[OSM-talk] Re: privacy policy

[Andrew Loughhead]

Emil wrote:
> On 7/28/06, SteveC <steve at asklater.com> wrote:
>> how you'd do it... I think the main barrier is not usability right now,
>> its GPS ownership. I think more people would go for it if they had a GPS
>> alreadt, I know a fair few people who are interested and would probably
>> get hooked but don't want to buy a GPS just for this in case it turns
>> out to be super boring.
>
> I think the main barrier is the difficulty of using the editors. The
> only option to non-geeks is to have someone explain to them in person
> how to use them.

For me one difficulty, which I see as a barrier to entry, is the tag 
system. There was a really good post a couple of months ago explaining 
the UK etymology of "highway".  So it now kind of makes sense to me that 
tags like highway=footpath exist.  But where I live, a highway is 
basically a long haul road [1].  It might be dual carriageway, two lanes 
each way, 110 km/h speed limit.  Or it might be 1400 km of rarely graded 
desert track like the Gunbarrel [2].  I am pretty sure its never a 
footpath, or steps.  Then there are motorways and freeways, which are 
like a good highway, but you might have to pay. 

Map Features is nice work, but many of the terms involved are not 
intuitive in this country.  Thats kind of surprising given Australia's 
history as a British colony.  I like the fact that MF  encompasses some 
real complexity, but perhaps we could produce a simple subset of tags, 
specifically relevant to routes motor vehicles commonly take.  Could the 
editors show that simple tag set by default, but allow advanced users to 
use full MF (or whatever)? 

I also don't know that telling newbies to just invent their own tags is 
necessarily of much comfort to those newbies.

But OSM is awesome :-)

Andrew

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highways_in_Australia
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunbarrel_Highway


>
> Emil
>
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