[HOT] [Reflexion] Where does LearnOSM end, where does the OSM wiki begin?

[Yohan Boniface]

Hi Hotties,


LearnOSM does a very great job in catching the newbies, giving them good 
basis to start contributing to OpenStreetMap. The new design powered by 
Mapbox is awesome, modern, and very attractive.
LearnOSM is with no doubt, a very important pillar of OSM.
Nevertheless, I have some concerns about its perimeter.
Here is my point: as I've stated, I have no problem about the function 
of LearnOSM for newbies, but I doubt that it is a good way of storing 
more advanced learning material.
OSM has already a wiki for this. And the wiki *is* part of the toolbox 
of learning for an OSM editor. And thus isn't that the final step of 
LearnOSM should be to guide the now-no-more-newbie to the wiki?

I see some disadvantages in using LearnOSM instead of the wiki for 
*intermediate and advanced* materials:

- the workflow for publishing/updating the data is centralized: only the 
HOT Github members (I am one) have the authorization to publish things

- the workflow for creating and updating the documentation is much 
harder: using git is not like editing a wiki, and recent discussions on 
IRC (in #hot), emails, and on Github issues shows that this is an 
obstacle for some of us

- we should avoid creating a monoculture based on non open source and 
non community based technologies, and, just a reminder, Github is not 
open source

So here is what I suggest:

- stop publishing intermediate and advanced chapter through LearnOSM

- move the "Editing the wiki" chapter as last chapter of the beginners 
section

- start contributing and focus to the wiki again, adding the advanced 
chapters, and translation, and everything

- (why not) revamping the wiki look, to make it a little bit more 
attractive and modern (yeah, long process, full of trolls in talk@, 
etc., but that's a community way of growing, and that's what OSM is, a 
community).

Of course, this is just my opinion.

Again, LearnOSM is a very nice and important project, I'm just wondering 
about using it for advanced materials.

Thanks for reading, please discuss,

Yohan