[OSM-talk] [OSM-talk-fr] Continued aggression against French contributors (cadastre integration)

Olivier Croquette ml at ocroquette.de
Fri Oct 19 14:16:44 BST 2012


On Oct 19, 2012, at 11:36 AM, Manfred A. Reiter wrote:
> Preamble:
> all (Netherlands, English, Italien, French, German, DWG ...) here on the list would ensure the quality of data in OSM.
> 
> Facts:
> 1. Our french friends have done and will do imports into the database from cadastre.
> 
> 2. Some in DWG are preocoupied about the possiblity to revert data, if they are false or should damage just existing data.
> 
> 3. Our german friend Frederik made a proposal to make an anhancement for JOSM so that it would be easy to upload data with a different account ... "so that JOSM can store multiple identities and when you hit "upload" you can select which identity to use from a drop-down"
> 
> Could that solve the problem?

Hi Manfred !

I think the answer is in the question :
- Using a different account has no impact on quality
- Reverting possibilities are not depending on the accounts used (AFAIK)

From the beginning, the solution pushed is always "different accounts", but we are still missing a clear problem statement. At least I am !
Once we have it, I am sure our local experts can work something out with the DWD.

Also, at this point of the discussion, I would like to state something important :

I am a rather typical french contributor. Like many of them, I have started contributing based on my GPS tracker and manual editing in JOSM. Later on, I have discovered the great tools and documentation created by our french experts to work with the cadaster data, so I have also integrated it for 2 towns I know very well into OSM. It involved a lot of manual work, so it took a lot of time, but I am happy with the process, the added value to the map, and the quality of the result.

I have more or less followed the discussion about the separated account, and from my perspective, what I see is:
1) The cadaster integration process as defined works very well is now forbidden by a group of people I never heard of before (DWD)
2) I don't understand the background of the rule for a specific account
3) The decision process that led to that rule is completely opaque 
4) No one who works on the cadaster understand or accept the rule, not even our local experts, who I personally trust and respect very much
5) Our local experts are pretty much ignored by the DWD. The discussion gets nowhere. Proposals to help seem to be ignored

Trying to summarize : an autonomous, dedicated, competent local group is blocked because of a rule that was defined silently and centrally, and that nobody from the group understands.
This is hurting my motivation to work on OSM pretty bad. And the longer it gets discussed, the worse it becomes.

As a simple OSM contributor and foundation member, I demand that the foundation and the DWD define an transparent process that involves the local groups and experts to define such global rules. Until such a process is agreed on, communicated and implemented, this kind of rule can't be enforced by force like currently.


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