[OSM-dev] Removing functionality and giving just No as answer

[Tom Hughes]

On 24/02/17 10:26, Jóhannes Birgir Jensson wrote:

> As evident in the discussion on issue
> https://github.com/openstreetmap/openstreetmap-website/issues/1446 there
> are several people interested in maintaining functionality that existed
> only a few days ago - being able to view single tiles just as easily as
> before.
>
> A patch was submitted which added the tile to the new context menu
> (which in itself is a fine addition but eliminated the functionality
> being discussed). See
> https://github.com/openstreetmap/openstreetmap-website/pull/1450

That is not an accurate description of what happened as I explain in my 
previous message.

> It was closed and rejected in a very abrupt and unconstructive manner.

I respectfully disagree that I have been unconstructive. I have made 
clear that there are a number of ways that the requested functionality 
could be made available including in a detailed response I posted this 
morning which you in fact quote from.

> The issue itself was also closed with accusation of brigading.

Well it was a little odd that we suddenly got several people who are not 
regular commenters turning up in the space of a few minute to add "me 
too" style responses.

> But removing functionality and then denying it to be re-added based on
> very little but personal objective is unhelpful and detrimental.

Again that is not what happened. At no point was a decision made to 
remove this functionality. Rather it was removed essentially by accident 
when leaflet was upgraded and only six months later when we added our 
own context menu have people complained about it.

> What should have been a great patch with addition of context menu is
> turning into an issue because of one very simple change and resistance
> to tweaking it.
>
> Denigrating active mappers because they are "the 0.001%" of the user
> base is hardly a solid reason - nor is "what makes good UX for the 99%
> not what will make the 1% a little happier".

It's not intended to denigrate anybody, it's simply to explain that we 
can't simply add everything that is of use to some small subset of users 
because there is a cost to everything both directly in terms of 
maintenance and indirectly in terms of complicating the UI for all the 
other users that will never use a given option.

More specifically there were a number of people asserting that this 
feature was somehow to all mappers and I was trying to make the point 
that really that wasn't true at all and that the was majority of mappers 
would never have any use for it.

Tom

-- 
Tom Hughes (tom at compton.nu)
http://compton.nu/