[OSM-talk] Import guidelines proposal update

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

On 09/21/12 14:12, sly (sylvain letuffe) wrote:
> No problems, let's discuss. But while we do talk about a future rule, the
> previous one should (I mean "must") still apply until the new one is ready to
> replace it.

This is not about "one rule". This is about the whole question of rules 
and authority.

> No need to say what was the previous rule right ?

You mean the previous rule as in yesterday? Half a year ago? Two years 
ago? Or back when we had nodes and segments in our data model ;)

The current situation is that DWG does their job as they see fit and 
defines rules they think are necessary.

For example: We do not have a rule in OSM that says "you must use a 
changeset comment", and we don't have a rule that says "you must reply 
when other mappers send you messages". It's good style to do it but 
there's no rule that you *must*.

Creating rules for these situations would be awkward - it would raise 
all kinds of questions like "what exactly counts as a reply" and so on. 
And it would also sound like contributing to OSM was a major problem 
because there are so many rules.

So we don't have any.

However, every once in a while DWG gets a complaint about a particular 
user making lots of edits that are questionable. Not outright vandalism 
or edit warring, but something exotic enough to make other mappers in 
the area uneasy. The other mappers watch the user in question but it is 
hard to watch him because all his changeset comments are just "small 
fixes". The other mappers try to contact the user but he never replies.

In cases like this, I have occasionally told the mapper in question that 
OSM is a teamwork project, and that he must be a teamplayer and 
communicate with his peers, else we cannot use his work even if it is 
good. I have occasionally had to put a block on people like that in 
order to get them to reply at all.

Now there's no written rule for this. If the guy started a thread on the 
talk list about "where is it written that you need to respond to 
emails?????" I would not even be able to point to a wiki page - it's 
simply something that we take for granted.

The "separate account" rule is just such a rule, that DWG has created to 
do their job. I will not continue discussing this: As long as DWG have 
to clean up the mess they will make the rules governing imports and 
mechanical edits. Exceptions from the rules can be negotiated with DWG 
in advance if someone thinks they really need one.

I say "as long as..." because the subsidiarity I mentioned in my post is 
a real possibility; if the French community has a couple of willing and 
capable people maybe we could experiment with setting up a sub-DWG 
responsible for France only. Maybe we should just try it out and see if 
it improves the situation.

Bye
Frederik

-- 
Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"