Frederik Ramm schrieb:
>
> Yes but why would you have to choose. Someone who values OSM high enough
> to devote time and quality work to it can be expected to describe in a
> few words what he is uploading. Why would he say no? The value of the
> contribution is so much higher if others can, in an instant, see what it
> is about. Not putting a commit message is like spending a week to write
> a nice job application and then wrapping it in an ugly folder ("I
> thought it is the contents that count..."). It just doesn't make sense.
> An edit that, to its author, was not worth a four-word commit message is
> most likely to be a sloppy job.
Hi!
I'm a bit undecided if forcing a commit message is such a good idea or not.
I really like to see useful comments on SVN commits (and I try to do it
myself) and would love to see meaningful commits for the new changeset.
However, one example where forcing comments already had a (tiny)
negative effect. This morning I was developing some JOSM stuff and while
doing that I recognized a minor bug in the Nürnberg data. I've fixed it
offline in JOSM, but when I was asked to add a comment to the upload I
simply closed JOSM because I didn't wanted to think about this - in fact
I had something completely different in mind and don't wanted to loose
focus.
This is just one example where forcing a comment prevented the project
from a tiny enhancement.
My fear is that especially newbies are prevented from uploading stuff:
"what do I have to add here?!?" - please remember: not everyone has
several years of subversion or wikipedia experience.
But, what puzzles me most (if I understand it correct) is that only JOSM
has this policy. If it's such a vital interest to the probject, why
doesn't the API forces the comments? It's really strange if you add
something in Potlatch you *can* add a comment (but it doesn't even seem
to be obvious that you can do it), while JOSM forces you to add one.
All in all, I'm against forcing users to add comments this way. The idea
to ask on an empty comment something like: "It would be nice to add a
comment, so other users can easier understand what you've changed" would
be a good idea IMHO.
Regards, ULFL
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