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

[NopMap]

Hi!

I have just worked through all the previous posts here and experimented with
the test instance in my home turf. The short anwer is: No, I do not believe
that ID is in a state to make it the default editor, especially not to
welcome newbies.

The long answer:

I still see very bad performance in Firefox. I noticed that editing has been
limited to zoom 16 and higher which is a very crude way to limit the data
displayed. But it also makes orientation very difficult when you have to
move around. Even when there are not many lines to display, ID remains
jumpy, dragging of the map rather results in two jumps for moving a full
screen with up to one second delay in denser areas.

I agree with the previous posts that ID is not a suitable editor for
beginners/as default as long as it presents destructive operations in such a
prominent manner. I'm referring to the delete button but also to the
make-square, make-round and rotate options. You do not need these to draw
streets on top of tracks or aerial imagery, which is the basic start of
mapping. I have never used them at all. But they can be very destructive for
existing geometry. An expert mode where you can add those operations later
might be a good solution.

I tried deleting a few things and there was no warning that I was acting
destructively. The warning before saving is too general and the list of
change objects also does not indicate whether I did something dangerous. I
believe that immediate warnings when you do something dangerous (and an
expert switch to disable them later) would be very helpful to prevent damage
and teach the user how to proceed.

What's more, the existing icons would confuse me as a newcomer. For ways,
there is a move-around icon (which is useful), if I click on a node, only
delete is shown, nothing else. In particular, there is no move-around icon.
As a powermapper I know that I can directly drag the node and don't need it,
but to a newcomer the absence might suggest that you should rather delete
the node with the prominent trashcan and re-create it somewhere else.

The wording on the delete button is also misleading. It says: "remove this
from the map". But that is not what it does. It deletes it from the
database, not from any particular map. This encourages the common
misunderstanding that "OSM is a map" and of course unnecessary deletions.

On the other hand, some very useful functions seem to be missing. Or at
least they are not offered as icons and I couldn't figure out how to do it.
One is "click on end node of line and continue drawing it" (click on node in
P2). Another is "copy tags from similar way" (r in P2).

There is some relation handling, but the visibility of relations is still
insufficient. They are shown in the sidebar, but with all instances I tried,
the normal tags took up all the visible space in the bar and you had do
scroll down to read anything about relations. As they are not marked on the
map in any way, they are still invisible to the unsuspecting user. If you
don't know that there must be a relation there and directly look for it,
they remain totally invisible.

I found the handling of multipolygons very confusing. I clicked a MP area
and the sidebar showed "Multipolygon". Pretending that I didn't know what
that is I clicked "i", only to be rewarded with "there is no documentation
for this key". I deleted some of the members with the message <not
downloaded> and ID accepted that without warning. I see no way a newcomer
had any chance to use this.

I agree with the previous posts that OSM should not create a connection to
Facebook, Twitter or any other social service without conscious choice by
the user or in a way that suggests that it is an integral part of OSM or
that membership there is required in any way. A good solution might be a
plain "share" link on the save page that leads you to a setting where you
can opt-in to your favorite services if you like to. Or maybe you could
detect the Facebook session and tracking cookies and show it the button only
if you have an active session. But currently it looks like OSM is simply
advertising for Facebook.

bye, Nop




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