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

[Robert (Jamie) Munro]

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Frederik Ramm wrote:
> Hi,
> 
>> There was actually quite a lot of opposition to the idea of  
>> redirecting to the wiki.  The redirect was setup after an offlist  
>> group email was sent to the sysadmins - the 'pro redirect' lobby  
>> were better organised and more forceful than the 'keep it how it  
>> is' lobby.
> 
> That shouldn't happen. The main page is important to all of us. It  
> must not be changed just like that, after "offlist group emails".  
> (What if the mailing that 80n spoke of contained something like "just  
> click on so-and-so on the main page to ..."?).

My understanding is that the first change was made as a temporary hack
at the time because the tile server that existed back then was much too
slow to cope with the load. It was necessary at the time, was
implimented, and it should have been undone much sooner IMHO (as soon as
we got the first openlayers/mapnik slippy maps going).

> It was a mistake to change it without discussion then, and it was a  
> mistake to change it without discussion (or even announcement!) now.

This was a tiny minor irrelevant change that went in as part of a huge
upgrade - namely the rails port. There was a huge announcement. The only
problem with it was that it took so long to happen. It didn't need to
wait for the rails port.

> Who did it, and why did he/she not care enough for the community to  
> at least state his/her intent on the list beforehand? Surely  
> something could have be learned from the previous changeover when the  
> redirect was installed?

What was learnt when the redirect was installed was that having a
mapping site without a map on it's home page is ridiculous, and should
be undone.

It's true that the current home page is not as good as it could be,
especially in terms of pointers to other parts of the site. There is
scope to design something better, and if you are a good designer, go
ahead. But for it not to include the slippy map itself would just be
ridiculous.

Robert (Jamie) Munro
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