Re: [OSM-dev] The wiki defines the database
Erik Johansson wrote: Richard said they want highway=Toucan to be replaced by five other tags, he!. Are you sure you as an editor creator want to be bothered with this, wouldn't it be easier if the wiki took care of that? http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/LeakyAbstractions.html And all this means that paradoxically, even as we have higher and higher level mapping tools with better and better abstractions, becoming a proficient mapper is getting harder and harder. cheers Richard ___ dev mailing list dev@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/dev
Re: [OSM-dev] The wiki defines the database
On Thu, Nov 6, 2008 at 3:24 AM, Frederik Ramm [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: but wherever we can [..] say have it both ways, that's a victory for freedom in my opinion. +1 But software drives tagging, and one true way is easier for applications to handle. Considering that parsing tags is something each applications does on its own, I have to wonder if we can really have it both ways. Out of interest, I'd like to know where Wikipedia currently is for example; can I still create articles that don't use the structure or will there immediately be a flurry of people telling me what I did wrong, Yes people improve your article in wikipedia. Usually it's style, language, POV or wiki related. If I post a small article someone might slap a small templated fact box on the right edge, and usually put it in the right category and make my links go to the right disambiguated page. Try translating this to Openstreetmap, how often do one do that kind of wikigardening[1]? [1] http://www.wikipatterns.com/display/wikipatterns/WikiGnome Richard said they want highway=Toucan to be replaced by five other tags, he!. Are you sure you as an editor creator want to be bothered with this, wouldn't it be easier if the wiki took care of that? One big difference between mediawiki and osm software is that you can create and improve templates/categories that give you nice things to put on your page. In OSM there is no crowdsourcing way to make things render as you want, and no way to make the editing easier. Are simple presets handled more centralistic than necessary? -- R /Erik ___ dev mailing list dev@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/dev
Re: [OSM-dev] The wiki defines the database
Erik Johansson [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Thu, Nov 6, 2008 at 3:24 AM, Frederik Ramm [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: but wherever we can [..] say have it both ways, that's a victory for freedom in my opinion. +1 But software drives tagging, and one true way is easier for applications to handle. Considering that parsing tags is something each applications does on its own, I have to wonder if we can really have it both ways. It certainly is difficult to find a balance between giving everyone the freedom to do what he wants and to produce a common product (the database) that users of the data are able to work with. I give Mapnik and Osmarender a lot of credit for promoting consistent tagging. A lot of people are concerned about their stuff showing up on *the map* and they do whatever it takes to achieve that. Unfortunately, this sometimes includes tagging for the renderer. Out of interest, I'd like to know where Wikipedia currently is for example; can I still create articles that don't use the structure or will there immediately be a flurry of people telling me what I did wrong, Yes people improve your article in wikipedia. Usually it's style, language, POV or wiki related. If I post a small article someone might slap a small templated fact box on the right edge, and usually put it in the right category and make my links go to the right disambiguated page. I don't think many people object if someone amends their articles or changes the wording a little bit to clarify things. What is objectionable is when someone comes and says This is completely wrong! and changes the whole thing. This is disrespectful. Especially when it is just a matter of opinion. In the matter of OSM tagging this is probably always the case. There are always many solutions possible for the problem of how to tag something. Which one is the best depends on the viewer. Nevertheless I believe it is very beneficial different tagging schemes for the same thing somehow merge into one for the sake of conistency and usability of the data. Matthias ___ dev mailing list dev@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/dev
Re: [OSM-dev] The wiki defines the database (was: relations)
Erik Johansson wrote: Real mappers don't document; their tags are enough. Wannabe mappers read documentation and follow templates. So how should you become a mapper if there is no documentation. There is a lack of people who are willing to write something on the wiki, not too many. there have been occasions when real mappers have documented their tags on the wiki, only to have the wiki pages overwritten by someone else's better ideas. maybe this puts some people off? Yes that is very cumbersome but how often does this happen, and does it really warrant that flippant attitude? Having a better way to handle multiple meanings of tags might help. Often enough that I have stopped caring about what the wiki says. The wiki were a great help if it listed commonly used tags together with a list of applications that are using/understanding those tags. (or probably describing that a certain app actively refuses to 'understand' a certain tag). That would allow people to help making their decision on whether they want to tag something as highway=culdesac or add a noexit=yes (a completely unneeded tag :-)). But this is not how the wiki is used. I have been tagging stuff since quite some time now and I refuse to have people telling me now that highway=cycleway;foot=yes is not valid anymore because its deprecated. If the wiki listed the formats of speed measurements that apps understand together with the frequency of actual format used, that would help much more than an eternal discussion on whether speed:mph is better than speed=30mph or whether everyone is/should be using metric measurement anyway. spaetz ___ dev mailing list dev@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/dev
Re: [OSM-dev] The wiki defines the database (was: relations)
On Wed, Nov 5, 2008 at 8:15 AM, Sebastian Spaeth [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Erik Johansson wrote: Real mappers don't document; their tags are enough. Wannabe mappers read documentation and follow templates. So how should you become a mapper if there is no documentation. There is a lack of people who are willing to write something on the wiki, not too many. there have been occasions when real mappers have documented their tags on the wiki, only to have the wiki pages overwritten by someone else's better ideas. maybe this puts some people off? Yes that is very cumbersome but how often does this happen, and does it really warrant that flippant attitude? Having a better way to handle multiple meanings of tags might help. Often enough that I have stopped caring about what the wiki says. I've been hit by it a few times, and one specific case that annoys me greatly. I invented a tag by using it (OMG!!), and then even rendering it. Other people started using it. Then the wiki-types made up their own alternative tag without making any reference to the existing ones that were in the db and being rendered. So I realised it was about time to document the already-in-use, already-rendered tag, which triggered a virulent campaign by the wiki-types to repeatedly delete the information that I had put up, ignore the evidence from the database, claim voting was the be-all and end-all, and label tags that are (still) in use and (still) rendered as deprecated. I've given up almost all hope with the wiki, since there appears to be no place on it for honest documentation, unless you play by certain rules which are incompatible with the founding spirit of OSM. So there are now many features on the cycle map that are completely undocumented - I'm not stirring the hornets nest any more, I'd rather concentrate on productive stuff. Suggestions welcome. Cheers, Andy ___ dev mailing list dev@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/dev
Re: [OSM-dev] The wiki defines the database (was: relations)
On Wed, Nov 05, 2008 at 11:57:07AM +, Andy Allan wrote: [...], which triggered a virulent campaign by the wiki-types to repeatedly delete the information that I had put up, [...] Who exactly are the wiki-types you mention? IMO there shouldn't be the wiki-types and the mappers, those should be one and the same. Without defining what tags (=syntax) mean (=semantic), it's hard to use them properly. From reading the discussions regularly popping up on the mailing lists, I'm getting the impression there's a minority on the wiki disturbing the work of others. That's vandalism to me, nothing more and nothing less. So what about trying to get this minority to stop impeding our work, instead of splitting ourselves into the wiki-types (those defining the semantics) and the mappers (those using the syntax to enter data into the database)? Of course there are other ways of communicating the semantics of the tags you use (e.g. mailing lists), but the wiki is currently the best we have in terms of successful information retrieval. CU Sascha -- http://sascha.silbe.org/ http://www.infra-silbe.de/ signature.asc Description: Digital signature ___ dev mailing list dev@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/dev
Re: [OSM-dev] The wiki defines the database (was: relations)
Andy Allan wrote: I've been hit by it a few times, and one specific case that annoys me greatly. I invented a tag by using it (OMG!!), and then even rendering it. Other people started using it. Then the wiki-types made up their own alternative tag without making any reference to the existing ones that were in the db and being rendered. So I realised it was about time to document the already-in-use, already-rendered tag, which triggered a virulent campaign by the wiki-types to repeatedly delete the information that I had put up, ignore the evidence from the database, claim voting was the be-all and end-all, and label tags that are (still) in use and (still) rendered as deprecated. If I read it rightly, too, Andy's usage for a foot-and-bike crossing was crossing=toucan which is what they're called in the UK (because two can cross) - concise and certainly no more idiomatic than trunk, say. Whereas the Official Wiki Way Of Doing Things is, apparently, highway=traffic_signals crossing=traffic_signals bicycle=yes segregated=no crossing_ref=toucan Five tags. Utterly insane. The only way for human beings to make sense of that is for the editors to offer shortcuts, and do I see the voting guys even submitting one teeny patch to the simple, public-svn text file (http://trac.openstreetmap.org/browser/sites/rails_port/config/potlatch/presets.txt) that would do this in Potlatch? Er, no. cheers Richard ___ dev mailing list dev@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/dev
Re: [OSM-dev] The wiki defines the database (was: relations)
On Wed, Nov 5, 2008 at 1:35 AM, Erik Johansson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, Nov 5, 2008 at 12:26 AM, Matt Amos [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: there have been occasions when real mappers have documented their tags on the wiki, only to have the wiki pages overwritten by someone else's better ideas. maybe this puts some people off? Yes that is very cumbersome but how often does this happen Several hundred times recently? http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php?title=Special:Contributionslimit=500target=Circeus ___ dev mailing list dev@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/dev
Re: [OSM-dev] The wiki defines the database (was: relations)
On Wed, Nov 5, 2008 at 12:28 PM, Sascha Silbe [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, Nov 05, 2008 at 11:57:07AM +, Andy Allan wrote: [...], which triggered a virulent campaign by the wiki-types to repeatedly delete the information that I had put up, [...] Who exactly are the wiki-types you mention? I don't want to make it personal or pick out individuals. It's pretty plain from the wiki-history who was doing what in the particular case I was referring to - but the point is way more general than just my one little illustration which is why I haven't even linked to it. IMO there shouldn't be the wiki-types and the mappers, those should be one and the same. Without defining what tags (=syntax) mean (=semantic), it's hard to use them properly. I agree with both your statements. From reading the discussions regularly popping up on the mailing lists, I'm getting the impression there's a minority on the wiki disturbing the work of others. That's vandalism to me, nothing more and nothing less. I wouldn't necessarily say it's a minority on the wiki, and that's one of the problems. It's a fairly large group of people now, probably outnumbering all the people who write editors, rendering software, and other stuff combined. It's a function of groupthink - people on the wiki see the way the wiki-fiddlers work and accept it as the norm. Battle-scarred veterans who have tried to straighten things out spend their time working elsewhere - by their very nature. How could the author of an OSM editor or renderer out-wiki a group of dedicated wiki-fiddlers? We have other stuff that simply doesn't get done if we aren't doing it. And for vandalism I would simply say (deeply) misguided - I don't think anyone appreciates their hard work being called vandalism, misguided or not. So what about trying to get this minority to stop impeding our work, instead of splitting ourselves into the wiki-types (those defining the semantics) and the mappers (those using the syntax to enter data into the database)? As they say, Good luck with that. Of course there are other ways of communicating the semantics of the tags you use (e.g. mailing lists), but the wiki is currently the best we have in terms of successful information retrieval. Absolutely. I've occasionally flirted with other ideas - bits on the opencyclemap.org website that are under strict editorial control, for example, documenting how things actually work and safe from uninformed opinions. But that is firstly time I could spend making the cycle map even better, and also not really in the spirit of community building. I'd rather that I could document stuff on the OSM wiki, but I've been there before and it wasn't a pleasant experience. Cheers, Andy ___ dev mailing list dev@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/dev
Re: [OSM-dev] The wiki defines the database
Hi Y'all, I am a little bit concerned about what some of you all are saying, in particular its effect on new users. Having been working on OSM now for about 3 days (writing Wiki articles, processing map extracts, and fixing a few roads in my neighborhood for fun), this is my perspective as someone with no clue: Having a schism between the Wiki and ground reality (meaning what is in the database and what the tools promote) is problematic for a new user. As a new user, I went to the Wiki to look for answers to questions... - What tags do I need to use. - What is the best way to tag. - What does this existing tag mean. As a new user, my source for answers is going to be: 1. What the tools do/make easy. If potlatch gave me a red flag and said you must add tag X before continuing, I would have done it. :-) 2. What is in the map _locally_ (in the spatial sense). 3. What the Wiki says. 4. What is in the map globally. To put it simply: to me it seems crazy to not have emerging data standards from the map documented on the Wiki. In an attempt to provide a useful suggestion... Perhaps there could be integration between the Wiki and some of the DB analysis tools (like the tag-finders) and the editing tools? My thought is that if the Wiki engine could use the same preset format as JOSM or Potlatch, then the Wiki could automatically indicate whether a tag is going to be part of an editor, which to me is a very important endorsement of a tag (and provides a more sane place to create a schema, if I dare use the word). Similarly, if the Wiki page for a tag included its usage statistics, then a user could easily see that tag=fluffernut has 8 pages of discussion but has been used only once. In other words, tie the Wiki to ground reality by feeding it from the toolset, rather than accept that the Wiki is going to be an alternate reality. As a new user, I think I only want a few things, and they seem like reasonable things to want (to me): - Answers to the question What tag do I use. - Only one possible choice of tag. - The answer to be in a place that's easy to find. If a command-line tool had a thousand switches and the man page documented a whole bunch of them wrong, we'd all go what's up with that, let's fix the man page! Okay - sorry, I'm done...I'll go finish my coffee. cheers Ben -- Scenery Home Page: http://scenery.x-plane.com/ Scenery blog: http://xplanescenery.blogspot.com/ Plugin SDK: http://www.xsquawkbox.net/xpsdk/ X-Plane Wiki: http://wiki.x-plane.com/ Scenery mailing list: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Developer mailing list: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ dev mailing list dev@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/dev
Re: [OSM-dev] The wiki defines the database
Ben Supnik wrote: As a new user, my source for answers is going to be: 1. What the tools do/make easy. If potlatch gave me a red flag and said you must add tag X before continuing, I would have done it. :-) 2. What is in the map _locally_ (in the spatial sense). 3. What the Wiki says. 4. What is in the map globally. To put it simply: to me it seems crazy to not have emerging data standards from the map documented on the Wiki. I don't think anybody disagrees with that - the problem comes when the standards are created on the wiki rather than emerging from the map and being documented on the wiki. Tom -- Tom Hughes ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.compton.nu/ ___ dev mailing list dev@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/dev
Re: [OSM-dev] The wiki defines the database
Erik Johansson [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I can agree that people changing already used standards on the wiki can be interesting. But if someone documents something on the wiki and says that is a standard is that really a problem, as long as there is nothing there at the moment? Just one occurrence in the database with a good doc is 10 times better than 1400 tags in the db and no doc. Yes, especially if the key/value is not 100% self-explanatory to every potencial user. This is the only way to give other people a chance to find it (besides asking someone who knows about it). It is a waste of recources if people are inventing new tags for the same thing just because they didn't know about the existing one. Matthias ___ dev mailing list dev@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/dev
Re: [OSM-dev] The wiki defines the database
Hi, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The genius of a good crowd sourced project (and OSM is very good) is that the data being sourced AND the encoding model itself are BOTH crowd sourced. It is true that not every crowd-sourced project has this; some just have a fixed structure and expect contributors to fill that in. There's no clear line between the two however; you can start out with a free-for-all crowdsourced project and then at first have informal rules, then watch these become more formal, with the organisation drifting from a do-ocratic to a democratic structure, up to a point where the structure is really fixed and the crowdsourcing process limited to the data. (Of course the structure is not fixed as in cannot be changed, but it is just as fixed as a structure given by an organisation, such as Google with their map maker - this can change to, and might even change in response to user requests, but still it is fixed as opposed to crowdsourced.) Out of interest, I'd like to know where Wikipedia currently is on that scale, and what their internal discussions about this are like. As a Wikipedia user I see that many articles are drifting towards a fixed structure, for example; can I still create articles that don't use the structure or will there immediately be a flurry of people telling me what I did wrong, where I did not adhere to rules, and how things should be done differently because this has been decided then-and-then by so-and-so? The interesting question is, can you sustainably uphold the crowdsourcing principle on both fronts, or will you sooner or later gave to give in to calls for democratic structures, votes, elections and so on because it is the least evil? I tend to think that wherever you have to mediate between conflicting interests you will (at some point) just give up and implement democracy. (Can't agree? But of course we need to all do it the same way. Ok let's vote and whoever loses has to do what the winners say.) Many, many people in OSM believe that this cannot be avoided and that we might as well do democracy right away. Many also seem to be unwilling or unable to question whether democracy is really best for everything. However, I have the hope that we might just manage to *avoid* conflicting interests altogether, or at least to a very large degree, by being all things to all people. If we manage to keep the database open for as many things, ideas, and concepts as possible, then instead of fighting (or voting) over the right (one true) way to arrange things in the data base, people could just extract those things they want in the form they want them. The same could be done, and is done, in other areas in the project: Don't like the editor? Use another; don't like the map? Make one yourself, etc. - Still there are areas where we're more centralistic than necessary, leading to discussions about the one true way, but wherever we can get out of that and say have it both ways, that's a victory for freedom in my opinion. The belief that there can only be one true way causes a lot of grief on many levels around the world. I'm sure there really are areas where you have to do something one way or another. But until now, OSM has worked quite well without having one true way. Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail [EMAIL PROTECTED] ## N49°00'09 E008°23'33 ___ dev mailing list dev@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/dev
Re: [OSM-dev] The wiki defines the database (was: relations)
Erik Johansson wrote: This is a really naive and contraproductive argument, nothing is black and white. You have to define what it is you are mapping, and you don't do that in the database. Yeah, but therein lies the problem. The people doing the defining are, in many cases, not the ones who are doing the mapping. There are plenty of people voting on things just because they like voting. If people refrained from discussing and voting unless they had _personally_ come up against the problem that the proposal was aiming to solve, I think the process would have a lot more respect. cheers Richard ___ dev mailing list dev@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/dev
Re: [OSM-dev] The wiki defines the database (was: relations)
Richard Fairhurst schrieb: Erik Johansson wrote: This is a really naive and contraproductive argument, nothing is black and white. You have to define what it is you are mapping, and you don't do that in the database. Yeah, but therein lies the problem. The people doing the defining are, in many cases, not the ones who are doing the mapping. There are plenty of people voting on things just because they like voting. If people refrained from discussing and voting unless they had _personally_ come up against the problem that the proposal was aiming to solve, I think the process would have a lot more respect. H, How do you know, that: The people doing the defining are, in many cases, not the ones who are doing the mapping ?!? BTW: It's simply a misconception that the voting process necessarily needs that all people involved to be experts of the topic. If the proposal is well prepared and discussed even by a very small number of people knowing what they are talking about, you will - even as an outsider - get a good idea if the feature is a good thing or not. Regards, ULFL ___ dev mailing list dev@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/dev
Re: [OSM-dev] The wiki defines the database (was: relations)
On 4 Nov 2008, at 20:56, Ulf Lamping wrote: It's simply a misconception that the voting process necessarily needs that all people involved to be experts of the topic. If the proposal is well prepared and discussed even by a very small number of people knowing what they are talking about, you will - even as an outsider - get a good idea if the feature is a good thing or not. Surely the only voting process that carries any weight in the long run is people actually using a given key/value pair in the database... Why not just provide a list of popular tags (like map_features does now), and a long list of possibilities for things not on the 'popular' list (basicly what the Proposed_features currently do). Any proposed features that see significant real world usage make there way onto the map_features page. -- Chris Jones, SUCS Admin http://sucs.org ___ dev mailing list dev@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/dev
Re: [OSM-dev] The wiki defines the database
Hi Chris, Chris Jones wrote: Surely the only voting process that carries any weight in the long run is people actually using a given key/value pair in the database... If the long run building of the map is done following guidelinse posted by the wiki docs in the short run, then I would say that the wiki matters. In our case, we have users who will want to know how do we do this (this being add data to OSM such that the applications they care about will be able to use it). So as an author of a client app I can either: - Let them enter whatever they want and try to make sense of it later or - Provide some guidance on the wiki and then compare that to actual use. In other words, the wiki strikes me as a way for app developers and map makers to communicate ahead of time, saving a lot of potential waste. cheers ben -- Scenery Home Page: http://scenery.x-plane.com/ Scenery blog: http://xplanescenery.blogspot.com/ Plugin SDK: http://www.xsquawkbox.net/xpsdk/ X-Plane Wiki: http://wiki.x-plane.com/ Scenery mailing list: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Developer mailing list: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ dev mailing list dev@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/dev
Re: [OSM-dev] The wiki defines the database
Hi, Ben Supnik wrote: So as an author of a client app I can either: - Let them enter whatever they want and try to make sense of it later or - Provide some guidance on the wiki and then compare that to actual use. Our eternal argument on this list revolves around the fact that those who write on the Wiki and those who write client apps are disjunct groups of people, with the application writers doing what they want (it's their spare time after all) and the Wiki contributors assuming that they just have to cast a vote and the world will listen. Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail [EMAIL PROTECTED] ## N49°00'09 E008°23'33 ___ dev mailing list dev@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/dev
Re: [OSM-dev] The wiki defines the database (was: relations)
COn Tue, Nov 4, 2008 at 6:16 PM, Richard Fairhurst [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Erik Johansson wrote: This is a really naive and contraproductive argument, nothing is black and white. You have to define what it is you are mapping, and you don't do that in the database. Yeah, but therein lies the problem. The people doing the defining are, in many cases, not the ones who are doing the mapping. There are plenty of people voting on things just because they like voting. If people refrained from discussing and voting unless they had _personally_ come up against the problem that the proposal was aiming to solve, I think the process would have a lot more respect. Real mappers don't document; their tags are enough. Wannabe mappers read documentation and follow templates. So how should you become a mapper if there is no documentation. There is a lack of people who are willing to write something on the wiki, not too many. Sure the wiki doesn't really define the database, it tells people how to tag stuff and that is a lot more important than anything else. BTW, This is still on dev because dev is where the wiki FUD flows deepest. Regards Erik. ___ dev mailing list dev@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/dev
Re: [OSM-dev] The wiki defines the database (was: relations)
On Tue, Nov 4, 2008 at 10:46 PM, Erik Johansson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: COn Tue, Nov 4, 2008 at 6:16 PM, Richard Fairhurst [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The people doing the defining are, in many cases, not the ones who are doing the mapping. There are plenty of people voting on things just because they like voting. If people refrained from discussing and voting unless they had _personally_ come up against the problem that the proposal was aiming to solve, I think the process would have a lot more respect. Real mappers don't document; their tags are enough. Wannabe mappers read documentation and follow templates. So how should you become a mapper if there is no documentation. There is a lack of people who are willing to write something on the wiki, not too many. there have been occasions when real mappers have documented their tags on the wiki, only to have the wiki pages overwritten by someone else's better ideas. maybe this puts some people off? Sure the wiki doesn't really define the database, it tells people how to tag stuff and that is a lot more important than anything else. you're absolutely right - the wiki should help document the database and help spread knowledge of tagging culture. maybe we should be encouraging wannabe mappers to look for tags on tagwatch and, with the help of the mailing lists / IRC / local meet-ups, document them on the wiki? cheers, matt ___ dev mailing list dev@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/dev
Re: [OSM-dev] The wiki defines the database (was: relations)
Chris Jones schrieb: On 4 Nov 2008, at 20:56, Ulf Lamping wrote: It's simply a misconception that the voting process necessarily needs that all people involved to be experts of the topic. If the proposal is well prepared and discussed even by a very small number of people knowing what they are talking about, you will - even as an outsider - get a good idea if the feature is a good thing or not. Surely the only voting process that carries any weight in the long run is people actually using a given key/value pair in the database... Yes and no. It's not a good idea to simply assume that the database is enough. The database only carries the syntax. It can tell you what tags people use. However, it can not tell you the semantic of the tag - what people meant. As this seems pretty obvious at a glance it's unfortunately not that easy. There is lot's of examples of these confusions: landuse=forest vs. natural=wood From simply looking at both tags, it's just not possible to be sure about the differences. In fact at least here in germany since recently a lot of people weren't even aware that there are two such tags and that there are differences what they mean. There are a lot more examples about these confusions, and without documenting the tags this will continue. Why not just provide a list of popular tags (like map_features does now), and a long list of possibilities for things not on the 'popular' list (basicly what the Proposed_features currently do). We call that tagwatch: http://tagwatch.stoecker.eu/Europe/En/index.html ;-) Any proposed features that see significant real world usage make there way onto the map_features page. Well, I've recently added some often used tags indicated by tagwatch to the Map Features page. It wasn't easy for me to write a good tag description, as I couldn't get it from the database or any proposals. There are still some tags that are in significant use that I didn't added to Map Features, just because I wasn't sure what they really meant ... Regards, ULFL ___ dev mailing list dev@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/dev
Re: [OSM-dev] The wiki defines the database (was: relations)
On Wed, Nov 5, 2008 at 12:27 AM, Ulf Lamping [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Any proposed features that see significant real world usage make there
way onto the map_features page.
Well, I've recently added some often used tags indicated by tagwatch to
the Map Features page. It wasn't easy for me to write a good tag
description, as I couldn't get it from the database or any proposals.
There are still some tags that are in significant use that I didn't
added to Map Features, just because I wasn't sure what they really meant ...
Perhaps extract users using this tag from the extended API download,
and mail them?
I've included a hack that does that, but osmxapi includes all lots of
extra data you don't need so it's abit slow. Example:
perl UserStat.pl FIXME survey
user:usage
emj:49
maning:3
JeolF:1
Kekoil:1
casualwalker:1
$k=$ARGV[0];
$v=$ARGV[1];
die(Usage $0 tag key tag value) if($k eq || $v eq );
open(XAPI, curl 'http://xapi.openstreetmap.org/api/0.5/way\\[$k=$v\\]'|);
while(XAPI){
$user= $1 if(/ user=.([^']+)/);
$stat{$user}+=1 if(/k=.FIXME. v=.survey./);
}
print user:usage\n;
foreach $user (sort {$stat{$b} = $stat{$a} } keys %stat){
print $user:$stat{$user}\n
}
/Erik
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Re: [OSM-dev] The wiki defines the database (was: relations)
On Wed, Nov 5, 2008 at 12:26 AM, Matt Amos [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Tue, Nov 4, 2008 at 10:46 PM, Erik Johansson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: COn Tue, Nov 4, 2008 at 6:16 PM, Richard Fairhurst [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The people doing the defining are, in many cases, not the ones who are doing the mapping. There are plenty of people voting on things just because they like voting. If people refrained from discussing and voting unless they had _personally_ come up against the problem that the proposal was aiming to solve, I think the process would have a lot more respect. Real mappers don't document; their tags are enough. Wannabe mappers read documentation and follow templates. So how should you become a mapper if there is no documentation. There is a lack of people who are willing to write something on the wiki, not too many. there have been occasions when real mappers have documented their tags on the wiki, only to have the wiki pages overwritten by someone else's better ideas. maybe this puts some people off? Yes that is very cumbersome but how often does this happen, and does it really warrant that flippant attitude? Having a better way to handle multiple meanings of tags might help. But perhaps Frederik is right maybe it's just too much work to translate wiki preferences automatically to JOSM, potlatch templates (also stylesheets for Osmarender and Mapnik to take the common complaint from people who wants new tags). ___ dev mailing list dev@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/dev
Re: [OSM-dev] The wiki defines the database (was: relations)
Hi, Erik Johansson wrote: Yes that is very cumbersome but how often does this happen, and does it really warrant that flippant attitude? Having a better way to handle multiple meanings of tags might help. The core of this flippant attitude is easily explained. When OSM was started - that was before my time, so I'm just telling other people's stories here - it was not the only collaborative mapping project around. Other, competing projects started out by first trying to set up a good tagging scheme (an ontology as people say) for everything, and never got far beyond that. OpenStreetMap didn't bother, and just started mapping - differentiating, initially, only between railway, waterway and highway and that was it. Things evolved from there to where we are now; OSM has swept away anything remotely comparable. Like many computer people, my instinct is to do exactly what the failed projects have done; it is what you are taught at uni or in the workplace: Analyse problem, make data model, acquire data, process data. OpenStreetMap managed to largely skip the initial phases, going against perceived wisdom, and it worked out well. Now, with the ever larger influx of new people to the project, this perceived wisdom, this how things are usually done, comes in through the back door. There's not a single day where you don't hear somebody say but we need a unified tagging scheme, everybody needs to adhere to the same standard, it will never work otherwise, the data will be useless unless everybody means the same. (But it will never work is something that has been said about OSM from day one.) Things that are special about OSM, things that have been OSM's strengths in the past, are often unreflectedly discounted as weaknesses by these newcomers: Any database must ... blah blah blah ... lest it is completely useless. There are two possibilities: 1. OpenStreetMap did the right thing initially, but what was the right thing *then* is not the right thing *now* anymore; we really need strict standards, a body to govern them, a dictionary of approved tags, and editors that will only allow you to tag things differently if you press I am sure three times. That is, as far as I can see, the model that Google's Map Maker uses. 2. OpenStreetMap is really different from anything else, the usual rules do not apply, and trying to apply perceived wisdom to OSM will break what is precious about it. The people calling for standards, rules, unified tagging and all that are just not flexible enough; they think they know what works and what doesn't, and fail to see that OSM is a different environment to which they cannot simply transport their experiences from the workplace or from software projects or from Wikipedia. I tend to assume that 2. is correct and I also tend to make fun of those who, I like to think, cannot adapt their brains to something that works differently. But it is very well possible that I am wrong, or that at least situation 1. will be true at some time in the near future. Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail [EMAIL PROTECTED] ## N49°00'09 E008°23'33 ___ dev mailing list dev@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/dev
Re: [OSM-dev] The wiki defines the database (was: relations)
Third possibility... I think that crrowd sourcing itself is actually different (in general and not just OSM being different). In the case of OSM we clearly see emergent 'standards' and 'models, These are codefied in the wiki and, more importantly, in the tools that realize the data into maps, routes, geo-coded results etc. Editors want their data on maps (and routes etc.) and so try to make it useful and findable (just like photo taggers are trying to get their photos found). And they share information about how to do it in the wiki. The wiki emerges from the practices of the community AND serves as a reference point to document and debate/discuss these. In the end the apps developers who realize the data will use the most descriptive and useful methods that exist in the data and participate in the wiki and mail list debate on best practices. They reward the most useful and used models by showing that data. (Hence a good address finder will show what is tagged to it's understanding and the crowd will move to tag that way - or reject it and up will pop new address finders. And evolution continues.) The genius of a good crowd sourced project (and OSM is very good) is that the data being sourced AND the encoding model itself are BOTH crowd sourced. This fuels the evolution. When you think about it, it is the obvious thing to do, but then, most really good ideas are both simple and obvious in retrospect. Cheers, Jim Brown -CTO CloudMade (Sent from my iPhone) On 5 Nov 2008, at 02:36, Frederik Ramm [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi, Erik Johansson wrote: Yes that is very cumbersome but how often does this happen, and does it really warrant that flippant attitude? Having a better way to handle multiple meanings of tags might help. The core of this flippant attitude is easily explained. When OSM was started - that was before my time, so I'm just telling other people's stories here - it was not the only collaborative mapping project around. Other, competing projects started out by first trying to set up a good tagging scheme (an ontology as people say) for everything, and never got far beyond that. OpenStreetMap didn't bother, and just started mapping - differentiating, initially, only between railway, waterway and highway and that was it. Things evolved from there to where we are now; OSM has swept away anything remotely comparable. Like many computer people, my instinct is to do exactly what the failed projects have done; it is what you are taught at uni or in the workplace: Analyse problem, make data model, acquire data, process data. OpenStreetMap managed to largely skip the initial phases, going against perceived wisdom, and it worked out well. Now, with the ever larger influx of new people to the project, this perceived wisdom, this how things are usually done, comes in through the back door. There's not a single day where you don't hear somebody say but we need a unified tagging scheme, everybody needs to adhere to the same standard, it will never work otherwise, the data will be useless unless everybody means the same. (But it will never work is something that has been said about OSM from day one.) Things that are special about OSM, things that have been OSM's strengths in the past, are often unreflectedly discounted as weaknesses by these newcomers: Any database must ... blah blah blah ... lest it is completely useless. There are two possibilities: 1. OpenStreetMap did the right thing initially, but what was the right thing *then* is not the right thing *now* anymore; we really need strict standards, a body to govern them, a dictionary of approved tags, and editors that will only allow you to tag things differently if you press I am sure three times. That is, as far as I can see, the model that Google's Map Maker uses. 2. OpenStreetMap is really different from anything else, the usual rules do not apply, and trying to apply perceived wisdom to OSM will break what is precious about it. The people calling for standards, rules, unified tagging and all that are just not flexible enough; they think they know what works and what doesn't, and fail to see that OSM is a different environment to which they cannot simply transport their experiences from the workplace or from software projects or from Wikipedia. I tend to assume that 2. is correct and I also tend to make fun of those who, I like to think, cannot adapt their brains to something that works differently. But it is very well possible that I am wrong, or that at least situation 1. will be true at some time in the near future. Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail [EMAIL PROTECTED] ## N49°00'09 E008°23 '33 ___ dev mailing list dev@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/dev ___ dev
