[HOT] Difficulty in communicating with iD users

Sat Mar 5 21:37:09 UTC 2016

Hi Suzan and all,

Sorry I am not able to fully participate in this matter as I'm not much of an iD user (still prefer P2 for in-browser editing).  But, I don't think any Devs in the whole OSM workflow are 'in the clouds'; most of them are active members of various mailing lists, etc.

But, my main concern is that this discussion is on just the HOT list and I think iD team has their own? Probably someone can loop you into their discussion channel(s) so these concerns don't fall on 'deaf ears' and/or the 'right ears' never hear your message. Also, we should all know that the tagging scheme is 'loose' and I think this is more about them changing the 'suggested tags' versus actual tags, which I still don't typically use presets or the gui on potlatch, I go to the wiki if I'm not sure what tag to use; most are in my head :)

Thanks,
=Russ

-----Original Message-----
From: Suzan Reed [mailto:suzan at suzanreed.com] 
Sent: Saturday, March 05, 2016 2:23 PM
To: john whelan; Richard Fairhurst
Cc: hot at openstreetmap.org
Subject: Re: [HOT] Difficulty in communicating with iD users

The changes to ID were clearly made without any regard to the significant impact it would have on tens of thousands of mappers around the world. Although as you state OSM developers see themselves as above consulting with others on the impact of their work, that is arrogance. If they want to walk out because they can’t be team players and develop for real people doing real mapping, let them go. They shouldn’t be a part of the organization. 

There is no reason thousands of ID users need to accept the dictates of a few developers who never gave one thought of the impact it would have on other people, thousands of pages of documentation, hundreds of videos, and all the monetary and human costs their changes would make. Yes, some of the changes are interesting and good, but reality needs to be inserted into the process and they need to know how their work impacts the mapping community around the world and that what they did is not good. There is a middle ground, and yet from what you say, they are too “in the clouds” to even consider it. That’s shameful. 

On Mar 5, 2016, at 6:18 AM, john whelan <jwhelan0112 at gmail.com> wrote:

Apols then I was thinking purely in HOT terms.  In HOT terms we map, then validate which I agree is something that OSM does not normally do.  JOSM is a much better tool than iD for validating since it detects highways that are almost joined and catches many other errors.  Many HOT projects map buildings, JOSM with the building_tool plugin has many fewer unsquared buildings than iD mappers.

Also when validating I can usually tell whether the mapper has been using iD, JOSM mappers do not have nearly as many untagged ways or buildings tagged area=yes as new iD mappers.  So in a HOT context moving mappers to JOSM is normally seen a progression since we need more validators and JOSM is the tool of choice for validation besides giving fewer errors.  In an OSM context mappers simply map and to be honest it doesn't matter what tool they use, tags are very flexible and there is little agreement about what values should be used, its only in the HOT context that it really matters.

I totally agree with you about consensus etc in OSM it can never be reached, I don't think a fork for iD for HOT is a terribly good idea keeping one version maintained is hard enough but at the same time for HOT where the turnover of new mappers is high, training and the impact of changing a tag is high and it sounds like this impact was not taken into account nor is there apparently any structure to take such things into account. 

Cheerio John

On 5 March 2016 at 08:41, Richard Fairhurst <richard at systemed.net> wrote:
john whelan wrote:
> When you get to a certain size you need a formal review process
> before making changes and I think HOT is now at that size.

Which is not at all relevant as iD is not a HOT project.

OSM empowers its developers to make decisions: on openstreetmap-carto, iD,
JOSM, osm.org, osm2pgsql, you name it. Most developers welcome feedback, but
consensus cannot always be reached, as per the recent changes to osm-carto.
The idea that you might impose a formal review process to tell non-HOT
developers what to do is absolutely anathema to OSM and I think would lead
to a mass walkout of developers.

If you want a humanitarian-focused editor or just a humanitarian-focused set
of presets, then you should host an instance of iD on hotosm.org. Otherwise,
you have to accept that changes will be made.

> Most sane people think in terms of moving mappers to JOSM eventually

Nice insult. Actually http://www.mdpi.com/2220-9964/5/2/21/htm, published a
fortnight ago, shows that the picture is more varied than you might think.
France is 84% JOSM vs 9% Potlatch, while the UK is 47% Potlatch vs 42% JOSM.

Richard

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