[OSM-talk] A message to our friends at HOT, Peace Corps etc. about Changeset Comments

[Christoph Hormann]

On Thursday 19 November 2015, Kate Chapman wrote:
> Is the OSM community to remain static and
> "conventions" made years ago may never change?

No, but meaningful changeset comments as per 

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Good_changeset_comments

is certainly a convention broadly supported by the OSM community right 
now.  The fact that it has not changed much recently just means it is a 
successful principle with broad support as it is.

And if on http://tasks.hotosm.org/project/1300 i read:

"Please draw one large area outline around groups of buildings and tag 
them landuse=residential"

that is in violation of one of the core principles of OSM, namely to map 
reality, what's on the ground.  It instructs mappers to map something 
that does not exist in reality based on abstract geometric 
considerations and to give it a tag that is meant for something 
different.

Referring to 

> Do we not have the same goal of a free map of the entire world?

if instructions like the above indeed describe the aims of HOT for 
mapping its vision of a free map of the entire world is indeed very 
different from mine.

-- 
Christoph Hormann
http://www.imagico.de/