[OSM-talk] Potlatch for Newbies

[Jukka Rahkonen]

Graham Jones <grahamjones139 <at> googlemail.com> writes:

> 
> 
> Hi,
> I think improving the documentation for new users (and experienced ones too!)
is a really good idea - I think we lack information for the casual new user.
> 
> The disadvantage of directing this group to Potlatch is that they need to
understand quite a few concepts before they can really do anything (nodes, ways,
tags, the fact that there is no definitive list of approved tags etc. etc.).

This mail from developer mailing list is also worth reading:
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/dev/2010-August/020239.html

An excerpt from that mail says (please read the whole message still to
understand what is the meaning of 'simple editor') 

"The OSM data model is complex and sophisticated, and any
attempts at a 'simple' editor will simply mess up other peoples work.
Especially when you start touching relations, which seeing as
relations themselves involve nodes and ways that's pretty much any
editor."

OSM statistics at http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Stats
are showing that the number of active OSM contributers stopped growing about one
year ago. Perhaps one reason for that is just the complex and sophisticated data
model, together with growing interest of creating relations and editors which
cannot hide the complexity yet.