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

[Robert Banick]

HOT eases people into OSM and gives them an easily understood purpose to begin mapping. Some HOTties go on to be power OSMers outside of HOT; some never step away from HOT. Both reflect individual preferences, not any isolating tendency by HOT. HOT tries to build communities and encourages interaction with OSM within the framework of its mission. There’s a lot to improve (with limited resources) but we fully intend to build up OSM through our work. Mikel’s use of this discussion to launch a helpful github issue ticket is a good example.




As for how the humanitarian sector understands OSM: until HOT came along the humanitarian sector didn’t understand OSM, period. The conversations I had in 2010-2011 and the conversations I have now with fellow humanitarians about OSM are light years apart in terms of technical depth and understanding of OSM’s workings.








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On Thu, Nov 19, 2015 at 10:52 PM, Simon Poole <simon at poole.ch> wrote:

> Am 19.11.2015 um 15:53 schrieb Blake Girardot:
>> ....
>> It is a ridiculous statement on its face; obviously HOT does not
>> succeed if OSM does not succeed.
> I think we fully agree and if you recheck you will see that I said
> essentially the same.
>>
>> As to the original issue Ramm raised:
>>
>> Most HOT folks who commented agreed the example changeset comments,
>> while useful, could benefit from improvement (as could the vast
>> majority changeset comments in OSM). Mikel has already opened an issue
>> in github to improve them and the issue has already been brought to
>> the people who manage HOT OSM Tasking Manager projects, how is that
>> not working with and being responsive to the larger OSM community?
> Again if you go back you will see that I couldn't quite believe that a
> shism was really being declared because it doesn't make any sense.
> On the other hand you can't deny that HOT is in some ways self defeating
> since it isolates lots of people from the whole of OSM and the nitty
> grity parts. Intentionally naturally, but it doesn't necessarily
> actually help the humanitarian sectors understanding of what OSM is and
> how it works.
>>
>> I think HOT's history demonstrates an eagerness (and outright need) to
>> work with the OSM community at every opportunity (not mistake free of
>> course).  But I can also personally point to at least 1 example where
>> HOT has reached out to OSMF and the License WG and literally been
>> ignored after repeated attempts to even discuss an issue.
> I would be interested in a reference to that. We get a large number of
> enquiries, ~ 200 this year to date, and occasionally stuff gets pushed
> back, particularly if there is no good answer (naturally you would get
> an answer pointing that out).
> Simon
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