[josm-dev] Validator

[Dirk Stöcker]

On Wed, 11 Jul 2012, Frederik Ramm wrote:

>>  The idea behind this is that users actually fix these issues. When we no
>>  longer display them, then they wont get fixed at all. The system has
>>  already been tuned a lot,
>
> Exactly. This is what the newbie will think as well: "The system has been 
> tuned a lot, this editor is used by thousands of mappers every day, so it 
> MUST BE RIGHT and I am responsible for all these bugs! Oh dear!"

I believe you mix newbie and dumb person here. Newbie does not mean a 
brainless person, but only one who does not know OSM very well. But he can 
read dialogs and also understand them. If not, then probably JOSM is not 
the right tool for him anyway.

>>  so that the warnings and errors have few false
>>  positives and information level is disabled in default.
>
> We're not talking about false positives. We're talking about things that are 
> indeed problems that need to be fixed, but we're showing them to the wrong 
> person - someone who lacks the necessary time or first-hand information to 
> fix them.

Then I agree with Pierre, that we probably need additional help (e.g. wiki 
pages) describing each error and warning and how to fix it. As always 
help is welcome.

The related pages

http://josm.openstreetmap.de/wiki/Help/Preferences/Validator
and
http://josm.openstreetmap.de/wiki/Help/Dialog/Validator
and
http://josm.openstreetmap.de/wiki/Help/HowTo/ValidatorExamples
and
http://josm.openstreetmap.de/wiki/Help/Action/Validate (missing)

need a lot of updating.

>>  As programmer I say an error is an error and it makes no sense to divide
>>  it into "my" error and "your" error.
>
> Oh yes it does. Because if you have made a change that *causes* a problem, 
> and then a message discourages you from uploading at all, then that's not too 
> bad. But if you make a change that just happens to lead to *unrelated* 
> problems being highlighted, and you then decide to rather not upload your 
> change, then this is a loss for OSM.

If a change causes a problem, then the text tells you to upload anyway. 
And later probably ask someone else to check if it is ok. My father doing 
much more mapping than myself from time to time gets such requests to 
verify and/or fix complex situations always helping the people to do it 
themselves the next time.

Problem with errors usually is not the error itself, but the harsh tone 
in OSM when someone made an error. But this is nothing which software can 
change.

>>  And a beginner getting "tons" of errors also touched "tons" of objects
>>  which probably is no good idea at all when you don't know what you do...
>
> Is it not possible to touch one large object which has e.g. 20 level 
> crossings with other ways and then get 20 warnings just because you added a 
> tag to that one big thing? At least that's what the guy on talk-us claimed.

Sure it is. And then for US you google "(j)osm crossing ways warning" and 
find a short help how to proceed in the first link. For other languages it 
is more complicated to find proper help.

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