OpenStreetMap
Let's pretend like Maps.me contribution is an import.
Posted by BushmanK on 28 June 2016 in English.Case of Maps.me is, in many aspects, similar to cases of Potlatch and iD (on its early stage of deployment), but in certain aspects it is special. At least, in aspect of how frequent those edits are. Since currently it is hard to reach out to every Maps.me editor user, it makes the whole situation a kind of similar to imports, where we have massive amount of data, originally not suitable for OSM, often - with questionable quality (should I remind everybody of TIGER and its consequences for American OSM?), with certain systematic issues.
If this analogy is acceptable, it’s logical to apply certain import guidelines to it. Think about paragraphs 2.9, 1.1, 1.2, 1.4, 1.5, 2.1.
So, if these requirements are acceptable (I mean, nobody thinks it’s impolite to require it) for imports, why it shouldn’t be applied to Maps.me, or whatever editor, which increases involvement of people, unaware of OSM guidelines, or provokes systematic mistakes? I’ve seen comments, where people literally opposed paragraph 2.9:
Take great care to avoid damaging the database and don’t leave a messy import and assume that nameless OpenStreetMap contributors working in iD and Potlatch and will tirelessly complete your work. JOSM is better at for untangling messy data, but it’s still difficult and you should do this work yourself if necessary.
And, by the way, it also says:
If your import does ‘go wrong’, or you needed to interrupt an upload half way through, then this should be reverted promptly. … If you don’t know how to revert an import, don’t do the import in the first place.
When applied to editors, it means, that if it systematically provokes avoidable wrong edits, measures should be taken to prevent them. And developers should be prepared to do a cleanup.
I hope, nobody will read this diary entry as some kind of bullying of Maps.me developers or another complain. That wasn’t my intention. My intention was to demonstrate, that OSM community does have more or less detailed guidelines for quite similar situation.
Discussion
Comment from Zverik on 28 June 2016 at 06:01
You want to revert the work of 27 thousand users each registered with their own name and e-mail just because most of them haven’t read the Map Features wiki page? Yay, way to go!
And yes, I indeed read this and the previous entries as bullying. Mostly because of the hatred and lack of concrete arguments.
Comment from Vincent de Phily on 28 June 2016 at 10:09
An import and an editor are completely different things, you can’t applie the guidelines of one for the other. Sounds like you’re just looking for a justification to effectively ban maps.me contribbutors. A simplistic “solution” to a complex problem, hiding it instead of fixing it.
I agree that there are things that do make map.me contributions often sub-par (compared to the average newbie on other editors) : using old / incomplete data, and not interfacing with the osm community as much.
But these differences are not bugs, they are usecases. They need to be handled, not abandoned. Opening up editing to people who can only use offline data, or non-geeks who’d never read a full wiki page is an important thing to do for the OSM project, and I applaud maps.me for working on it.
Some issues are being worked on (more frequent data updates, multilingual names…) Some issues are trickyer (Improving the changeset discussion reply rate, foolproofing presets…). Some things are sorely needed but outside the scope of maps.me (better tools to detect and help newbies).
Don’t condemn maps.me, help them. They’re just the messenger of things to come, of practices that OSM needs to become ubiquitous. Other apps, like navme, arguably waste more OSM contibutor time than maps.me even though they only post notes.
As for the maps.me team: great work so far, but a lot more is needed :) And fix bug 3623 ASAP, it’ll reduce the community flak.
Comment from redsteakraw on 28 June 2016 at 12:10
The problem is that Maps.Me has outdated maps, sometimes being months behind or more. POIs could have been added which all ready exist and the contributors just simply don’t know. The editor is new and being aimed at new contributors it is even harder to design for. There may be a Maps.Me bot that cleans up edits or the editor may be able to check if similar data all ready exists in the area and warn the contributor. Their UI is mostly on track and with a few future fixes these problems should be ironed out. OSM needs a larger POI dataset and Maps.Me wants to make it easier to allow new users to contribute it.
Comment from BushmanK on 28 June 2016 at 12:47
@Zverik,
I was pretty sure you will take anything personally, regardless of how detailed it was explained, therefore I will not even bother saying you got it wrong again. (You doing it this way pretty often even if it’s not about you or your work.) Just try to abstain from replying on things nobody said or suggested, otherwise it’s quite immature and makes zero sense.
To all:
In this diary entry, I’m using Maps.me as an example (currently - the first and only one) of similarity between imports and certain style of editing data. If someone can’t see this similarity after my explanation, I can try explaining it further, just ask, if you are interested.
Comment from PlaneMad on 29 June 2016 at 07:56
This is more of a case of users hacking around the limitations of the Maps.me editor according to their own understanding rather than an import.
These improvements might largely solve the issues we’re seeing: - Maps.me does a check for similiar POIs in the location using the OSM API/Overpass before uploading to OSM, or as an alternative create a de duplication tool for the community to easily review/fix changes from the editor. Maybe this will help create its own community of Maps.me reviewers. - Add ability to create custom tags and presets. There are possible many folks using the editor for field data collection but using incorrect tags to overcome this limitation. I do this as well, and later use overpass to fix the tags, obviously not easy for everyone - Provide more granular data updates to maps where users are contributing
Comment from PlaneMad on 29 June 2016 at 07:57
Sorry for ^, better formatted:
Comment from Omnific on 29 June 2016 at 08:18
The biggest thing that needs to be implemented is, as PlaneMad said, a check for duplicate POIs before upload. Honestly, that’s the biggest danger in mapping in the Maps.me editor. It’s not like iD where anyone can break roads or major administrative boundaries with a few clicks. The most damage that can be done is a duplicate node or a few incorrect tags on a POI. Not a big concern.
Comment from BushmanK on 29 June 2016 at 14:31
@Omnific,
When you are talking about one wrong edit - it’s not a big concern. However, Maps.me users can sometimes generate several tens of edits per day, each edit in own changeset. Try counting time, required for reviewing all of them, using WhoDidIt and achavi tools. Then, imagine, that it happens every day.
Another thing is that it doesn’t matter, what anyone can potentially do using particular editor. In JOSM, you can make lots of bad things, much worse than in Maps.me or Potlatch and iD. But to address an actual problem instead of its imaginary vision, we have to look at real results. iD users currently doing bad edits not because there is something wrong with iD’s concept, but because lack of knowledge, while in case of Maps.me, certain concepts of editing workflow are wrong and provoking wrong edits.