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

[Kate Chapman]

Steve,

I think you confuse my participation in OSMFUS and HOT.  OSMFUS has
never suggested that anyone map Haiti or Jakarta or anywhere else.
Have I worked on mapping those locations?  Yes.  I have never
suggested anyone map another country other than their own.

It is fair that OSMFUS hasn't done anything since SoTM-US last year.
You know what though, deliberately being shitty doesn't really make
people want to help.

-Kate

On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 7:44 PM, Steve Coast <steve at asklater.com> wrote:
> 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
>
> _______________________________________________
> Strategic mailing list
> Strategic at openstreetmap.org
> http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/strategic
>
> _______________________________________________
> Strategic mailing list
> Strategic at openstreetmap.org
> http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/strategic
>
>