[OSM-talk] An open letter to OSMF board members.

[Ilya Zverev]

I think that is called gaslighting.

What is OSM but a series of pet features, adopted by the community because these are described on the wiki or rendered on the main map style?

The discussion currently refers to a tag that's been used >10k times, has an approved proposal, and starts to be used in many countries — near me as well.

And it's not the first time: I believe there are quite a few people, including myself, that had a similar experience with the maintainers and other "pet features".

What separates these pet features from important universally accepted features (that's sarcasm) is whether they apply to Western Europe, where most of the maintainers live. Maybe we should strive for a more universal map style.

Ilya

On Wed, 1 Jun 2022, at 02:24, Frederik Ramm wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I think I've said that in one of those endless diary discussions - 
> almost everyone who complains about something in openstreetmap-carto is 
> just unhappy that they don't get their pet feature rendered.
>
> In order to provide acceptable cartography, massive gatekeeping is 
> required on the part of openstreetmap-carto maintainers. For every new 
> feature they accept, they should really throw old two old features, 
> otherwise the map becomes everything else but a map.
>
> (We had a map style once where everyone could add their own features in 
> SVN, with nobody doing any gatekeeping. Guess how that turned out.)
>
> I'm happy to listen to anyone who has any critique of 
> openstreetmap-carto but NOT TO PEOPLE WHO ARE UNHAPPY BECAUSE THEIR 
> FEATURE DID NOT GET RENDERED.
>
> If you are one of those people who are unhappy because their feature did 
> not get rendered, I will assume that any other criticism you have to 
> offer (other than that your feature did not get rendered) is just trying 
> to get revenge.
>
> If you're trying to abuse the code-of-conduct system to bully people in 
> the hope of ultimately getting your pet feature rendered, then shame on 
> you - this is not what a code of conduct is for.
>
> As for replacing the maintainers - if I understand you correctly you're 
> asking the board to pay people to do the maintenance. I would agree to 
> that if that maintenance is guided by the principle I mentioned above - 
> for every additional feature they accept, throw out two old features.
>
> Because if what you're asking is for the board to pay money in order to 
> have more mellow maintainers who will happily accept a 348th crappy icon 
> just so that some niche interest group can have their feature "on the 
> main map" then that would be making OSM worse not better.
>
> Bye
> Frederik
>
> -- 
> Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"
>
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