[OSM-dev] Add an iD link to the Potlatch no-Flash screen

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

On 04/19/13 08:28, Richard Fairhurst wrote:
>> At the moment anyone trying to run Potlatch on
>> a Flash-free machine gets links to download Flash
>> and to the list of editors on the wiki. Could we
>> add a link to edit the map without Flash or any
>> other setup using iD once we put it on the editing
>> menu?
>
> TBH I don't see a whole lot of reason not to move iD into prime (default)
> position after some minimal time - say, two weeks - of checking that it
> doesn't catastrophically break stuff in real-world, second-on-the-menu
> usage.

I think the situation was not exactly comparable when Potlatch started 
but I would like to add a caveat; Potlatch did have quite a number of 
limitations plus a couple of bugs when it started and while these 
weren't considered "catastrophically breaking stuff" they had enough 
undesirable side effects that many people have a very negative view of 
Potlatch to this day, and (especially in the German community) blaming 
Potlatch for every problem that mappers cause was almost a knee-jerk 
reaction for a long time.

So yes, it probably doesn't hurt the project if you roll out iD to the 
masses after "some minimal time" but if due to some unforeseen problem 
(or problematic interaction of users with the software) too many people 
break things with iD, there is a risk of acquiring a bad reputation 
which sticks even after all problems have been removed.

Bye
Frederik

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