not only the 
bugs found by our code but also a routing layer that consists partly of 
Pascal Neis' and partly of Dennis Luxen's work. I would be totally open 
towards the idea of merging OSMI stuff into a common platform.

I do believe though that we can't take the easy route and build a new 
centralised QA platform; we'll have to build a meta platform into which 
everyone can feed their input, so that we can continue to harness the 
creativity of OSM hackers around the globe who come up with new QA 
measures all the time (and whom we don't want to run all their queries 
on our central database, even if it were suitable). Building such a meta 
platform is not an easy task because "bugs" are much more than just 
popup markers on the map - bugs can also be a way, or a collection of 
ways, or a convex hull around a broken polygon; a good platform will 
also allow the user to flag those bugs which are false positives. All 
this in an environment where a multitude of QA providers feed hundreds 
of thousands of check results into the platform every day.

Maybe all that thinking is why I never got around to build something - 
perhaps it is time to take a step back and build the "simplest thing 
that could possibly work". Then again, if it doesn't offer an advantage 
over what's already there, it won't reach the goal of concentrating QA 
measures.

Bye
Frederik

-- 
Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"