[Talk-GB] Toys R Us

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

On 05.05.2018 12:57, Rob Nickerson wrote:
> Frederik's view is that a crap map encourages more people to edit. 

Not quite. My view is that a crap map doesn't become a non-crap map by
erasing one obviously false name, and I was thinking more of our
relationship with the map user and not so much of encouraging mappers.

But I haven't used the word "crap map". OpenStreetMap is generally
great, and it might have the occasional weak spot.

What is being suggested here is what a commercial map maker would do:
Let's take measures to hide the weak spots of our product, so that we
can shine without blemish.

But we ware not a commercial map maker. We can afford to, and should, be
honest with our map consumers. And that includes admitting that none of
our volunteers has had the time to re-visit the area since Toys R Us
went belly-up.

My view is that the map is actually *better* for the consumer if we are
honest with them, because we're including an easily decodable marker
about its quality. A marker that even people who cannot use any OSM QA
tools will understand without extra training.

Rob is of course right that removing the store without re-surveying the
area does remove one error from the map and therefore makes it a tiny
little bit more correct. I'm just arguing for keeping the error until we
can afford to make it much more correct. If that takes a few months then
we have to live with that; doing it right takes time and I'm pretty sure
that doing it right is one thing our users love us for.

Bye
Frederik

-- 
Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"