[openstreetmap/openstreetmap-website] Notes from website should include an indication the note was created here (Issue #3932)

Andy Allan notifications at github.com
Wed Feb 22 15:08:03 UTC 2023


> Sadly, the current [OSM database model](https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Database) does not include anything to include the source of the note (I hope this is addressed in the next API version).

In many circumstances we can change the data model between API revisions, if it can be done in backwards compatible way. Adding another field to an existing object is generally backwards-compatible.

> If we want all applications to identify themselves in notes, we should change the notes data model rather than append text to the note.

I agree.

> I am not sure how things work on the website development, but I would start with something that small, and then go for something more robust.

So this goes to the heart of why you'll find the maintainers wanting to do things properly, rather than making a "quick fix" first and hoping to sort it out properly later. 

I have spent years, literally years now, refactoring and trying to sort out a long list of quick fixes and half-implemented features that were included in the source code and never revisited by the original authors. That's fine, I don't want to criticise fellow volunteers. But even with the best of intentions of people proposing new code for new features, very very few ever come back later to improve on their original work. So we maintainers need to be sure that if someone submits a new feature, that it's done right and we would be happy to maintain it ourselves over the long run. That doesn't mean that it needs to be perfect, iteration is always a good approach, but each iteration does need to be thought through and it does need to avoid making more work for us in the future.

When I started trying to refactor these problems I thought it would take a few months, but there is no end in sight and unfortunately lots of my ideas for new features for mappers are still waiting to be started.

> I believe that listening to the guys closing thousands of notes per year could be beneficial to the project.

I absolutely agree, hearing from people using the site and API is key to making sure that we are building the right things. On the same side of that coin is listening to the maintainers, so that we can have a maintainable codebase that allows us some kind of forward velocity for features.

> just like changesets

>From my point of view, it's important that different parts of the API have some kind of consistency. For an absurd example, it's frustrating that Nodes and Notes use different formats for timestamps (yes really, `timestamp="2022-07-28T09:47:39Z"` vs `<date_created>2013-04-24 16:30:25 UTC</date_created>` - and yes, one is an attribute and the other an element, in addition!) or some objects are plural in API urls and some are singular, the list goes on. I think it would be better to have a consistent approach between Changesets and Notes to storing information about the application that creates them, rather than having the same data stored in two entirely different manners (tags vs inline hashtags) as is being proposed here.

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