[OSM-talk] Bug reporting problems (was: Big sponsors)

[Andy Allan]

On Fri, Jun 18, 2010 at 7:10 AM, Ulf Lamping <ulf.lamping at googlemail.com> wrote:

> So the first question has to be: How do we enable / motivate people to
> fix bugs in the map - not how to easily report them!

I think it's exposure of the bugs to the people who can fix them at
the time they can do something about them. I think that comes in three
main places:

1) When you are figuring out somewhere to go and map
2) When you are out and about and able to check things
3) When you have rolled your sleeves up and are editing

For 3, I'm already working on doing that in Potlatch2 - having markers
showing bugs while you're editing. As for 2, it would be great if
OpenMaps iPhone or Mapzen POI collector had some way to view nearby
bugs whilst I'm out and about and have 5 minutes to spare to go
confirm or investigate something. And 1 will be improved when we
integrate openstreetbugs (or whatever) and everything else (keepright,
OWL, osm inpector etc) so that mappers don't have 20 websites to
check.

But on the issue of whether it's the "first" question - we're talking
about a cycle. The more bugs we get, the more it's worth using the
system, the more it's worth improving the system, the more useful and
easy it becomes to add more bugs, the more bugs we get. The best
outcome is to combine Steve's relentless attempts to get more inputs
into OSM with my focus on technologies to improve the situation *at
the same time*, rather than saying we need this before we need that.

Cheers,
Andy