[josm-dev] validator question, multipolygons

[Dirk Stöcker]

On Sat, 5 Mar 2011, hbogner wrote:

> We lost some new OSM mappers because of this.

If the people are discouraged that easily then they would have gone soon 
anyway. Have you ever got a message/email from someone who thinks that you 
"destroyed" his work due to a simple modification. The validator is 
harmless compared to this. My father who does a lot more than I do gets 
these messages constantly and I got them a lot when I was more active.

The time for basic mapping is over (at least in Germany and central 
europe) and tools like the validator are more and more important to get a 
useable database. JOSM's goal is not to have to ultimate freedom for a 
mapper. JOSM allows you to do nearly everything, but it does not encourage 
you to do so. The goal is a usable database following some unique 
standards. And it must be easier for a user to follow the standards than 
not to do it.

Maybe in some cases the tests aren't perfectly correct, but this is to be 
expected as automatic detection of these topics is a very complicated 
issue and errors can't be prevented. When you find such problems, report 
them properly and they will be fixed when possible.

If I judge this issue based on the ticket reports we get, than we have 
only minor problems with this. And half of the reports ask to add 
additional checks and not to remove some.

So a note to these of you trying to convince me that we have a major 
problem with validator: This opinion does not match the statistical data 
that we have. Especially as validator had >80% installation count 
even before it moved into core.

Ciao
-- 
http://www.dstoecker.eu/ (PGP key available)