[OSM-talk] Tag proposal/approval system is too heavyweight

[Gervase Markham]

Frederik Ramm wrote:
> Those who make the decision have no authority anyway. So why not
> record the rationale without the decision, as it is anybody's free
> choice to follow them or not.

Then welcome, everyone, to the world's first anarcho-collaborativist 
project.

It's an unusual model you are suggesting, and not one which (as far as I 
know) has worked anywhere else. Still, I guess we could try it. After 
all, it's not like this project is important or anything.

_Every_ project has authority. It's just a question of whether that 
authority is recognised and controlled, or unrecognised and random. If 
you say "there is no authority", then in fact authority rests with those 
who control the servers, or the root passwords, or those who have more 
time to make the database conform to the way they think things should be 
(e.g. the Cyprus situation where, so far, we have abdicated authority). 
This is generally not a good way to allocate authority, because the only 
way the authority can be exercised is "Do what I say, or I'll take my 
ball and go home".

In a standard open source software project, authority is (roughly) a 
meritocracy. Authority flows to those people who contribute and who 
demonstrate themselves competent. This model works quite well. It seems 
like an obvious model for OSM to adopt, and it's the one I _thought_ we 
were adopting. But hey, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the authority being 
exercised by the OSMF in working on the licensing problem is an 
illusion. Maybe a project newbie should have just as much weight in 
making decisions as those who've been mapping for years.

Gerv