[Rebuild] Update on progress

[Alan Mintz]

At 2012-04-18 09:36, Richard Weait wrote:
>If you
>have specific, real world data example that you think will make
>interesting test cases, please present them on the rebuild list.

I don't know about interesting, but this chunk of the Los Angeles-area city 
of Glendale has plenty of potential data loss: minlat='34.1' 
minlon='-118.3' maxlat='34.2' maxlon='-118.2'

According to JOSM and the licensing plugin:

<pre>
                         Ways            Nodes
Total objects           3912            35909
Data Loss               1013 (26%)      4734 (13%)
Possible Data Loss      582 (15%)       2133 (6%)
</pre>

Here's a pic of part of this area in JOSM now: 
https://sites.google.com/site/am909geo/osm-1/GlendalePre.jpg?attredirects=0
and here's a pic after deleting the ways and nodes in the "Data Loss" 
category of the license change plugin: 
https://sites.google.com/site/am909geo/osm-1/GlendalePost.jpg?attredirects=0

I think I speak for all locals when I say this is an unacceptable amount of 
loss. If you look at the Geofabrik maps, you will see that this is 
basically what's going to happen to the whole Los Angeles area. Is that 
really acceptable - to have a fairly important city of the world become 
completely unusable in the map? A large part of it (is there a tool to see 
how much?) is because of the inability of the LWG (or whoever) to find a 
way for the contributions of a single mapper (you know who it is, or can 
easily see) to be licensable. As I understand it, his objection is not 
unreasonable, and I can see ways in which a mutually acceptable solution 
could be found, too (as it was for balrog-kun and DaveHansen TIGER).


>Once the tests are passing on the expanded test data, the schedule
>will return to the previously announced phases; Limited bounding box
>tests, larger test areas, then the rest of the planet.  Those phases
>will be announced with as much notice as possible, consistent with
>progressing with limited delay.  You can appreciate that both of those
>are desirable while also being in tension with each other.

Sure, except that most of us do not understand the weight that "limited 
delay" has been given in this. I can certainly understand that those who 
are working tirelessly on the redaction project want to see it done with so 
they can get on with their lives, but at the same time, is it OK to (likely 
for an indefinite period of time*) damage large, important** swaths of the 
map by just charging ahead when we haven't had sufficient time to prevent it?

The 3 days or so notice that was originally given for the server migration 
(and the difference between what "read-only" ended up meaning and what most 
inferred) was not enough when we thought that the redaction would proceed 
immediately afterwards. I would encourage notice of at least one week, and 
then subject to finding a reasonable solution to the data loss problem.


>We'll update rebuild weekly, until completion, even if only to say
>"still working on the tests".

Please and thank you!


>Watch the rebuild list or #osm IRC channel.[2]

I would encourage you to send it to the other lists (at least talk) as 
well. IRC is not a reasonable signal/noise ratio for most of us.


Notes:
* As mentioned, we've already lost at least one huge contributor. If the 
map will be as damaged as I think, I am as likely as not to go away, too, 
as the project has not fulfilled its obligation to be a reasonable steward 
of my (substantial) work. As much as some think there will be these huge 
crowds of people wanting to map, this simply has not turned out to be the 
case. I believe the map cannot be anywhere near usable without large 
contributors, and we "don't grow on trees". All we ask is respect for our 
time - something which has not been given us, regardless of intent.

** I don't mean to imply that any part of the world is more important to 
humanity than any other part - simply that the number of people likely to 
want to use a map of Los Angeles is larger than the number wanting to use a 
map of smaller and/or less populous places. This is important to gaining 
any sort of widespread support. I also see that much of Europe is in danger 
as well, and this is perhaps even more important socially for areas that 
are not well-mapped by other sources.

--
Alan Mintz <Alan_Mintz+OSM at Earthlink.net>