Published by breki on 20 Oct 2010 at 07:06 pm
OpenStreetMap: What’s Wrong With The Picture
Justin O’Beirne wrote a couple of blog posts about his “outside” view on OpenStreetMap Web maps (Mapnik layer, basically). When I say “outside” view, I mean that he talks about how and what data is presented on the map from the point of a visitor to the OSM site, and not from the point of someone who is an active OSM mapper and knows the root causes of these problems.
And this is just the point: a well intentioned criticism from someone outside of the community should be received as such. I think the OSM community is more and more becoming self-centered and disregards some basic issues about why this project exists in the first place. Why should Justin (or anybody else) care what “Mapnik” or “Osmarender” means? Why should he care about the tagging mess which resulted from the anarchical way the project is (not) being led? Not everyone wants to become a mapper – most of people just want to find something on the map.
Reading through various OSM mailing lists and forums, one gets the feeling there is very little concern about how the data that is being collected by hardworking individuals will be useful in a practical way. I see two main problems here:
- Inconsistency of how things are tagged. And the project’s inability to set some strict quality guidelines for tagging. The “everybody can tag the way she likes” slogan starts to wear off once you want to use such data for something more than just displaying it on the OSM web map.
- High barrier to entry if you want to access the data. Sorry, but not everyone has the technical means and knowledge to import 12 GB of zipped planet.osm XML file into a database and then run queries just so he can access the latest data for his local area. OSMXAPI is great, but it’s unstable and has a limit of how much data can be retrieved. Country extracts help, but the problem is that they are country-oriented. What if I do not want my data to be cut along the border? Some time ago I suggested providing grid extracts instead of country ones – the user would choose which grid cells to download and then merge the data himself.
Anyway, enough ranting… Going back to coding.
!i! on 21 Oct 2010 at 9:15 #
Interesting thougths, but there is always the balance between: -Making OSM more popular, improve Usability,… -Develop OSM focused on OSM and Mapping community needs
This two oppinions focus on different users and the question is if the core project itself can do the work for both or if third party players like openstreetbrowser, MapQuest, …. should care about the user things?
breki on 21 Oct 2010 at 10:24 #
Well if you look at OSM as some kind of a Facebook for mappers, then I guess the way things are right now it’s OK.
I tend to view OSM as a project with a specific target and purpose: to create an open geographical database of the world that can be used (and is usable) by anybody. My point is that this cannot be achieved just by saying “here’s Potlatch, now go and put something in it”. The project needs guidance and some clear rules, however heretic that might sound to some OSM people. Without those you end up with endless discussions about totally unimportant stuff, while the important things get drowned in the sheer noise.
I might write another post about the things I see can be improved.
!i! on 21 Oct 2010 at 10:59 #
Yes there is a lot of stuff out there that needs still to be improved. But there is a giant lack of resources to do so. So thats what I tried to say, its also a question on which things we put the focus