[Strategic] Fw: [ppgis] RE: Collaborative slum mapping initiative with Google Map maker kicks off

[Steve Coast]

I'm going to add something flippant to Richards nice mail:

Vast resources are spent on saving the elephant and mapping Timbuktu for 
the UN Fund for Trees.

That's nice, it has some value, but we have tons of key people who only 
care about these related causes. Consider that the OSMFUS has 
essentially done nothing. Nothing, apart from help Jakarta. Or Haiti. Or 
anywhere _but_ the USA. The signals this sends out to thousands of 
people who want to get involved is very distorted - "Hey I'm in Ohio and 
I want to make my map great" "Fuck you, map Haiti."

I'm being deliberately shitty here to make the point. I'm perfectly 
aware the Haiti stuff was a triumph, that all sorts of good has come out 
of all this.

Those resources and time if spent on OSM... If people turned up to their 
board meetings...

It just feels like the government centric humanitarian agenda is 
perverting OSMs core mission. I don't think we want that any more than 
cycling maps to take over, or any other subset.

Steve


On 4/27/2011 4:23 PM, Richard Fairhurst wrote:
> Mikel wrote (quoting Muki):
>
>> Google made map maker very easy to use - in few clicks you can start 
>> adding data. OpenStreetMap - despite being aware of their usability 
>> problems since at least 2007, have made relatively little progress - 
>> Where is the Google Map Maker interface equivalence? Where is the 
>> ability of anyone to start mapping within 2 minutes from wanting to 
>> do so? Where is the deep concern within the community about the very 
>> high number of people who manage to register to OSM but do not enter 
>> any data? Where is the concern about the aggressive exchanges in 
>> forums that are exclusionary by their very nature? Where is the 
>> discussion about the gender bias?
>>
>> Just like with Linux, OSM have an ambivalent culture which at the 
>> same time want people to join while feeling very proud that it is 
>> 'not for everyone' and a certain level of mastery is required to join 
>> in. The lack of a major sustained effort to make it as easy as Google 
>> Map Maker - especially when there is such an obvious example out 
>> there - lead to the conclusion that within the 'do'-ocracy that OSM 
>> is, not enough people think that it's a top priority.
>
> Certainly I think it's an enormous priority, can sketch out _exactly_ 
> what I'd like to see, and would love to do something about it if I had 
> the time.
>
> I can't; because Potlatch takes up all my time. The number of people 
> actually contributing code that is useful to new editing users (other 
> than geeks who can take JOSM and run with it) is vanishingly small: 
> basically, those of us working on P2 and those working on the main 
> site. That's probably a cabal of five people or so. In contrast, ask 
> yourself how many people are working on QA alone for GMM.
>
> A couple of years ago I was sitting next to a well-known OSMer at a 
> geo event. We were listening to a presentation about "we've started 
> this great initiative to hear, encourage and help develop your ideas". 
> He muttered to me that this is entirely the wrong problem. There's no 
> shortage of great ideas: the shortage is of people to do them.
>
> It wasn't an OSM-specific presentation, but it's very true of OSM. 
> About the only thing we do to encourage new developers is, ironically 
> enough, Google Summer of Code, and that never works.
>
>
>
> On a related issue: our community is fucked. It always used to be what 
> we were proudest of in OSM. For one reason or another, and I guess a 
> lot of us are culpable, large parts of it have gone to shit.
>
> When Muki says "OSM... feels very proud that it is 'not for 
> everyone'," I count myself out. If someone can tell us that we're 
> missing a POI or that a road is wrongly named, I want their 
> contribution. I am personally cross that I haven't had the time to 
> make the site inviting enough for this.
>
> _But_ the do-ocracy should still hold true. We welcome your 
> contribution. Thanks. We welcome your feedback for how to improve the 
> site. Thanks too. We'll do something about it, if we think it's a good 
> idea (it probably is) and if we have enough resources (the current 
> issue). But you are still just a user.
>
> Somehow (and Muki touches on this) we have evolved a bizarre culture 
> where every conspiracy theorist, wacko libertarian nutjob, and 
> semi-literate moron can post on the mailing lists and expect to be 
> listened to - and answered. "You own the copyright in your 
> contributions" has evolved into "...and therefore you run the entire 
> project". It's crazy. We have eroded the distance between users and 
> project leaders.
>
> It's not a do-ocracy if "those who don't" are on the same level as 
> "those who do".
>
> I find it difficult to believe that, on the the mailing lists for 
> Linux kernel or Drupal or Apache (or whatever), anyone can turn up and 
> expect the right to unlimited debate with the brains behind the 
> project. I find it difficult to believe that Linux's equivalents of, 
> say, Grant or Frederik are expected to endure the abuse that the 
> nutjobs hurl at these two on the lists. When "those who do" aren't 
> valued, fewer people volunteer to "do".
>
> The other side of this is when "development" (in its widest sense) 
> takes place without the structure of a do-ocracy. The classic example 
> is OSM's documentation - aka "welcome! Here's how you contribute to 
> this map" - which is ghastly. When anyone can contribute on an equal 
> level, and there's no "maintainer", it becomes shapeless and 
> unhelpful. Documentation is essential: Wikipedia has the advantage 
> that everyone's used a word-processor; very few people have ever used 
> a vector drawing program. Yet we continue to hobble ourselves.
>
>
>
> More and more, I wonder if, to fix the website, we have to first fix 
> the community.
>
> cheers
> Richard
>
>
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