[Talk-GB] Editor backbground layers in iD

[Rob Nickerson]

Hi Paul,

I hope you are well.

As you have seen my responses at [1] and [2], it will come as no surprise
that I oppose this move. I have set out my reasoning below:

== Reason 1: Open Historical Maps (OHM) is not an entirely separate project
to OSM ==

I will start by providing a bit of background for those on the talk-gb list
who may not be aware. The "editor-imagery-index" is a list of background
layers that appear in the main OSM editors (for example the bing aerial
imagery). It is designed to be a single list that can be used by all
editors (Potlatch, JOSM, iD, etc..), that is the purpose of
editor-imagery-index is to make it easer to share new background layers. In
my opinion creating a second version of this list (called
"historic-imagery-index") was silly as it will lead to confusion (more on
that later).

When you created the historic-imagery-index it was because some of the
background imagery that has been licensed for use in OpenStreetMap has not
been approved for use in Open Historic Map (which in your view is entirely
separate from OSM). My proposal to add a "OHM-Approved" field to the
existing editor-imagery-index was rejected on the basis that:

>"Adding project-specific stuff to another project's documents doesn't
really make sense. It's kind of like saying there should be a flag in the
XLSX format specifying if the document can be opened by LibreOffice."

This comparison seems over the top to me. Yes, OHM is currently not an
official OpenStreetMap Foundation project, but many people in our community
do see it as a "sister project". After all, much of what is in OSM in town
centres now, will become historic data in 50 years time.

As such we should make more effort to be inclusive of Open Historic Maps.


== Reason 2: What is "historic"? Who decides? ==

This point stands on its own, by which I mean, ignore that Open Historic
Maps even exists. The point here is that who decides what counts as
"Historic" and of "no value" to current day mapping. In my opinion all the
layers you have proposed to remove are of current value. They include names
of hills, valleys, rivers, etc that may be difficult to survey elsewhere.
They also show us where Rights of Way may exist (note that due to the odd
legal situation in the UK, a right of way may exist but not have been
recorded by the Local Authority on current maps).

Lets look at another example. Is a 1:5000 Town Plan from 1960 historic? It
has 1960 in the title, so does that mean I should add it to your
historic-imagery-index? Hang on, it contains detailed building outlines,
many of which will still exist. Okay then we put this 1960's map in the
current editor-imagery-index. But then what about a 1950s map, a 1940's map
etc.. Where is the cut off? And why does the power to decide this lie with
the very few people who can accept new contributions to
editor-imagery-index and historic-imagery-index?

Oh and lets be clear. At the moment this is a removal as the editors only
pick up those background layers listed in editor-imagery-index.


== Reason 3: It damages our community ==

We have been working hard to build up a relationship with our Archives and
Libraries here in the UK. The current relationship with National Library of
Scotland (NLS) is quite good. They even spoke at State of the Map Scotland
2013 [3]. The Bartholomew Half Inch layer is a new one only just added, and
I know that (NLS) are delighted that we have made it available to OSM
contributors.

Removal of historic layers, sends a negative message to these wider OSM
community members and suggests that we do not appreciate their work. You
may not like the current layers very much, but many of these Archives hold
some really detailed maps (e.g. Town Plans that have only just fallen out
of copyright) and we need to work with them to make those layers available
(for the joint benefit of OSM and OHM).

In a related note, we are aiming to attract a more diverse community to
OSM. As OHM and OSM use exactly the same tools, it is not beyond belief
that someone who starts in OHM can also edit in OSM. We should work
together, not apart.


===

I hope some of this makes sense, and you can see that the drawbacks far
outweigh any benefits.

To answer your original question: Yes, I still use these layers when I am
mapping the countryside. I tend to flick back and forth between them and
believe that I can make better maps if they are all available to me.

Regards,
Rob


[1] https://github.com/osmlab/editor-imagery-index/pull/25
[2] https://github.com/osmlab/editor-imagery-index/issues/27
[3] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsTeyAuBoqE
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