[OSM-talk] Improving community within the OSM site

[Etienne]

On 5/23/06, Erik Johansson <erjohan at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/23/06, Etienne <80n80n at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Dan
> > Doesn't the wiki community portal give us most of what you are
> > suggesting already?
> >
> > http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/OpenStreetMap:Community_Portal
>
> It would be very nice to be able to see who is logged in and mapping
> at the moment, and some kind of chat/webforum. I'm dying to know who
> made those segments 4 km from my house, but I can't.

It would be very useful to have some information about who has created
a segment and also the edit history for that segment.  This is already
in the database but is not exposed through any API.

To avoid exposing a real identity (well actually a real email address)
the alias should be sent in place of the email address.  This is
already defined for the tracks upload, so the only problem seems to be
the need for a programmer to write an API get the history, tools can
then be written to use/display this information.

>
> A "contact the users that edited this area" and "Messages for this
> area" box on the left side when you edit would be great.

The wiki seems to me to be the natural place for this at the moment.
A more seamless link between each user's wiki account and their OSM
editing account would be very helpful.

>
>
> To create the community we have to expose ourselves more, and not
> protect our privacy. As Wikipedia shows all info on edits (time and
> who) so why shouldn't we. The biggest privacy concern is the GPX
> tracks, not where you edit.
>
> You can download all my GPX tracks, and you will know this of me:
> 1. where I buy my tea (great shop)
> 2. where I live
> 3. where I buy my thai food (wonderful food)
> 4. where I work
> 5. where I study
> 6. when I'm not doing what I should do.
>
> But that's because I choose not to edit my GPX files, and I don't
> really care about privacy.
>
> Am I alone thinking like this?

The identity that is used for OSM doesn't have to be your real
identity.  The only real piece of information is your email address.
And it is easy enough to create a hotmail or gmail account just for
this purpose.

The biggest problem is that exposing email addresses will attract
spam, so everything needs to be referenced using an alias.

Etienne

>
> --
> /Erik
>
> PS. this is a contra view of Steve's worries about privacy, sorry if
> it's offensive. DS.
>
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