@resteakraw

Comparing countries and judicial systems as a whole and terrorists is a bold claim, thank you very much. I highly value freedom, believe me. But if we enter the realm of personal views (as you did), I believe that freedom also means responsibility and understanding consequences.

As a person, I can ignore any laws I wish and deal with it. My life is my own. But when I’m within a structure such as OSM, my actions leave a mark on others, including those outside OSM. I can’t ignore that and keep imagining I’m tinkering with my own little isolated project.

Welcome to our digital era, enjoy your stay :)

@redsteakraw First of all, “ground truth” offers room for interpretation. I am sure it can be applied to whether a physical object is present in particular place or not. National border is a political construct, not a tree or a building, or an address plate. DWG may claim that they are above politics, but when they decide over a political issue, they are involved in politics whether they understand it or not. OSM reputation and worldwide usage is not directly political, but it is related to politics.

Next, “ground truth” is an inner concept of OSM. As @Tomas Straupis notes, it would not have much weight in court. I have no idea if DWG consulted the legal team about possible consequences. As Tomas mentioned in the OSMF_talks,

“While there are some talks about using OSM instead or alongside of commercial GIS solutions in the context of EU INSPIRE directive, such intentions will be seriously damaged by OSMF/DWG actions”

I previously had no information on that, but this decision greatly harms our work (and my work in particular) in Ukraine for popularizing OSM in electronic government initiative and NGOs. I could hardly explain the previous decision of DWG to the officials as a compromise, and now DWG came and knocked the remaining ground from under me.

“Attempting to discredit the DWG to force them to change their statement into something you see more favorable politically is not an appropriate approach.”

@imagico I cannot discredit them more than they already did. OSM data is © by the OSM community, not DWG. And, as @Tomas mentioned, their method of work via forum topic did not look like an attempt to communicate. They asked about factual data. While this is important to make a correct decision, it is not enough. We were never asked about our arguments, moreover, if you scroll through the Ukrainian topic most of us suggested not touching the previous decision at all (we did NOT ask to change it in our favor), and our “peaceful and mature” voice was simply ignored by the DWG. We are learning from our mistakes. From the comments I see that our “peaceful and mature” position, and toned down arguments on the previous DWG decision were also mistaken for silent acceptance. It is time to change tactics, then.

“as i explained you so far failed to sufficiently take into account the full spectrum of such cases and picking just a few ones that might seem to support your position is not ultimately very convincing” @imagico I see your point, but I did not talk about Africa because I don’t know the situation there.

As I’ve mentioned before, Crimean resolution is the only one published by DWG, and I suppose that it is the only resolution they made about such cases at all. Maybe there are more resolutions deep in OSMF-talks. Which is itself is a highly inefficient method of publishing decisions, and if that is the case, that is part of what I was talking about when I was talking transparency.

“While your statement of opinion in the diary entry is ok and as i said i think it is good you make it the attacks in your comment (delusion etc.), which serve no purpose in argument but are clearly just aiming to insult without arguments, are not.” @imagico Yes, I tend to sound a bit harsh to the taste of some. That’s why I focused on describing arguments and logic in the diary. Comments for me are a more informal ground where you and I (and everyone else, ofc) are allowed to show more emotion and vent their feelings. Won’t deny I am frustrated and disappointed. I am merely a human after all ¯\(°_o)/¯

“This does not mean there is no armed conflict between Ukraine and Russia but it is quite definitely not currently about the de facto control over Crimea.”

Yes and no. If you’re interested, I can describe it further in the comments, but that was not the point here. You are right, there are lots of conflicts, they have simularities as well as differences. I may have not phrased it very well. The context is important. What I’ve meant was “when there is a war between disputing factions, you can’t rule in favor of one and expect the other to simply obey”.

“And you are definitely wrong with stating that the DWG does not act within its mandate when making such statements.”

DWG has the mandate we as a community give them to. No more, no less. If it isn’t set in paper (and it isn’t as far as I’m aware), it is what we make it to be. Perhaps by some mistake they have decided otherwise. This delusion can be rectified. If they are not satisfied with a compromise they had, I’d see them deal with an all-out war on their hands. The truce was fragile, but it was enforced on both ends. Until now. What they do here is trying to kill a half-extinguished flame with a bucket of kerosene. I thought their mission was to stop edit wars, not start them.

When I was talking about transparency, what I meant was, we didn’t get to see the discussion or participate in it. I believe in rules and laws, and those are agreed upon, not dispersed from the top down. To get people to follow you, you need to convince them. We don’t know how they work, and it isn’t very convincing. Especially if you consider that this entire proposed change was triggered by a single person whose motives are unclear.

Отличная статья. Что делать - разумеется, непонятно (помимо очевидных шагов со стороны мейловцев по постройке более интуитиво понятного интерфейса). Но само обозначение проблем - уже очень хороший шаг, я сам (да и, уверен, не только я) подмечал многие из этих проблем.

@saintam1 > But every expert user started out with a clumsy first edit.

I didn’t. Does that make me a non-expert?

A good description of the problem we’re facing.

А что “затянулось” - это неплохо. Я, например, успел поучаствовать :)

Уррряяяя!

Xmypblu, а какой правовой статус этих снимков? Sanjak, только поэтому и осталась “дыра” :D