[OSM-talk] Main page (www.openstreetmap.org)

Frederik Ramm frederik at remote.org
Sun May 27 16:03:42 BST 2007


Hi,

>> Another minus is that the map shown initially is empty. EMPTY. It
>> doesn't contain the smallest bit of data created by OSM. Zoom in one
>> level and you have some roads at least, a "proof of life" if you  
>> will.
>
> Feel free to fix.

I believe the people having made the Wiki start page have invested  
some time in "fixing" it too, only to see that the start page they  
created lost that status on a whim, because of "a bunch of people on  
IRC" of whom nobody knows who they were and what they said. Not  
really an incentive for the future fixing of things, really.

> I got 5-10 emails from people 'petitioning' me in strong language  
> to change it over to the wiki after a bunch of people talked about  
> it on IRC.

Huh? People pestered you to change it over to the wiki? But who  
changed it away from the wiki in the first place and on what grounds?

You should make it a policy not to do things because people swamp you  
with emails. In the future, just tell them to go reach consensus on  
the list and then ask. Otherwise people will have the impression that  
swmaping you with emails actually works, and that is probably not  
what you want. (There's a few things I have thus far unsuccessfully  
tried to get you, or NickH, to do, maybe I just need an army of  
strawmen to echo my requests ;-)

Acting like that would have the positive side effect of not cutting  
off people who do not hang out on IRC. The mailing list is something  
with an archive that everybody can peruse in their own time, and  
events and discussions can be looked up weeks later if need be. IRC  
is good for reaching decisions if you can make reasonably sure that  
all stakeholders are present, but for something like changing the  
main page, especially since most people knew the discussions that the  
previous change caused, it is just not sufficient to have a  
discussion with the elusive "bunch of people" that hang out on IRC at  
a certain moment. Reminds me of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy,  
really.

I don't really feel strongly about the main page. The new one is  
ugly, the Wiki was better, the three-panel thingie was best, but I am  
not selling OSM to anyone, I don't care all that much. What I do care  
about is decision-making processes in the project, and I do not like  
how this went.

Bye
Frederik

-- 
Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00.09' E008°23.33'






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