[OSM-talk] Potlatch for Newbies

[Graham Jones]

Jukka,
I think the issue about messing up relations is almost the definition of a
'simple editor' - if it needs to do things with relations, it is getting too
complex and a full featured editor should be used instead.

The one I was talking about only lets you change specific tags on nodes or
ways, or add nodes.   Changing geometry or doing complicated things like
splitting ways (which is where I think the risk comes from with regard to
relations?) is beyond the scope of the 'simple' editor.

Therefore I think such a simple editor would be useful for new users to
shield them from the underlying complexity, while making a valuable
contribution to the project.

(if I have got the above wrong and there is scope to break something with
the editor I was talking about, we should take this discussion back to the
dev-list!).

Graham.

On 21 August 2010 17:25, Jukka Rahkonen <jukka.rahkonen at latuviitta.fi>wrote:

> 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.
>
>
>
>
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>



-- 
Dr. Graham Jones
Hartlepool, UK
email: grahamjones139 at gmail.com
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