[OSM-talk] Making iD the default editor on osm.org

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

On 19.08.2013 15:01, Martin Koppenhoefer wrote:
> with that approach (letting the users incidentally damage turn restrictions or other relations without warning by deleting members or combining them in a harmful way )

It has been claimed often that "iD damages relations". Can we somehow 
substantiate that claim?

Could anyone provide a detailed description of a non-esoteric use case 
that involves

* a kind (and structure) of relation that is very common and thus likely 
to be encountered by a new contributor;

* a simple-looking edit that is likely to be made by a new contributor 
and that results in a broken relation in iD?

In what way will the relation be broken, and what indication (if any) 
does iD display about the problem?

This is a honest question because I haven't researched the claims in 
depth and I know that for some users it is already sufficient if they 
find a totally complex situation which exists about three times in all 
of OSM and then on top of that construct an unusal maneuvre and then cry 
foul if the editor exhibits a weakness in that situation.

It is clear that allowing a user to inadvertently break something and 
get nasty emails afterwards is the worst possible user experience we can 
provide. But I would like to get a feeling about just how likely this is 
to happen. There's a certain threshold below which it is probably not 
worth discussing improvements to the editor.

If iD has a problem with relations that will, for one in 500 new 
contributors, lead to them receiving nasty email, being embarrassed by 
what they did, and leaving the project, then that is a number that would 
easily be offset by the clear advances in usability that iD brings. If 
on the other hand this were likely to happen to one in 50 new users then 
maybe a more diligent approach is required.

Bye
Frederik

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