Hi all, I'm actually happy that Jan raised this issue. As he noted we've had an exchange of a few OSM messages about how he has viewed my notes use and my responses to his thoughts.
As Rafael commented I'm a somewhat active OSM contributor (with Haiti and Nicaragua having been my biggest territories of contribution but also in various HOT projects as well as my former home in DC area and my native Finland). I've been super thrilled about OSM notes as you can read from below. I'm copy-pasting below the exchange of message I've had with Jan about the use of OSM notes as I think that given the young age of the map notes there should be discussion about the use of them -- and also how to make notes-related tools better. This should explain pretty well my main views about the issue -- I'd be very interested to hear of others' thoughts. What is obvious, as I comment below, is that as things are the notes system does _not_ provide very good tools for filtering (nor searching, etc handling of) notes and this can cause problems to some per others' more active use of the notes. The current situation does require responsibility from those adding a lot of notes (to resolve them too). As for the thought of : "Don't use it like that" I actually beg to disagree. The notes allow sharing of field observations that others can use to improve the map - or just highlight problematic areas. But yes, there are things and ways of working that could be improved. I'm all ears for any / all thoughts about this. (Including Jan who didn't answer to my replies and questions in them.) Cheers from Fuengirola where I'm spending my holiday until tomorrow, -Jaakko Ps. I've actually thought that some sort of "standardized" acronyms for notes while on the go would be really good / help create notes faster and help others understand acronyms that are used (in which I'm currently not the only one, btw). ----- # Lübeck 29 April 2014 at 14:06 Hi ! you added some notes in Malaga for traffic-light etc. OSM-Notes is not a editor-alternative. please edit the data by yourself and close the notes. reagards Jan :-) Germany ## Lübeck 1 May 2014 at 04:50 Hi Jan, Thanks for your message. I've resolved the few Map notes I had created while in Malaga and observed missing traffic lights in the OSM db (.. obviously adding those to the db). I think that we have a little bit of a different understanding of what the notes can and can't be used for. First off, I don't see any remark at the OSM wiki page that you couldn't also add notes about missing "less important" objects in the OSM db ( http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Notes#Using_notes) -- to which I must add that traffic lights not being on the map can be a bigger issue to others than it is to you. Secondly, the wiki page (and my opinion) is not alone. There was an interesting session about using the Notes in mapping at the recent SotM-US (albeit I actually missed it and only heard from others that it was interesting). .. The point is, in any case, that people are increasingly using the notes for mapping and not "merely" adding a (major) bug such as that a highway is missing. I (too) have thought about the "clutter" that increased use of Notes might (actually somewhat evidently) bring about -- but I think that it's more of a filtering and classification problem. I hope that we'll get some possibility to highlight those notes that are more critical than others and perhaps mark also less important ones. Hopefully also query more powerfully notes e.g. viewing or not viewing some users' notes. Or user groups for that matter. Lastly, as you can see (http://resultmaps.neis-one.org/osm-notes) I have used (and likely to some people's opinion abused) the Notes quite a lot and I have a pretty decent ratio of opened vs. closed notes. .. That is to say that I also put a good amount of time into resolving Map notes (both my own and others'). This said, I encourage you too to use the notes a bit more as they are an absolutely wonderful way of making, well, notes on what things are not quite how they should be in OSM while moving around. If you are using an Android device I very warmly recommend OsmAnd's editing plugin as that makes adding, commenting and also closing notes a breeze (albeit closing them makes more sense through a proper editor). The editing plugin also makes adding POIs directly through mobile quite simple (which I mostly use for objects that don't need to be integrated into other OSM data, e.g. traffic lights must be integrated, of course). As a sort of last thought on the topic: Since I started using the Map notes more through OsmAnd I've probably added a few hundred traffic lights to the map in Nicaragua, Miami, DC, Brussels, and Malaga area. Without using notes I wouldn't have added more than a few handfuls. I think this is very clearly in the best interest of the OpenStreetMap, eih? Thanks again for your message. I'll get to fixing my other Malaga area Notes hopefully sooner than later (most of them in Fuengirola area as you can see). With best regards from Nicaragua, -Jaakko --- # Lübeck 11 June 2014 at 04:43 hi ! this is not a editor ! regards Jan :-) # Lübeck 11 June 2014 at 04:45 hi ! i see there are many more notes of you - building etc. please edit by yourself ! regards Jan :-) ## Lübeck 11 June 2014 at 14:43 Dear Jan, Did you actually read my previous reply to you? In any case / in short: I get back to my notes regularly (as you can see : www.openstreetmap.org/user/jaakkoh/notes ) and try to close them all. .. and no, my ratio of opened/closed is not bad (4448/5496 -> 80% closed over opened vs. global ratio of about 70% [ http://resultmaps.neis-one.org/osm-notes]). And yes, I do also add data directly to OSM while on the go as much as possible (and more and more now with OsmAnd being pretty good with adding POIs). *Please read or re-read my prior reply to you.* *You might want to comment on that -- I'd at least be happy to hear your thoughts.* .. And it might be that general advice on using -- and also further developing the Notes feature would be in place. .. I for one would love to see good features for filtering Notes -- as I think I commented in my prior reply to you. A beauty of the Notes is that others can act upon them. Data on observations doesn't get wasted so easily. That's really the point of it... *If you have any questions about specific Notes or would like me to resolve specific notes / areas then it helps that you point me to that area / those notes.... URL, you know...* With best regards from the morning of Managua, -Jaakko ## Lübeck 11 June 2014 at 17:24 ... While on the topic of closing one's notes. I've closed pretty much all of mine in the Malaga area. You might want to take a look at these few and resolve them: https://www.openstreetmap.org/note/92134 https://www.openstreetmap.org/note/111458 https://www.openstreetmap.org/note/111467 Latter two are your prior OSB reports. Given this (that the two of "your" notes are from OSB time) I wonder if you're still living the OpenStreetBugs time? That is to say, with OSB it seemed more like the bugs were for more "serious" bugs in the map. With map notes -- as commented in my first reply to you -- the mere name of the service has broadened the scope of it. .. There's also been some discussion about this -- again, please do read my prior reply before responding to me -- and my impression (which might of course be wrong) is that the notes "welcome" pretty much any observation (aka. "note") on what is missing or wrong in the map. Again, yes it makes sense to try to edit directly as much as possible. But no, it's not always possible for various reasons. It's also a good way (IMO) to try to get more people hooked to contributing to OSM -- I really really actually don't want those people who don't have the time to learn to map to just dive into using at times cumbersome tools and complicated data and fuck it up. .. This happends way too often. Having people contribute to the notes ("first") could be a significantly lesser pain. .. and it's (IMO again) a good idea to first learn to use the notes oneself before recommending them too much. "Eat your own dog food", you know.. Anyways, 'nuff said. Back to other things. Cheers, -Jaakko -- [email protected] * Skype: jhelleranta * Mobile: +505-8845-3391 (Nicaragua) * Voice(mail) / SMS / What's app: +1-202-730-9778 * http://about.me/jaakkoh On Tue, Jul 8, 2014 at 8:43 PM, Simó Albert i Beltran <[email protected]> wrote: > Perhaps jaakkho abbreviated too much to be fast. But I understand their > notes: > 1w = one way > s = direction South > e = direction East > ... > > _______________________________________________ > Talk-es mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-es > >
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