[Talk-transit] Mapping standard: how to make a standard that is easy to learn, use and fast to implement

[Michał Borsuk]

Hello everybody.

I would like to open another discussion about the dreaded "learning curve",
and other principles that a standard should meet.

Let me list out what I think are the most important points that ANY mapping
standard should meet:

1. Data consistency
Data consistency (not having a myriad of standards) is important, but what
is now is not the worst case. As I said before, Melchior Moos managed to get
through the mess and created openbusmap.org / ÖPNVkarte.de, so if he could,
that means the situation is not critical. It is high time we developed a
standard for our own ease, but it's not like there's a tragedy with what is
now. After all, we're all still mapping.

2. sensible "learning curve"
There is only one way to become a pro in public transport mapping, that's to
learn the standard. If the standard is very long, or very complicated, or
has unpleasant steps to learn at some point of the fun with mapping, we're
going to loose mappers. We must rely on newbies, rookies and the like, we
simply can't map each city we visited. The point: system must be either
simple, or if it's complicated, it must be broken into steps of increasing
difficulty. Ideally it should be easy for a newbie to edit a bus line.

3. efficiency
A stop point with two platforms will take significantly more time than two
bus stops (or one in some situations). Two relations (or more! e.g. Paris
RER) will take significantly more time to edit in case of a detour (right,
RER won't be detoured, but you get the picture).

4. usability with present software
Large part, let's say 80-90% of the cases one runs into when doing basic
mapping must be done in the simplest available software. Why? Because
mappers are not programmers. Majority of mappers (Pareto principle,
anybody?) see the OSM website, the "edit" button, and do not much more.
Those more adventurous will try to map bus lines, and they will look for a
wiki page. Those guys are not as hard-set on mapping their surroundings as
we are, let them map one line, that's how public collaboration works after
all.

5. Info page on wiki
Absolutely crucial.


I hope this is simple and clear. A creative (I hope) criticism of oxomoa and
Teddych's proposal follows.


-- 
Best regards, mit freundlichen Grüssen, meilleurs sentiments, Pozdrowienia,

Michał Borsuk
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-transit/attachments/20110111/3a2b9374/attachment.html>