[HOT] [Tasking Manager] enhancements - testers required

[Sam Larsen]

Hi,

>>
That was something quite confusing about the task manager: you had to login to do *anything*. I see on the dev server, that it's still a requirement to login to browse the tasks. Is this really necessary? It would be nicer if a login would be *only* necessary for "write" actions, like locking/commenting ?
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>You're right. Accessing a tile in read-only mode shouldn't require a login.
>I'm not sure a user should be able to access a job without being logged in.
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One thing i have come to realise after the fantastic!! updates to the tasking manager over the last year or so (big pat on the back to all involved) is that it is increasingly becoming easier to contribute to OSM via the HOT tasking manager than through OSM itself!  This really outlines how effective the tasking manager has become, especially by providing the mechanism to describe specific mapping tasks that need to be done and guiding mappers (new or old) through the process of making an edit.  OSM is sometimes (mostly?) overwhelming for new mappers and i can see the tasking manager being a really useful tool to get new mappers involved.
For that reason, i would request that we show much more data to non-logged in users (i.e. potential OSM/HOT contributors).  I realise this might not be straightforward in terms of how it is technically implemented, but i think it's needed all the same.  Being able to access the entire platform read-only will help to tell the story of how we map a place to new mappers - except for maybe HOT acquired imagery urls or any other sensitive information on the system.  The 'Take the Tour' addition to the platform definitely helps towards this goal, but i feel it is a bit general and it would be nice to show *exactly* what we are doing *now*.
I'm sure there are lots of people who would be more interested in contributing to a humanitarian project than an IT project; let's not kid ourselves, sometimes people see OSM as an IT / Geeky crowd - many are put off by this.  That's where i think HOT can offer them a middle ground, they get the opportunity to help a humanitarian cause while at the same time becoming more OSM aware.  Being able to link to a task (especially immediately after a major disaster) on a social networking platform to show people this what we are doing to help in a clear way (which is what the TM provides) will enable them to explore our work and see that it's not actually that complicated and they can get involved.
I think the next step after that is to integrate a new simplified JavaScript editor (this is where i should pull my socks up and contribute to something like ID[1] ;) for the kinds of editing that we do.

Aside from all my outstanding requests, i am really impressed with the rapid work on the platform, it seems every time i use it there is a new helpful feature.  Thanks to all who have contributed.

samlarsen1

[1]: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/ID