[OSM-talk] our Q&A site help.openstreetmap.org is dying

[Andreas Vilén]

Stack overflow seems to use the same software and is highly active. This
seems to be updated? Can't we update as they do?

https://stackoverflow.com/questions

/Andreas

On Wed, May 20, 2020 at 9:34 AM Tobias Wrede <list at tobias-wrede.de> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> we have several channels in OSM to facilitate discussions and support.
> First touch point for new users is often help.openstreetmap.org.
> Questions relating to mapping in general, tagging, editors, development,
> OSM based applications are asked there and get answered in most cases.
>
> The site is based on OSQA, a software which has not been maintained in
> some time. Some application errors have surface in the past but had to
> be ignored since no fixes are coming from OSQA any more. Until now we
> could live with that. They were annoying but not critical. There are
> open tickets on OSM github to move the help site to some other framework
> (https://github.com/openstreetmap/operations/issues/149,
> https://github.com/openstreetmap/operations/issues/377) but there isn't
> exactly an abundance of volunteers to take care of that.
>
> Usability of help.openstreetmap.org has now seriously worsened over the
> past few days with some js error popping up for longer and longer times
> (
> https://help.openstreetmap.org/questions/74831/why-does-the-add-a-new-comment-button-sometimes-not-work).
>
> Buttons to support formatting questions and answers are gone, comments
> cannot be added and moderation functions (reporting, converting
> questions to comments etc.) are not working anymore.
>
> If this continuous we can shut down the site soon. Even if this problem
> got resolved somehow it's only a matter of time until a new problem
> arises. The site provides a low entry hurdles place to ask questions
> that can be solved by simple answers. I'd hate so see it gone.
>
> I'm neither a programmer who could help out on the technical side nor am
> I involved in OSM organization and politics to have an idea on how this
> could be sorted out. Question around: Can we find someone to take care
> of the technical side? Can we involve any of the OSM organizations to
> find, maybe pay, someone? Does the community even find it worthwhile
> keeping the site?
>
> cheers,
>
> Tobias
>
>
>
>
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