[Tagging] solving iD conflict

[Christoph Hormann]

On Friday 24 May 2019, Mateusz Konieczny wrote:
>
> Is there some editor capable of working in-browser that can be
> considered as better than iD that was refused without a good reason?
> There is Potlatch 2, but relying on Flash immediately makes it worse
> (even assuming that interface and design is better than in iD).

Note i am not talking about the editor as a software product but about 
the presets and validation rules here.  

> Or is there some explicit or implicit announcement that iD will be
> kept as default even in case of something better (like forked iD with
> some changes to presets and validation rules)?

That is obviously a hen-and-egg problem - no one will likely develop 
alternative presets for iD if it is clear that you would have to fight 
a successfull uphill battle against the full inertia of the OSMF to get 
them on the website.

It does not really matter if you consider it unfair or not (and using 
this term was therefore probably a poor choice).  It is not about what 
is fair from a moral perspective, it is about what is a responsible 
choice for ensuring a healthy competitive situation and a good variety 
of editing choices being available to mappers in the long term.  The 
OSMF would have the choice to open the competitive situation for the 
default editor and components of it like presets on osm.org even if at 
the moment there are no direct alternative ready for use.

For the map layers being offered on osm.org we already have a policy:

https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Featured_tile_layers/Guidelines_for_new_tile_layers

It would be well possible if in analogy to that we had policies for 
editors or editor components like presets or validation rules.  Having 
a clear regulatory framework that defines what conditions you have to 
fulfill is very helpful in encouraging people taking the initiative to 
start such a project.

-- 
Christoph Hormann
http://www.imagico.de/