[Talk-us] Edit war after MapRoulette motorway downgrading task

Frederik Ramm frederik at remote.org
Tue Apr 3 08:08:13 UTC 2018


Hi,

On 03.04.2018 02:20, Clay Smalley wrote:
> I'm... shocked. This is a really confrontational way of addressing
> things, and it really doesn't make me feel good contributing here. 

Without knowing you, or the particulars of the mapping, or the other
mapper, let me suggest one thing: Try to see this from the side of the
other person. Imagine:

* you have been doing a lot of mapping in your local area;
* you have developed a certain way to map certain objects, that might be
a little out of touch with what is considered the "right" approach
elsewhere in the project, but you don't notice or care;
* someone you don't know decides that the way you've been doing it is
wrong, and sets up a challenge in some sort of task managing program you
don't know;
* one or more other people who have never edited in your area, suddenly
start appearing and making very particular changes, driven, as you find
out, by the task managing platform.

This can easily create a sense of "I'm under attack" in the individual
mapper. They weren't consulted; they weren't aware; all of a sudden, the
locusts are there, and the mapper doesn't even know who sent them and
why. Someone has overruled your judgement and doesn't even bother
explaining it to you.

Now if you're a seasoned OSM contributor then it would probably not take
you long to find out that there's a MapRoulette task, and probably also
a discussion or explanation related to that, and also whom to contact if
you want to raise an objection - but not everyone might have that level
of knowledge.

I think that it is no surprise that "making you feel good contributing"
might not the foremost thing on the other mapper's mind at that moment.

Not assigning blame to anyone here; just trying to help humans
understand other humans.

Bye
Frederik

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



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