[OSM-talk] [Candidacy] AGM Foundation 2010 - Girona

[Richard Fairhurst]

Oliver (skobbler) wrote:
> It might be true that OSM is the best map in the world for cycling 
> and the best map in the world for humanitarian use. If the higher 
> goal of OpenStreetMap is to become the best map for cycling and 
> the best map for humanitarian use I will not complain. I did not 
> know that these are the strategic goals of OpenStreetMap. 
> However, if the strategic goal is to become a mainstream map 
> for example then the lack of focus will delay the achievement of 
> this goal.

I do think you're missing the point a little.

OpenStreetMap doesn't have a strategic goal; it's never had one. That's why
it succeeds. We each have our own idea of a "mainstream map", and yours (as
the guy who produces car navigation software) is clearly going to be
different to mine (as a volunteer cycle route ranger). So when you say:

> I you are honest to yourself you see hardly anybody of your friends 
> using OpenStreetMap as their primary online map despite its excellent 
> level of map detail.

...then I point you towards http://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?board=63.0,
the GPS board on the main UK cycling forum. OSM _is_ mainstream there. OSM
is completely dominant. Google doesn't get a look-in. Car navigation?
Mainstream? Tsk, you and your internal combustion engines are _so_ 20th
century. ;)

> I am not stating that these projects are mutual exclusive. I just say 
> that the more projects there are, the longer it takes to achieve a 
> specific goal.

No. It doesn't. OSM is crowdsourced; the labour is not finite. We can always
get new mappers without diverting our existing mappers from what they
already enjoy. Right now OSM is entirely held back by problems of our own
making; fix them (perhaps by integrating your lovely Skobbler bugs client
into the core site!) and more mappers _will_ magically appear.

But I'm not going to do addressing, however cool someone else thinks it is,
because it really doesn't interest me; and I'm going to look pretty askance
at any attempt to direct the OSM community towards it at the expense of
cycling or humanitarian work or whatever. Changing OSM's ethos from "build
the map that works for you" to "build the map that works for someone else"
will end in tears.

So how do you encourage people to do addressing?

I'd say it comes down to this: you can support the mappers, and you can
encourage them, but you can't direct them.

You could bung a few hundred quid to CloudMade to encourage them to add
addressing to Mapzen POI Collector, or build Mapzen Address Collector, or
something. You could help, or sponsor, development of Nominatim so it
reflects updates to addressing even more quickly. You could create a cool
visualisation, like Matt's dupe nodes or some of the ITO stuff, to encourage
people to fix up their local area.

And so on. Stuff that will make people _want_ to add addresses. Why is OSM
so good at cycle routes? Because Andy developed OpenCycleMap and Dave gave
Potlatch a funky route relations UI. Not because we sat down and said "our
strategy is all about cycle routes, and you will follow".

You can't tell us what to do. But you can make it more inviting for us to
work on something. 

cheers
Richard
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