[OSM-talk] [OSM-dev] Developers requested to help provide "completeness" tools

[David Earl]

On 13/05/2008 15:35, Sebastian Spaeth wrote:
> Frederik Ramm wrote:
>> Once we have a few applications in place that get viewed by *many*
>> people, we could just have a button somewhere along the margin of the
>> page that says: "I know the area and what I see here looks correct".
> 
> Given that this will be the default very soon ( :-) ), I'd rather have
> the notes API where people can click and say: "there are streets missing
> here, I know that". No warm fuzzy feeling, but more helpful in
> identifying weak spots.

My main motivation in wanting this kind of facility is not so much to 
help _us_ identify what areas need attention, rather to help our 
_consumers_ know whether they can have any confidence in what they are 
looking at. That's why I think there needs to be a very straightforward, 
not overly onerous, but useful, metric, even if this has more levels 
accessible to those in the know. It also means that wiki solutions just 
don't cut it (I've been updating completeness pages for the areas I;ve 
been doing since I started, but it doesn't help someone looking at the map).

Often anyone of reasonable intelligence can tell somewhere is not 
complete because only the main streets are there, but I have come across 
quite a number of places where a reasonable number of apparently random 
residential streets have been done, and whose density would suggest to 
someone who doesn't know the area that it is os plausible, when in fact 
it may only be 30% complete (for roads and names) or less.

David