[OSM-talk] Quality of OSM Notes

Alex Barth alex at mapbox.com
Tue Mar 10 00:47:06 UTC 2015


Bryce - this is an interesting review, thanks for sharing.

On Fri, Feb 20, 2015 at 12:42 PM, Martijn van Exel <m at rtijn.org> wrote:

> As for Scout, I talked about this in my diary entry
> <http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/mvexel/diary/28208> some time ago -
> not all of these are going to be useful and there is going to be noise.
> We're looking at improving the quality of the notes that make it through -
> which is already a tiny, tiny fraction the notes we get internally. Only
> through making mistakes do we learn how to get it right - not by not doing
> it in the first place. I would say it's a stretch to call this a 'huge
> waste' of our time - as I write this there are only a little over 100 notes
> posted on OSM through our Scout users.
>

For the same reason we don't just open a note for map feedback we get from
the feedback button on Mapbox maps. Only about ~~1% of all feedback we
receive winds up as a note on OpenStreetMap and that only happens after the
feedback has been reviewed manually.

In general I think it should be easier, not harder, to create notes and
> Ian's onosm is a good example of how to accomplish that. Adding artificial
> friction makes no sense to me. Less notes should not be an objective,
> smarter ways to look at them and process them should.
>

I agree, simplicity rules.

Some ideas to manage the overkill, not all of this is necessarily stuff
that needs to be built into osm.org:

- An interface for reviewing notes fast - this would allow for allowing
some of us to triage notes. E. g. close them or classify them as "needs
local knowledge" / "needs armchair mapping".
- A friendly walk through for the first time user.  "Hey, using notes for
the first time?" Like we iD does this. Goal: set expectations of what notes
are for.
- Some ways of dealing with spam (would be useful to quantify some of the
issues you found for this)
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