I am sorry if I came across as arrogant or dismissive. This is absolutely not my intention. Actually I think we are in violent agreement here, mappers and data consumers must talk and help each other. And where we do that is on our mailing lists, forums, etc. What I was arguing against is somehow feeling responsible for data users who take our data, never talk to us and then think it is our job to tell them when something changes. That is how I understood Rob's argument and that isn't something I feel we have to do. If, to keep with Rob's example, MySociety wants to know about boundary tagging changes in OSM, they can get this info by participating in the OSM community and I'd welcome their input as a user of the data. But they have to be active themselves in at least a small way, it is not our job to somehow keep track of what they are using from OSM and tell them if something changes that they would want to know about.
Jochen On Sat, Nov 09, 2013 at 06:55:53PM +0100, Colin Smale wrote: > Date: Sat, 09 Nov 2013 18:55:53 +0100 > From: Colin Smale <[email protected]> > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] Admin boundaries - data consumers > > > > That does come across as a little arrogant, Jochen. The mappers and the > data consumers need each other; neither can flourish without the other. > A symbiotic model would be more accurate. As you say, we shouldn't > change things willy-nilly, but to say bluntly "it's your problem" to all > data consumers and to express such a dismissive attitude towards their > feedback is misrepresenting the relationship somewhat. > > Colin > > On 2013-11-09 18:25, Jochen Topf wrote: > > > On Sat, Nov 09, 2013 at 03:25:35PM +0000, Rob Nickerson wrote: > > > >> A few days ago there was a thread about the pros/cons of moving admin > >> boundaries to a new database. I'm not going to give my opinion on this as > >> the thread has now fizzled out, but I will suggest that decisions like > >> this should involve as many of our end data users as possible (we have > >> moved beyond a small isolated project). One such user is mySoicety. Check > >> out the video of their MapIt Global talk at > >> http://lanyrd.com/2013/sotm/scpkhg/ [1] to see how they use boundaries > >> from OSM. Perhaps some way of tracking our data consumers would be useful. > >> Or maybe we need a way for them to say which tags they are interested in > >> so that they can receive mail just about these. > > > > That's the wrong way around. If you are using OSM data it is your job to > > keep > > abreast of developments in OSM. A volunteer project like OSM can't keep > > track > > of all their "customers" the way a commercial company might. That's not to > > say that we should change things willy-nilly, we should announce changes > > beforehand etc. But we do that on our mailing lists etc. And yes, that puts > > a lot of burden on the users of OSM data, but they get it for free, so > > there. > > (Of course there are companies who will do this job for you, ie follow OSM > > development while maintaining stable data formats etc. to their customers.) > > > > Jochen > > > Links: > ------ > [1] http://lanyrd.com/2013/sotm/scpkhg/ > _______________________________________________ > talk mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk -- Jochen Topf [email protected] http://www.jochentopf.com/ +49-721-388298 _______________________________________________ talk mailing list [email protected] https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
