[Osmf-talk] Anonymous notes on osm.org

[Ilya Zverev]

I may have missed this suggestion, but:

1) Anonymous bugs should obviously be allowed. We can't afford to lose 
a contributor. Some people here forget that bugs get added not only in 
cities where a mapper may sometime survey that information himself, but 
also in a really sparse populated areas, like Siberia, where the choice 
is either "receive information, though it may be bad" or "have an empty 
spot for eternity".

2) But the absense of feedback is what gets every mapper. It's the 
worst aspect of OSB. But since we can't make everyone to create an 
account or fill all of the fields, I suggest to add optional email 
field. Yes, I know there is an issue in Europe with storing such 
information in database. But email is optional: if someone doesn't wish 
to store it, he won't type it in. And it doesn't have to be displayed: 
we just need a way to send a mail. For example, entering a email means a 
user is subscribed to the comment feed for that bug.

3) I support Tobias' suggestion on non-blocking offer of account 
creation. So there would be a choice of a) completely anonymous bug (we 
don't have any reservations against removing bugs that can't be fixed, 
do we?), b) anonymous bug with a subscription (mappers would see if a 
reporter is subscriped), c) bugs from registered users.


IZ