[OSM-talk] To John Bright (unwayed segments to unclassifiedways)

Andy Robinson Andy_J_Robinson at blueyonder.co.uk
Wed Sep 26 10:55:59 BST 2007


Jon Bright wrote:
>Sent: 26 September 2007 9:40 AM
>To: Robert Hart
>Cc: j.bugariu at wad.org; talk at openstreetmap.org
>Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] To John Bright (unwayed segments to
>unclassifiedways)
>
>Robert Hart wrote:
>>> I'll be sure to add any such tag to any segments I convert as soon as
>>> it's decided upon...
>>
>> I've been adding tags of "note"="FIXME: unwayed segments joined". The
>> validator already highlights this due to the word "FIXME". The other
>> option is just to not tag at all. Untagged ways are also flagged by
>> the validator plugin.
>
>I'll add the FIXME tag.  As mentioned in my previous mail, I was trying
>to add value here by marking things that were clearly highways as such.
>  Maybe I'll just not do that in places where I can't do a full mapping,
>to avoid treading on people's toes.
>

I think there is always a need to take a balanced view with these debates.
OSM is a wiki type map so the more data we can put in, even if its got
errors, the more chance there will be that we get the map "finished" and
allow others to tweak and correct in the true wiki fashion with time.

If data is anonymous then I think its fair game to hack away at it if you
think you are doing good, but at the same time it is logical to leave a
message flag that allows others to take up the baton later if you are not in
a position to wrap it up sufficiently completely yourself. Just converting
segments to ways automatically or indiscriminately is not really that
helpful in itself, especially if there is no explanation or thought.

Where data in the area is not anonymous I think its good courtesy to try to
contact the originator via the web interface. At least then you can
establish if you are indeed treading on someone's "home patch".

It's a pity really, we have good community within the project overall but
its something that's somewhat lacking at the map editing level. If we could
flag users home locations through the editing interfaces then that might
foster better communications. An OSM social layer as an extra layer on the
map might help too. Users always have the option to move or turn off their
location so it's quite flexible as well as potentially powerful. For
instance, flagging a user's last known editing area to other users might
produce some interesting results as well as reducing editing conflicts.

Cheers

Andy

Andy Robinson
Andy_J_Robinson at blueyonder.co.uk 







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