[OSM-talk] Megastar

[Nick Hill]

Bruce Cowan wrote:
> On Wed, 2006-09-06 at 21:40 +0000, Ben Robbins wrote:
> 
>> I recon its a good idea for more work, more reward, but if its just
>> the amount of breadcrumbs, then i could just leave my gps overnight
>> and would have 10,000 more in the morning all in 1 spot.
> I doubt people would do such a thing to just get a few trackpoints in
> their name.  Surely GPS's (?) don't log if there is no movement, as my
> system of a TomTom (!) Bluetooth GPS and PDA doesn't log if there is no
> movement.

Ditto Ben Robbins post of 23:10

The competition could have direct negative effects on OSM:
1) De-incentivising people who have done a lot of useful work on OSM. 
They get a poor score whereas someone playing football with a GPS gets a 
high score. Their effort is not being rewarded.

2) Incentivises competitors to collect data even if the data has no 
value to mapping streets and footpaths. This clogs the system with junk 
which slows the servers and editing. Such junk data can also make 
footpaths and streets indistinct.

3) Encourages people who would otherwise work hard drawing, segmenting 
and labeling streets to do something less useful; collecting GPS data 
over and above what they need to do the task they have set themselves.


I am generally in favour of competitions, but only if the metrics used 
don't lead to perverse incentives. It appears the metrics used for this 
competition provide perverse incentives. I can't think of any good 
automated metrics which would be easily deployed. I would therefore only 
favour a competition based on merit judged both subjectively and 
objectively.

I am not taking part in the current competition. I am happy just to make 
good maps.