Re: [OSM-talk] Effecting change in OpenStreetMap

[joost schouppe]

With great power comes great responsibility. When your first minor
contributions are met with blunt reactions (however justified), then they
are probably going to be your last. Saying things like "we're not complete
idiots" or "it would be crazy to do this" is not the way to encourage
people to grow. It is encouraging them to shut the hell up and let the
experts do their work. I know this is hard to do after years of hearing bad
or naive ideas, especially if the people making the suggestions can be
rather agressive too. Caring about the project is not about the software
first, it is about the wetware above anyting else. Like I said in the other
thread, we do need people who can handle criticism (e.g. I didn't
understand some of the hurt reactions after a recent thread about an import
tool for ID), but it shouldn't be "survival of the thickest skin".
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Re: [OSM-talk] Effecting change in OpenStreetMap

[Andy Townsend]

On 21/11/2017 13:47, Darafei "Komяpa" Praliaskouski wrote:


I've posted a -dev mail about reusing nighttime of tile rendering 
servers. Some likes on GitHub, some reviews from passer-by's, no 
merge, nothing about "what to fix to get it merged". For a year. 
Patience you say?

https://github.com/openstreetmap/mod_tile/pull/152


Whilst I'm not a contributor to the repository there, I do have some 
familiarity with the code.  What you seem to be doing is interpreting 
the mod_tile repository as "part of the infrastructure of 
OpenStreetMap.org", and you seem to be viewing OpenStreetMap.org as an 
end-user Google Maps competitor, not as a "creating map data enabler".  
I regularly use mod_tile on memory-limited machines and would be 
concerned if I was suddenly not able to process as large data extracts 
that I could previously.  I don't see any thought given in what you're 
proposing to what the knock-on effects of your change would be.




/map call is technically 40x slower than it should be, but issue is 
being closed with "we are not complete idiots" comments. No action 
taken wherever.

https://github.com/openstreetmap/operations/issues/135


The second line of your issue starts "This causes hatred when editing 
something", which is not exactly helpful if you want an in-depth 
investigation of a perceived performance problem.  Despite this, the 
conversation that follows covers in detail the status of the problem, 
and a suggestion to you where you can help.  Your contributions there 
(at https://github.com/zerebubuth/openstreetmap-cgimap/issues/122 ) 
stopped after a day.


I've said elsewhere the developing things _around_ OpenStreetMap and 
with OpenStreetMap data has a surprisingly low barrier to entry - you 
just download the data and off you go; there's no API with Ts and Cs to 
negotiate.  However, _changing_ the way that the the project or the 
existing osm.org infrastructure does something will necessarily require 
a series of arguments to be made and people to be persuaded, and it 
seems to me that you haven't successfully done that yet, just as Yuri 
didn't with his approach to mechanical editing, which led indirectly to 
the WeeklyOSM article and the thread that this one developed from.


Where there are competing requirements (and there are always competing 
requirements) you can't always expect everyone to agree the your view of 
the requirements is the "most valid" one - see for example 
https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/issues/765 .  I took 
the hint from that to create something else with OSM data that was (for 
my purposes) better; perhaps you could do the same?


Best Regards,

Andy

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Re: [OSM-talk] Effecting change in OpenStreetMap

[Mateusz Konieczny]

On Tue, 21 Nov 2017 13:47:26 +
Darafei "Komяpa" Praliaskouski  wrote:

> Many words, long story short: technology-wise, OpenStreetMap core is
> dead.

This sounds bad and it is hard for me to discuss other examples, but in

> "I'm worried about this. I have not performed a technical review." as
> a blocker for PR merge:
> https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/pull/2939


- quote is manipulated (it skips part that changes meaning - it is not
  reason for closing PR, this reviewer is simply not making full review
  and signaling that he is worried about impact)
- it is not a blocker - others may still review and accept it
- why you claim "There is no development outside of a limited set of
  companies" and give openstreetmap-carto as an example?
- why you claim "It is impossible to get anything merged into core
  infrastructure" and give openstreetmap-carto later as an example?

> Basically, most of wide ~2011 dev community was hired away, and core
> is in hands of those who weren't hired away by Map* for whatever
> reason, be that lack of social skills or lack of technical skills.
> You've got no fresh blood, and there's no road map for it to improve.

Again, why you claim this and give openstreetmap-carto as an example?
Project that started in 2013
( https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/graphs/contributors
)?

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Re: [OSM-talk] Effecting change in OpenStreetMap

[Christoph Hormann]

On Tuesday 21 November 2017, Ilya Zverev wrote:
>
> You can mask the issue by saying "you have to be humble and listen to
> others more and understand there is always somebody who know better",
> but with that, you kill any trace of motivation to effect change in
> OpenStreetMap.

My suggestion to "be a bit humble" was meant to avoid doing exactly that 
to others what you criticise is being done by "the core group", namely 
not assessing opinions and positions based on their merit but based on 
a feeling of superiority and group perception.

> Because people who know better will not try new things 
> — they are worried that things we already have will break. The whole
> core services group (people who maintain code and servers) have been
> working in the life-support mode for years. Any change should conform
> to all the current policies of OSM, which virtually say "no changes".
> Any proposal should not contradict any of existing wiki pages,
> especially if existing wiki pages contradict each other.

I think you are exaggerating a bit here but i also think there is some 
truth to the perceived structural conservativism based on fear to loose 
something (something that is dear to you or something you feel 
responsible for).  This is no different from big politics probably (why 
should it be after all).

The key to overcoming this is not to try running up against it (which 
would just increase the fear and strengthen the conservativism) but to 
create independent alternatives and demonstrate change is possible and 
worthwhile.  The good thing about OSM is that very little outside the 
main database and the API is strictly tied to the core systems.  Even 
for the wiki - if a group of people from the OSM community would decide 
to create an independent tag documentation system that is better 
structured, more logical and easier to understand that would not 
automatically become the authority in tagging questions of course but 
it would have weight as soon as mappers start using it as a guideline.  

Such endeavours are always a long shot of course and most attempts fail 
before they gain enough footing.  Most successes with that approach 
have some kind of larger outside backing (iD Editor is a good example i 
think).

But most importantly i firmly believe that embrancing the ideas of 
newcomers independent of their merit out of misguided friendliness is 
at least as bad as rejecting them because of fear of change or loss of 
power and influence.  This would be the path to universal mediocrity.

Which leads me to what i have already said: The only way to make good 
decisions is to have open arguments about the merits of the different 
ideas and where everyone is open to reasoning and ultimately the better 
argument wins.  This is hard but if it works it is worth it.  And of 
course the older people have more responsibility here than the 
newcomers.

> I don't care about failure of my proposals and pull requests. I care
> about OSM being an active, maintained, growing, ever-changing
> project. I believe I will see that — but I'd prefer it in 5 years,
> not in 50.

Not sure if you know this - but there is a famous quote by Max Planck i 
had to think of when reading this:

"A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and 
making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually 
die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it." (see 
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Max_Planck)

Of course the turnover in people is much faster in OSM than in science 
(see 
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/File:Active_contributors_year.png).  

-- 
Christoph Hormann
http://www.imagico.de/

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Re: [OSM-talk] Effecting change in OpenStreetMap

[Mikel Maron]

I agree there are several parts of the OpenStreetMap software ecosystem where 
there's a healthy developer process. openstreetmap-carto and iD come to mind. 
Search and routing. Part of the issue with the main website -> it's a monolith, 
encompassing many different components. Sign up & authentication, messaging and 
communication, data exploration, the API. Andy Allan has been doing great work 
lately to make development on the rails app cleaner and more approachable. A 
good next step to consider is further isolating components, and the 
stakeholders on those components, so that development discussion and plans can 
become more focused.
* Mikel Maron * +14152835207 @mikel s:mikelmaron 

On Tuesday, November 21, 2017, 10:36:05 AM EST, Matthijs Melissen 
 wrote:  
 
 On 21 November 2017 at 14:47, Darafei "Komяpa" Praliaskouski
 wrote:
> "I'm worried about this. I have not performed a technical review." as a
> blocker for PR merge:
> https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/pull/2939
>
> Basically, most of wide ~2011 dev community was hired away, and core is in
> hands of those who weren't hired away by Map* for whatever reason, be that
> lack of social skills or lack of technical skills. You've got no fresh
> blood, and there's no road map for it to improve.

I can't speak for the other projects, but at least towards
openstreetmap-carto this is very unfair criticism. In fact, what
you're describing is something I've been actively trying to combat
with openstreetmap-carto. Our project has added 8 maintainers, 4 of
which have been added over the past two years. Also in the last two
years, 22 people have contributed code through pull requests. So it's
certainly not true that it's impossible to get something merged into
the project.

Your criticism of the comment on your PR is not fair either, the
comment 'I'm worried about this' was referring to an earlier, more
detailed response, by me:
https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/pull/2939#issuecomment-343258037

> Basically, most of wide ~2011 dev community was hired away, and core is in 
> hands of those who weren't hired away by Map* for whatever reason, be that 
> lack of social skills or lack of technical skills.

Either that, or they like to fiddle with maps at night time, and have
a day job in a more lucrative industry.

-- Matthijs

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Re: [OSM-talk] Effecting change in OpenStreetMap

[john whelan]

OSM isn't a closed system.  I get the impression that it has evolved over
time.  There is a core database engine and then there seems to be addons.
Lots of them like JOSM.

The problem is if you touch something basic the interface may change for
the addons and that's a big problem. Using XML helps keep the interfaces
stable but there are performance issues.

Perhaps what we should do is a drive to document the interfaces and
possibly the data flows through what I was going to say system but it seems
almost much larger than that.

Traditionally with computer systems there is a formal change management
system.  A problem is identified such as the database may contain web
addresses that point to malware.  Currently there is a lot of creative work
being done here using characters outside the normal ANSI base set.  One
extended German character looks very much like a letter d for example
except to a computer which points to a different web address.

Perhaps we could start by identifying problems such as this.  I'm sure
someone could run something down the database to check that all the
characters in a web address are in the base ANSI set.  It's not perfect but
it would be a start.

Cheerio John

On 21 November 2017 at 12:48, Michał Brzozowski  wrote:

> I think that developers of JOSM are another noteworthy exception to add
> along with openstreetmap-carto. Even if they break something, they are
> quick to respond, and it seems that there's always some work going on.
>
> But yes, I do share your feelings to a degree as well. People from many
> core OSM projects seem they would like to continue status quo indefinitely..
>
> The main project that I think is one of the most important, but at the
> same time not getting enough attention is openstreetmap-website. There's so
> much that could be done in order to facilitate mapper communication and
> improve usability. I *could* learn Ruby to implement some incremental
> improvements, but I would have to lose a few months on it and it's not a
> transferable skill for me (I'm not a web developer, or even a programmer,
> though I use Bash, Python and Tcl.). There are many quite sensible
> improvements that haven't been addresed for a long time.
>
> I have seen a similar phenomenon in Polish OSM community. There have been
> a few tools and data analyses/visualisations made by the "old guard" i.e.
> people who were active leaders in our community 7 or so years ago, who now
> have work and family wasting their time. But they did not take care to
> propagate the knowledge. Often it's a challenge to get sources form them to
> build it on your own.
>
> At the end of the day there's much that could be done to improve OSM if
> one took a holistic approach, having multiple projects working on some
> common goals, but with maintainers caring mostly about their turf and OSMF
> (by design) being concerned mostly with funding, licensing and running *WGs
> this is not happening.
>
> Michał
>
> On Tue, Nov 21, 2017 at 2:47 PM, Darafei "Komяpa" Praliaskouski <
> m...@komzpa.net> wrote:
>
>>
>> вс, 19 нояб. 2017 г. в 1:11, Christoph Hormann :
>>
>>> On Saturday 18 November 2017, Ilya Zverev wrote:
>>> > john whelan wrote:
>>> > > No you need to build up trust again and it takes time.  Only then
>>> > > will your ideas start to gain acceptance.
>>> >
>>> > Oh come on. I've been a mapper since 2010, I've hosted dozens of
>>> > events, I've written many articles and tools, some of which you might
>>> > have used, I'm on the Board currently, and still my proposals and
>>> > pull requests fail again and again, because there is no trust in
>>> > OpenStreetMap. There is nothing you can to to build up trust. Your
>>> > ideas will never get acceptance, it's just nitpicking and "unwritten
>>> > rules" all over.
>>>
>>> I hope you are aware that with this you deny everyone who has ever
>>> voiced critique on any of your proposals and pull requests to have a
>>> competent opinion on the topic in question.
>>>
>>
>> (sorry for my Russian straightness)
>>
>> Many words, long story short: technology-wise, OpenStreetMap core is dead.
>>
>> There is no development outside of a limited set of companies, and even
>> that is mostly aimed at profit of the company, not the OSM community. All
>> of it is done in "consumer" role.
>>
>> People trying to gain knowledge of developing something in non-"consumer"
>> paradigm get shamed all over mailing lists. Or have a look what it takes to
>> launch any kind of popular OSM editor, be it Potlatch or Maps.me, in terms
>> of amount of hate towards you.
>>
>> It is impossible to get anything merged into core infrastructure. If
>> initial author stepped away from the project, there is a group of ~5 people
>> who effectively say no to any change.
>>
>> This year I got several PRs reviewed and merged into PostGIS, yet even
>> simple configuration/limit changes to openstreetmap.org get ignored.
>>
>> I've posted a -dev mail about 

Re: [OSM-talk] Effecting change in OpenStreetMap

[Michał Brzozowski]

I think that developers of JOSM are another noteworthy exception to add
along with openstreetmap-carto. Even if they break something, they are
quick to respond, and it seems that there's always some work going on.

But yes, I do share your feelings to a degree as well. People from many
core OSM projects seem they would like to continue status quo indefinitely..

The main project that I think is one of the most important, but at the same
time not getting enough attention is openstreetmap-website. There's so much
that could be done in order to facilitate mapper communication and improve
usability. I *could* learn Ruby to implement some incremental improvements,
but I would have to lose a few months on it and it's not a transferable
skill for me (I'm not a web developer, or even a programmer, though I use
Bash, Python and Tcl.). There are many quite sensible improvements that
haven't been addresed for a long time.

I have seen a similar phenomenon in Polish OSM community. There have been a
few tools and data analyses/visualisations made by the "old guard" i.e.
people who were active leaders in our community 7 or so years ago, who now
have work and family wasting their time. But they did not take care to
propagate the knowledge. Often it's a challenge to get sources form them to
build it on your own.

At the end of the day there's much that could be done to improve OSM if one
took a holistic approach, having multiple projects working on some common
goals, but with maintainers caring mostly about their turf and OSMF (by
design) being concerned mostly with funding, licensing and running *WGs
this is not happening.

Michał

On Tue, Nov 21, 2017 at 2:47 PM, Darafei "Komяpa" Praliaskouski <
m...@komzpa.net> wrote:

>
> вс, 19 нояб. 2017 г. в 1:11, Christoph Hormann :
>
>> On Saturday 18 November 2017, Ilya Zverev wrote:
>> > john whelan wrote:
>> > > No you need to build up trust again and it takes time.  Only then
>> > > will your ideas start to gain acceptance.
>> >
>> > Oh come on. I've been a mapper since 2010, I've hosted dozens of
>> > events, I've written many articles and tools, some of which you might
>> > have used, I'm on the Board currently, and still my proposals and
>> > pull requests fail again and again, because there is no trust in
>> > OpenStreetMap. There is nothing you can to to build up trust. Your
>> > ideas will never get acceptance, it's just nitpicking and "unwritten
>> > rules" all over.
>>
>> I hope you are aware that with this you deny everyone who has ever
>> voiced critique on any of your proposals and pull requests to have a
>> competent opinion on the topic in question.
>>
>
> (sorry for my Russian straightness)
>
> Many words, long story short: technology-wise, OpenStreetMap core is dead.
>
> There is no development outside of a limited set of companies, and even
> that is mostly aimed at profit of the company, not the OSM community. All
> of it is done in "consumer" role.
>
> People trying to gain knowledge of developing something in non-"consumer"
> paradigm get shamed all over mailing lists. Or have a look what it takes to
> launch any kind of popular OSM editor, be it Potlatch or Maps.me, in terms
> of amount of hate towards you.
>
> It is impossible to get anything merged into core infrastructure. If
> initial author stepped away from the project, there is a group of ~5 people
> who effectively say no to any change.
>
> This year I got several PRs reviewed and merged into PostGIS, yet even
> simple configuration/limit changes to openstreetmap.org get ignored.
>
> I've posted a -dev mail about reusing nighttime of tile rendering servers.
> Some likes on GitHub, some reviews from passer-by's, no merge, nothing
> about "what to fix to get it merged". For a year. Patience you say?
> https://github.com/openstreetmap/mod_tile/pull/152
>
> /map call is technically 40x slower than it should be, but issue is being
> closed with "we are not complete idiots" comments. No action taken wherever.
> https://github.com/openstreetmap/operations/issues/135
>
> "I'm worried about this. I have not performed a technical review." as a
> blocker for PR merge:
> https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/pull/2939
>
> Basically, most of wide ~2011 dev community was hired away, and core is in
> hands of those who weren't hired away by Map* for whatever reason, be that
> lack of social skills or lack of technical skills. You've got no fresh
> blood, and there's no road map for it to improve.
>
> ___
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> talk@openstreetmap.org
> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
>
>
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Re: [OSM-talk] Effecting change in OpenStreetMap

[James]

I am a developer. I should not be expected to learn Psychology 101 to
improve OpenStreetMap.

Funny you should say that...I had to take Psychology 101 for my CS degree.
I see why now.

On Nov 21, 2017 12:02 PM, "Ilya Zverev"  wrote:

> Christoph Hormann wrote:
> >  Oh come on. I've been a mapper since 2010, I've hosted dozens of
> > > events, I've written many articles and tools, some of which you might
> > > have used, I'm on the Board currently, and still my proposals and
> > > pull requests fail again and again, because there is no trust in
> > > OpenStreetMap. There is nothing you can to to build up trust. Your
> > > ideas will never get acceptance, it's just nitpicking and "unwritten
> > > rules" all over.
> > I hope you are aware that with this you deny everyone who has ever
> voiced critique on any of your proposals and pull requests to have a
> competent opinion on the topic in question.
>
> I am not speaking about my proposals and pull requests here. I am
> highlighting a bigger issue that I see again and again. There is a core
> group made of people from UK and German-speaking countries, and everyone
> else. You will never become a part of the first group, not by writing
> software or articles, not by being elected anywhere, not by anything. You
> either have been in OSM in 2006 or not. You, Christoph, is not perceived as
> a part of that group. Which means you get to experience "this situation
> from both sides". Most of us do. Most people from the core group don't even
> see the problem and will deny any claims.
>
> This problem manifests itself in many small ways: one more nitpicking
> comment on your pull request, one more opposing comment on a proposal, one
> more vote on their Board ballot instead of yours. Everything they do is
> visible all over OSM. No matter what you do, it will be visible only in
> your local community. That is what the #craftmapper problem is, not a
> simple "do not import, go out and map". If they become irritated and leave,
> we will lose everything: servers, access to code, representation,
> organization. I know only one "craftmapper" who left — and more and more I
> am starting to think that was for the worse, contrary to mine and everyone
> else's opinions three years ago.
>
> You can mask the issue by saying "you have to be humble and listen to
> others more and understand there is always somebody who know better", but
> with that, you kill any trace of motivation to effect change in
> OpenStreetMap. Because people who know better will not try new things —
> they are worried that things we already have will break. The whole core
> services group (people who maintain code and servers) have been working in
> the life-support mode for years. Any change should conform to all the
> current policies of OSM, which virtually say "no changes". Any proposal
> should not contradict any of existing wiki pages, especially if existing
> wiki pages contradict each other.
>
> Trust is allowing other people to touch and possibly break what you love.
> We don't have it in the OSM. OSM is not Wikipedia, we don't have a "be
> bold" rule. As you explain, we have "be humble and listen to others" rule.
> Feels very similar to what women currently are fighting with in the third
> wave.
>
> > The key to solving this kind of problem is respectful and considerate
> communication, caring about each other's opinions and reasoning - and above
> all patience. People are always more likely to accept and support change if
> they come to realize the need for it themselves, at their own pace.
>
> I am a developer. I should not be expected to learn Psychology 101 to
> improve OpenStreetMap. What are you effectively saying is that you can push
> changes only by being an expert in social studies. If only such experts
> wrote pull requests. What we do need is more management standing between
> old and new developers — but that would imply more spending money on
> people, and we don't want to spend money on people, just on hardware.
>
> > And a rejected idea does not necessarily need to be considered failure.
> It is an opportunity to talk to the people who have rejected it,
> re-evaluating your assumptions and motives and maybe develop a better
> solution (or let others do that when they recognize the need). I have seen
> lots of examples where a failed attempt at something created the impulse
> for a better and successful solution.
>
> I don't care about failure of my proposals and pull requests. I care about
> OSM being an active, maintained, growing, ever-changing project. I believe
> I will see that — but I'd prefer it in 5 years, not in 50.
>
> Ilya
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Re: [OSM-talk] Effecting change in OpenStreetMap

[Ilya Zverev]

Christoph Hormann wrote:
>  Oh come on. I've been a mapper since 2010, I've hosted dozens of 
> > events, I've written many articles and tools, some of which you might 
> > have used, I'm on the Board currently, and still my proposals and 
> > pull requests fail again and again, because there is no trust in 
> > OpenStreetMap. There is nothing you can to to build up trust. Your 
> > ideas will never get acceptance, it's just nitpicking and "unwritten 
> > rules" all over. 
> I hope you are aware that with this you deny everyone who has ever voiced 
> critique on any of your proposals and pull requests to have a competent 
> opinion on the topic in question.

I am not speaking about my proposals and pull requests here. I am highlighting 
a bigger issue that I see again and again. There is a core group made of people 
from UK and German-speaking countries, and everyone else. You will never become 
a part of the first group, not by writing software or articles, not by being 
elected anywhere, not by anything. You either have been in OSM in 2006 or not. 
You, Christoph, is not perceived as a part of that group. Which means you get 
to experience "this situation from both sides". Most of us do. Most people from 
the core group don't even see the problem and will deny any claims.

This problem manifests itself in many small ways: one more nitpicking comment 
on your pull request, one more opposing comment on a proposal, one more vote on 
their Board ballot instead of yours. Everything they do is visible all over 
OSM. No matter what you do, it will be visible only in your local community. 
That is what the #craftmapper problem is, not a simple "do not import, go out 
and map". If they become irritated and leave, we will lose everything: servers, 
access to code, representation, organization. I know only one "craftmapper" who 
left — and more and more I am starting to think that was for the worse, 
contrary to mine and everyone else's opinions three years ago.

You can mask the issue by saying "you have to be humble and listen to others 
more and understand there is always somebody who know better", but with that, 
you kill any trace of motivation to effect change in OpenStreetMap. Because 
people who know better will not try new things — they are worried that things 
we already have will break. The whole core services group (people who maintain 
code and servers) have been working in the life-support mode for years. Any 
change should conform to all the current policies of OSM, which virtually say 
"no changes". Any proposal should not contradict any of existing wiki pages, 
especially if existing wiki pages contradict each other.

Trust is allowing other people to touch and possibly break what you love. We 
don't have it in the OSM. OSM is not Wikipedia, we don't have a "be bold" rule. 
As you explain, we have "be humble and listen to others" rule. Feels very 
similar to what women currently are fighting with in the third wave.

> The key to solving this kind of problem is respectful and considerate 
> communication, caring about each other's opinions and reasoning - and above 
> all patience. People are always more likely to accept and support change if 
> they come to realize the need for it themselves, at their own pace.

I am a developer. I should not be expected to learn Psychology 101 to improve 
OpenStreetMap. What are you effectively saying is that you can push changes 
only by being an expert in social studies. If only such experts wrote pull 
requests. What we do need is more management standing between old and new 
developers — but that would imply more spending money on people, and we don't 
want to spend money on people, just on hardware.

> And a rejected idea does not necessarily need to be considered failure. It is 
> an opportunity to talk to the people who have rejected it, re-evaluating your 
> assumptions and motives and maybe develop a better solution (or let others do 
> that when they recognize the need). I have seen lots of examples where a 
> failed attempt at something created the impulse for a better and successful 
> solution.

I don't care about failure of my proposals and pull requests. I care about OSM 
being an active, maintained, growing, ever-changing project. I believe I will 
see that — but I'd prefer it in 5 years, not in 50.

Ilya
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Re: [OSM-talk] Effecting change in OpenStreetMap

[Matthijs Melissen]

On 21 November 2017 at 14:47, Darafei "Komяpa" Praliaskouski
 wrote:
> "I'm worried about this. I have not performed a technical review." as a
> blocker for PR merge:
> https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/pull/2939
>
> Basically, most of wide ~2011 dev community was hired away, and core is in
> hands of those who weren't hired away by Map* for whatever reason, be that
> lack of social skills or lack of technical skills. You've got no fresh
> blood, and there's no road map for it to improve.

I can't speak for the other projects, but at least towards
openstreetmap-carto this is very unfair criticism. In fact, what
you're describing is something I've been actively trying to combat
with openstreetmap-carto. Our project has added 8 maintainers, 4 of
which have been added over the past two years. Also in the last two
years, 22 people have contributed code through pull requests. So it's
certainly not true that it's impossible to get something merged into
the project.

Your criticism of the comment on your PR is not fair either, the
comment 'I'm worried about this' was referring to an earlier, more
detailed response, by me:
https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/pull/2939#issuecomment-343258037

> Basically, most of wide ~2011 dev community was hired away, and core is in 
> hands of those who weren't hired away by Map* for whatever reason, be that 
> lack of social skills or lack of technical skills.

Either that, or they like to fiddle with maps at night time, and have
a day job in a more lucrative industry.

-- Matthijs

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Re: [OSM-talk] Effecting change in OpenStreetMap

[Komяpa]

вс, 19 нояб. 2017 г. в 1:11, Christoph Hormann :

> On Saturday 18 November 2017, Ilya Zverev wrote:
> > john whelan wrote:
> > > No you need to build up trust again and it takes time.  Only then
> > > will your ideas start to gain acceptance.
> >
> > Oh come on. I've been a mapper since 2010, I've hosted dozens of
> > events, I've written many articles and tools, some of which you might
> > have used, I'm on the Board currently, and still my proposals and
> > pull requests fail again and again, because there is no trust in
> > OpenStreetMap. There is nothing you can to to build up trust. Your
> > ideas will never get acceptance, it's just nitpicking and "unwritten
> > rules" all over.
>
> I hope you are aware that with this you deny everyone who has ever
> voiced critique on any of your proposals and pull requests to have a
> competent opinion on the topic in question.
>

(sorry for my Russian straightness)

Many words, long story short: technology-wise, OpenStreetMap core is dead.

There is no development outside of a limited set of companies, and even
that is mostly aimed at profit of the company, not the OSM community. All
of it is done in "consumer" role.

People trying to gain knowledge of developing something in non-"consumer"
paradigm get shamed all over mailing lists. Or have a look what it takes to
launch any kind of popular OSM editor, be it Potlatch or Maps.me, in terms
of amount of hate towards you.

It is impossible to get anything merged into core infrastructure. If
initial author stepped away from the project, there is a group of ~5 people
who effectively say no to any change.

This year I got several PRs reviewed and merged into PostGIS, yet even
simple configuration/limit changes to openstreetmap.org get ignored.

I've posted a -dev mail about reusing nighttime of tile rendering servers.
Some likes on GitHub, some reviews from passer-by's, no merge, nothing
about "what to fix to get it merged". For a year. Patience you say?
https://github.com/openstreetmap/mod_tile/pull/152

/map call is technically 40x slower than it should be, but issue is being
closed with "we are not complete idiots" comments. No action taken wherever.
https://github.com/openstreetmap/operations/issues/135

"I'm worried about this. I have not performed a technical review." as a
blocker for PR merge:
https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/pull/2939

Basically, most of wide ~2011 dev community was hired away, and core is in
hands of those who weren't hired away by Map* for whatever reason, be that
lack of social skills or lack of technical skills. You've got no fresh
blood, and there's no road map for it to improve.
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Re: [OSM-talk] Effecting change in OpenStreetMap

[Christoph Hormann]

On Saturday 18 November 2017, Ilya Zverev wrote:
> john whelan wrote:
> > No you need to build up trust again and it takes time.  Only then
> > will your ideas start to gain acceptance.
>
> Oh come on. I've been a mapper since 2010, I've hosted dozens of
> events, I've written many articles and tools, some of which you might
> have used, I'm on the Board currently, and still my proposals and
> pull requests fail again and again, because there is no trust in
> OpenStreetMap. There is nothing you can to to build up trust. Your
> ideas will never get acceptance, it's just nitpicking and "unwritten
> rules" all over.

I hope you are aware that with this you deny everyone who has ever 
voiced critique on any of your proposals and pull requests to have a 
competent opinion on the topic in question.

I understand and partly share your frustration that it can be difficult 
to effect change in OpenStreetMap because of strong inertia but most of 
the subjects we are talking about here with proposals and pull requests 
are complicated matters and it is always good advise to be a bit humble 
and consider the possibility that even if you have looked into a matter 
in depth and think you know what the right thing to do is there might 
be others who have a deeper understanding and more experience on this 
matter and based on that disagree with you - on the facts and 
independent of if they trust you as a person or not.

I have been in this situation from both sides - as someone who wrongly 
thinks he knows what is best and thought people should just trust him 
and as someone who sees the ideas of others and is aware exactly what 
knowledge and experience they are missing to recognize the flaw in 
their idea.

The key to solving this kind of problem is respectful and considerate 
communication, caring about each other's opinions and reasoning - and 
above all patience.  People are always more likely to accept and 
support change if they come to realize the need for it themselves, at 
their own pace.

And a rejected idea does not necessarily need to be considered failure.  
It is an opportunity to talk to the people who have rejected it, 
re-evaluating your assumptions and motives and maybe develop a better 
solution (or let others do that when they recognize the need).  I have 
seen lots of examples where a failed attempt at something created the 
impulse for a better and successful solution.

(Changed the subject because this of course does not have much to do 
with the original subject of this thread - still i think this is an 
important topic to discuss)

-- 
Christoph Hormann
http://www.imagico.de/

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