[OSM-dev] Registering on osm.org with a social account

[Ilya Zverev]

Hi everyone,

We at maps.me (well, me alone for now) are looking into simplifying OSM sign up process on mobile devices. As you know, the current process, which involves opening a browser, then opening a mail app, then opening a browser again, then returning to an app and entering credentials once again, is quite disruptive. But since we already support linking accounts to social login services (like Facebook and MS Live), there are few things that could simplify registering users on mobile. I wrote some thoughts on hackpad:

https://hackpad.com/Facebook-Registation-for-OSM.org-4MI6M5EeeRh

My point is to create a set of API methods that allow for user registration without at any point leaving the app, but not removing any steps from the registration process (except e-mail verification, which is done by a third party). This would greatly increase number of OSM editors, not only because web registration will take less clicks, but from a great number of mobile users, who don't want to bother with a website.

I can probably learn RoR and make these changes myself, but for now I'd like to learn if the community is good with this proposal.

IZ