[OSM-talk] Students editing for assignments

[Andy Townsend]

On 03/07/2015 19:00, Michał Brzozowski wrote:
> I ask that we create some guidelines for that type of editing, as
> we're no sandbox [3];

> [3] We should definitely make one, like one that Wikipedia has.


Although it wasn't really designed for that, we have got 
http://api06.dev.openstreetmap.org/ , which is the same as the main site 
except for the rendering part*, but for testing small edits and asking 
other mappers whether what you've added is OK should work OK as a sandbox.

> also editing and later deletion seems not right
> to me (self-vandalism?).
> These guidelines should also, or in particular, target teachers -
>

I certainly wouldn't want to put teachers off suggesting that their 
students add _real_ stuff locally to OSM, even though the results (as 
with any first-time editors) can be a bit variable.  Maybe to start with 
just suggest that teachers pop into an OSM IRC channel for a few minutes 
to talk through what they're trying to do?  That way we'd get a heads-up 
of what's happening and could offer to assist.  The general helpfulness 
of OSM users towards other OSM users is not to be underestimated (see 
for example http://resultmaps.neis-one.org/osm-discussions ).

Cheers,

Andy



* Obviously "except for the rendering part" is quite important if you 
want to show what the results look like, but edits in a relatively small 
area should be renderable in a small switch2osm.org-style server, just 
fetching the data directly from the dev API, as there's no planet or 
extracts available for it.