[OSM-talk] ClosedCycleMap (was: Re: Cross-renderer tag support, now with OSMdoc!)

[Steve Bennett]

On Mon, Dec 21, 2009 at 12:26 AM, Nick Whitelegg <
Nick.Whitelegg at solent.ac.uk> wrote:

>
> Would most casual users even notice though?


I think it's important here to separate technically rational arguments like
"one update per week is enough" from emotional/social/visceral factors like
"omg, I made a change and it's already in the map!" That instant feedback
has been a huge factor in Wikipedia's success. If the original contributors
had had to wait a week to see their change incorporated in anything, it
never would have progressed beyond a niche activity.

I'm not saying it's easy to get the hardware to make this happen for
multiple renderings, like CloudMade can do. But it's important, if we want
to attract more users.



> Let's take, say, cycle routes
> in southern Hampshire (my local area). The number of mapped cycle routes
> in this area has probably not changed much in the last month, never mind
> week. I very much doubt the casual user would even notice if the map
> hasn't been re-rendered for a month. Most users, I'm sure, would accept
> the infeasibility of minutely or hourly updates for people running their
> own mapping servers at their own expense on a not-for-profit basis.
>

Yes, in the same way we "accepted" mobile phones before the iPhone made us
get totally excited about them.

I "accept" that cloudmade only updates their data once every 1-2 weeks,
meaning that any changes I make that improve routing take a long time to
see. By contrast, updates in micromapping appear instantly on OSM. Guess
which I spend more time doing?

Steve
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