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 (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 (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
