[OSM-talk] OpenPlantMap

Steve Hill steve at nexusuk.org
Sat May 17 09:22:43 BST 2008


Peter Miller wrote:

> I agree. I think we need to adopt a Wikipedia concept of 'notability'. For
> example... A wood is notable, a large established solitary tree in a park
> might be notable, but a nettle is not. Is a rare plant notable? I would
> suggest it is not notable in OSM itself.

I'm afraid I see the notability criteria as one of Wikipedia's biggest 
problems so I would hate to see OSM go the same way.  I've seen too many 
genuinely useful articles get blown away because someone decided they 
covered non-notable subjects, to the point that I gave up editing Wikipedia.

The point is: why should anyone care about notability so long as the 
data is useful, accurate and maintained?

Wikipedia's deletion policies are deeply flawed: There are a group of 
users who make it their mission to delete articles.  When they nominate 
an article for deletion, most of the people who vote either wrote the 
article, or one of the group who's sole mission is to delete stuff - no 
one else cares enough about the deletion procedure to take part.  So the 
majority of the time, well written articles get deleted purely because 
of the massive bias in the quorum who vote on deletions.  I sincerely 
hope OSM doesn't decide to go down a similar route.

-- 

  - Steve
    xmpp:steve at nexusuk.org   sip:steve at nexusuk.org   http://www.nexusuk.org/

      Servatis a periculum, servatis a maleficum - Whisper, Evanescence





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