[OSM-talk] OSM Culture (was: Bing maps is misplaced)

[Steve Bennett]

On Thu, Dec 9, 2010 at 11:10 PM, Jonathan Bennett
<openstreetmap at jonno.cix.co.uk> wrote:
> On this particular point, I think some of the resistance to having
> "Policies" of this nature is that where you have Laws, you get Lawyers whose
> job it is to find ways of breaking the spirit of those policies without
> breaking the letter of the (or equally *apply* the letter of those policies
> while breaking the spirit).

Yes, with any culture change, you get new social dynamics that emerge.

> Wikipedia hasn't managed to avoid problems by
> having policies, and I don't think we'd have a much easier time if we
> started writing things in stone.

I have to disagree with you on that one. Wikipedia is huge, with many
thousands of highly active participants. The numerous policies,
carefully worked out with hundreds of iterations, are exactly what
make that possible. Remember the problems with vandalism or unfair
editing of biographies of living people a few years ago? Remember how
that problem seems to have gone away? That's policy, and lots of hard
work behind it. You know how crappy articles about insignificant
companies are pretty rare? Policy. And I could go on.

> Discussion and consensus (and maybe even sanctions against those who refuse
> to act according to that consensus) are more important than hard-and-fast
> rules.

Discussion -> consensus -> policy -> improved quality.

There's not much point establishing consensus if you don't write it
down. Because then the next users don't know it, and even the people
in the discussion don't remember it a few months from now.

We constantly debate things on the tagging list that never get
documented, and it's essentially a wasted effort.

Steve