[OSM-talk] Directed Editing Policy

Tim Waters chippy2005 at gmail.com
Wed Nov 22 21:22:37 UTC 2017


I've a couple of examples, and a couple of questions which might aid the
discussion.

I recently did some work which would label me as both a directee and a
director. For each changeset I added a custom changeset tag which I thought
was the sensible thing to do. It was also helpful for me to be able to
track the work I did, amongst my other edits at that time. I'm assuming
that this bundle of changesets could be searched for an clustered, and that
I wouldn't need to create another changeset tag for a similar tranche of
work in the future. At the time I did actually briefly consider writing a
wiki page about the work, but thought that too onerous (it was a short
project) and against the spirit of OSM (the world should be free to edit
the free map). I thought I shouldn't have to document all my actions to
contribute. If the policy was adopted, I'd have to go along with it. I
would feel less of an equal, or more under scrutiny if I did.

Some time last year I ran a mapping workshop where participants were
mapping a specific type of feature, using custom presets using established
tags. The use of the presets helped ensure that the tags were consistent.
We didn't really use any specific changeset comments or any new tags, but
when Field Papers was used, I believe this was recorded. The custom editor
was able to add changeset tags too. Again the tools help record the custom
sources involved. Before I ran the workshop, although it was free, public
and publicised, and although the project itself was documented on the wiki
and elsewhere, I did not feel any need to document the actual directed
mapping.

These are just my two experiences, the policy as a whole reads well and I
understand that there is an issue which needs addressing, I hope our
discussions can bring some nuance and improve matters.

Now - the questions:
When I was reading the draft policy, I imagined the state of the Wiki.
Would it be polluted full of stale pages of small directed mapping projects
after a few years?
As the suggestion is that a timeframe is added to the page - is this easily
machine readable and parseable within the Wiki software?
Would it be easy to just see currently active projects, or just see those
projects which were upcoming?


Regards,

Tim
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