On 08/26/2013 12:13 AM, Steve Bennett wrote: > On Fri, Aug 23, 2013 at 8:11 PM, Tim Alder > <[email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: > > > The ambitious whishlist is there: > https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/OSM_Tileserver#Future_Work > > > Hi, > Just wondering whether there has been much discussion of using a > different style. The "future work" section assumes we'd use the > default OSM style. I've been playing around a lot with TileMill over > the last few months and IMHO:
I think the intention has always been to have the option to use different styles that are more appropriate for Wikipedia than the "default OSM" style. However, I think it is important to have a solid technical infrastructure first to base any such options off of. Although on the old toolserver tileserver setup, there have been a number of styles, we never managed to get the performance of that server high enough to make those styles reliably available. Indeed, if I am not mistaken, the OSM gadget has now moved back to using the osm.org tile infrastructure instead of the one on toolserver, as it wasn't reliable enough for production. Without the use of the same style as on osm.org that wouldn't have been an option. The production ready infrastructure to be run by WMF is also turning out to be a longer process than originally expected and so imho the focus should be to get something reliably up and running first. The less unknown parts, the quicker this is likely to happen. So concentrating on replicating the standard tile server infrastructure seems preferable. Once the reliable infrastructure is in place, the tools to embed this in Wikipedia and Wikipedia Mobile are solid and it is much better understood what kind of load Wikipedia generates, I am sure the question of different styles will come up once again. As you say, there are likely better styles for Wikipedia's purpose than the default OSM style. This is also part of the reason why the plans are to have both a production infrastructure and an infrastructure in labs. The latter being a place to experiment with things like new styles or new techniques to present map data (like e.g. vector tiles) that can eventually be moved into the production system. Kai > > - it's really not hard to make an alternative style > - the default OSM style sort of makes sense as a general purpose > navigational map (show every street name, and pretty much anything > with a name=*), but doesn't make much sense for Wikipedia (which would > mostly be using maps to show a single item in context, rather than > navigation) > - there's probably not much benefit in replicating the default OSM > style (ie, there's no efficiency gained) > - the default OSM style is ugly. :) > > Why not a distinctive Wikipedia style, or 2, or 5? > > Steve > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Maps-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/maps-l _______________________________________________ Maps-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/maps-l
