[Talk-GB] Editor backbground layers in iD

Andy Townsend lists at mail.atownsend.org.uk
Sat Nov 9 12:40:21 UTC 2013


On 09/11/13 11:58, Rob Nickerson wrote:
>
> 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:

Hi Rob, hi Paul,

I'll not venture into the "how" of this only the "what"...

Let's think about it from the perspective of the new mapper.  Let's 
imagine that they've decided to add something to OSM and they've 
ventured into iD for the first time.  There's a nice walkthrough, but if 
I recall it doesn't mention much about background imagery, but there's 
an entry on the help that says "there's some imagery in addition to the 
default Bing layer".

When the new mapper clicks the imagery button at the right they 
currently see ALL of the geographically available layers from 
https://github.com/osmlab/editor-imagery-index (currently the bottom of 
the menu is cut off - see https://github.com/systemed/iD/issues/1929 - 
but that issue is fixed pending release).

Let's not kid ourselves - not all of those layers are like the others.  
In GB, the Bing imagery layer, Local GPX file, GPS traces and OS 
OpenData StreetView are likely to be the most useful, and probably in 
that order.  A Bartholomew 1/2 inch from the Victorian era is likely to 
be ... less so.  We need to provide new mappers with relevant 
information, sometimes even if that means less information.

No-one's proposing restricting what mappers can choose as a background 
in JOSM, and the background layers in Potlatch 2 aren't going to change 
any time soon, but in the instance of iD that new mappers see when they 
select "edit" from the menu on osm.org it does make sense NOT to offer 
them an OS 7th series that isn't even available everywhere in GB as the 
top option in the menu.

Cheers,

Andy




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