[josm-dev] Commit message not empty

[Pieren]

On Wed, Apr 22, 2009 at 1:56 PM, Frederik Ramm <frederik at remote.org> wrote:
> Yes, if the user so dislikes being communicative then let him put "fuck
> you" there and be surprised why his edits get reverted more often than
> others.
>
> Honestly, the commit comment is important and if someone who has made an
> effort to map something cannot be bothered to spend 5 seconds of his
> time (thus making things VERY much easier for everyone else) then I'd
> politely ask him to find another crowdsourcing project to contribute to.
>
I cannot accept this argument. OSM lived for years without comments.
It is a "nice to have" information but it is not so important as the
geodata content. Wikipedia works since years with optional commit
comments and making no comments does not mean that the edits are crap.
If I have to choose, I prefere contributors making good quality
editions with no comments than contributors making bad quality stuff
with nice comments.
JOSM seems to be the only one who tries to force comments. Myself, I
like to describe my changes but not always. But when I see that "I
have to" do it, it makes me so ungry that I write anything excepted
what I could kindly write otherwise.

Pieren

and svn comment message can be empty, excepted if you want to force it.