[OSM-dev] Why are so many changeset so large?

[Paweł Paprota]

On 10/17/2012 01:04 AM, Alex Barth wrote:
>
> I really like how activity streams shows easy-to-understand changes
> on the map using changemonger [1,2]. At the same time it creates an
> alternative break down of changes that is more granular than
> changesets.

> This diverts attention from _comments on changesets_. This is not
> ideal in my mind - these comments on changesets have great potential
> to become an even more important communication channel in the
> future.
>

I agree. I will add changeset comments to changeset descriptions on the 
demo instance and let's see how this turns out.

One challenge I see with that is the fact that some (most?) people don't 
add relevant information to their changesets. But perhaps seeing their 
changesets as activities would change that behavior and they would use 
changeset comments as a communication channel, not as a required field 
in an editor.

> I understand activity streams / changemonger suggests a broken up
> view of data changes because many changesets are so large that they
> are effectively not meaningful. I'd like to understand better why
> these changesets are so large.
>

One thing that became immediately apparent once I managed to get the 
whole thing up and running is the fact that changesets really do come in 
all shapes and sizes.

Is that a problem? I thought about it and my conclusion is that it's 
just another thing that the social/activity stream view could help with.

While I agree with Tom's comment about encouraging people to go out and 
survey instead of writing edit bots, I think we should accept and 
embrace all changes when thinking about improvements to the site.

Specifically, I thought about adding things like:

1. Changeset size (number of changes) indicator on a single activity view.

2. Changeset size (in terms of bounding box) indicator on a single 
activity view.

3. Simple filtering features for (1) and (2). Right now the Activity 
Server holds multipoint geometry for every changeset so it's possible to 
implement filtering like that (as opposed to considering only the 
bounding box of a changeset)

Paweł