[OSM-talk] Megastar

[Etienne]

On 9/6/06, Nick Hill <nick at nickhill.co.uk> wrote:
>
> 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.


It should be noted that recording 1,000,000 tracklogs does not
*automatically* guarantee one of these things.  Some user called SteveC has
apparently uploaded over 6,000,000 trackpoints but hasn't got a mega-star.
It's rumoured that he bought most of his trackpoints from a courier company
;-)

If someone has uploaded 1,000,000 track points then it should be pretty
blatently obvious whether or not they deserve one of these things.



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



Its *not* a competition, its simply a way of recognising that someone has
contributed a lot.  It makes people feel good about what they've done.
Simple psychology.

Etienne


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