[Osmf-talk] Idea for improved mapping system

[Rory McCann]

Yes, remember that not everything that counts is counted, and not everything that's counted counts.

It's OK IMO to have something fun & silly. A UK site showing politican's record in Parliament alongside the number of words the politican spoke, also showed how often they used alliteration, or rhymes. They did that to remind people that these stats shouldn't be taken as gospel.

If you do something like this, be careful. If you incentivise people to do something and it backfires, people will rightly hold *you* responsible.

The recent problems with Hacktoberfest has shown how rewarding people for metrics  *can* backfire.

On Sun, 18 Oct 2020, at 5:13 PM, Frederik Ramm wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> On 10/18/20 01:49, TheAdventurer64 wrote:
> > A user and I were talking about implementing a system for better
> > mapping, as described here: 
> > https://osmus.slack.com/archives/C029HV951/p1602968516431900
> 
> Please, in the future be so kind and summarize the idea in your e-mail
> rather than pointing to a proprietary web page that requires registration.
> 
> I have not read it but I can guess from the responses here what your
> idea entails, and I would like to offer a word of caution:
> 
> Gamification is a powerful tool, and with wielding it comes great
> responsibility. Most attempts at gamification in the OSM sphere have
> either had lasting negative effects or at the very least massive
> teething issues. People *will* game the system. If you count how many
> changesets they make, then they will split their edits in smaller
> chunks. If you count how many objects they change, they will be more
> likely to move a complete road with all its nodes by 10 centimetres or
> write a script to drop the "created_by" tag on thousands of objects. If
> you count how long their changeset comments are, they will write and
> repeat novels when uploading changesets. If you count how many new
> objects someone creates, then they will be more likely to delete and
> recreate something than to just improve its geometry.
> 
> The direction that gamification drives people in will never be exactly
> what we want and need in OSM, it will always be off by something. You
> will not be recruiting new mappers, but new players.
> 
> It can still be beneficial to OSM, but the above needs to be kept in
> mind if you want to build something that succeeds.
> 
> On another ("diversity") note, you should be careful not to focus too
> much on competitive elements and players who want to climb some ladder;
> you might end up motivating people from some regions and genders much
> more than others.
> 
> Bye
> Frederik
> 
> -- 
> Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"
> 
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