OpenStreetMap Is in Trouble
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OpenStreetMap Is in Trouble
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Re: OpenStreetMap Is in Trouble
#2Re: the issues with moderation, I sometimes wonder if Wikipedia were trying to start from scratch in the last few years... would it work? With all of the trolls and bots, easy access it might have died hard and early.
One of the most significant technical problems with OSM is the lack of a review model, that is for a change to the map to be staged and then reviewed before being applied. Not having this functionality caused ripples of problems throughout the system, some of which I'll discuss here.
Moderation is expensive, and Wikipedia got by initially with a pretty minimal degree of it, then ramped up as they got bigger. What if they’d been slammed by modern trolling at the start?
Re: OpenStreetMap Is in Trouble
#3Re: the issues with moderation, I sometimes wonder if Wikipedia were trying to start from scratch in the last few years... would it work? With all of the trolls and bots, easy access it might have died hard and early. One of the most significant technical problems with OSM is the lack of a review model, that is for a change to the map to be staged and then reviewed before being applied. Not having this functionality…
Well... Nothing similar to Wikipedia has really happened in the last ten years. It's a fairly unique thing, still as relevant and important as ever.
Hard to say if it's because Wikipedia was a long shot at any time, or because of the 90s web vs the current one, culturally or technically.
Re: OpenStreetMap Is in Trouble
#4Re: the issues with moderation, I sometimes wonder if Wikipedia were trying to start from scratch in the last few years... would it work? With all of the trolls and bots, easy access it might have died hard and early. One of the most significant technical problems with OSM is the lack of a review model, that is for a change to the map to be staged and then reviewed before being applied. Not having this functionality…
It's an interesting question of how much flexibility you give people at the beginning vs as a project matures, but I'm looking at the situation with OSM pragmatically, that is to say "What OSM needs to do now", rather than "What they should have done".
The problem of both bad edits and vandalism are very large (much like Google Mapmaker) and other measures we've put in place, such as changeset comments (which I helped develop) and vandalism tools don't seem to cut it.
Re: OpenStreetMap Is in Trouble
#5I've found that in terms of supporting any kind of additional analysis, OSM data to be unreliable to the point of uselessness, which isn't to say there is a better alternative. I think this quote from your article:
"One of the most significant technical problems with OSM is the lack of a review model, that is for a change to the map to be staged and then reviewed before being applied. Not having this functionality caused ripples of problems throughout the system, some of which I'll discuss here."
is the primary reason I can't regularly use OSM data. Trust me when I say there are millions of instance where having reliable data regarding streets could save me time/ stress.
Do you have any thoughts on how to improve the quality of OSMaps? Conceptually, I feel like the product is indispensable. In practice, I feel like the product is utterly unusable.
Re: OpenStreetMap Is in Trouble
#6I've found that in terms of supporting any kind of additional analysis, OSM data to be unreliable to the point of uselessness, which isn't to say there is a better alternative. I think this quote from your article: "One of the most significant technical problems with OSM is the lack of a review model, that is for a change to the map to be staged and then reviewed before being applied. Not having this functionality ca…
This was a hard post to make. OSM was a big part of my life for many years, and I have friends in the project. I like my friends (even the ones I disagree with).
But where OSM has failed most in my view (and maybe I need to add this to the article) is that there are now free geographic datasets from local governments and without the ability to integrate them into OSM easily, and then update them (which we basically can't do), I fear OSM is going to ultimately fail at its mission
Re: OpenStreetMap Is in Trouble
#7Re: the issues with moderation, I sometimes wonder if Wikipedia were trying to start from scratch in the last few years... would it work? With all of the trolls and bots, easy access it might have died hard and early. One of the most significant technical problems with OSM is the lack of a review model, that is for a change to the map to be staged and then reviewed before being applied. Not having this functionality…
It's an interesting question of how much flexibility you give people at the beginning vs as a project matures, but I'm looking at the situation with OSM pragmatically, that is to say "What OSM needs to do now", rather than "What they should have done". The problem of both bad edits and vandalism are very large (much like Google Mapmaker) and other measures we've put in place, such as changeset comments (which I helpe…
What about some kind of automated approach to validation? A major difference between OSM data and something like wikipedia is that, unlike wikipedia, at least some of the OSM data verifiable. A street somewhere, does exist, in a particular spot. There must be some way to croudsource validation.
Re: OpenStreetMap Is in Trouble
#8Re: the issues with moderation, I sometimes wonder if Wikipedia were trying to start from scratch in the last few years... would it work? With all of the trolls and bots, easy access it might have died hard and early. One of the most significant technical problems with OSM is the lack of a review model, that is for a change to the map to be staged and then reviewed before being applied. Not having this functionality…
It's an interesting question of how much flexibility you give people at the beginning vs as a project matures, but I'm looking at the situation with OSM pragmatically, that is to say "What OSM needs to do now", rather than "What they should have done". The problem of both bad edits and vandalism are very large (much like Google Mapmaker) and other measures we've put in place, such as changeset comments (which I helpe…
I didn’t mean to distract from the main point of your piece (which was a good read btw), it just made me curious in general. Maybe the only way OSM can work is by treating moderation/curation as the problem to solve?
Re: OpenStreetMap Is in Trouble
#9I've found that in terms of supporting any kind of additional analysis, OSM data to be unreliable to the point of uselessness, which isn't to say there is a better alternative. I think this quote from your article: "One of the most significant technical problems with OSM is the lack of a review model, that is for a change to the map to be staged and then reviewed before being applied. Not having this functionality ca…
This was a hard post to make. OSM was a big part of my life for many years, and I have friends in the project. I like my friends (even the ones I disagree with). But where OSM has failed most in my view (and maybe I need to add this to the article) is that there are now free geographic datasets from local governments and without the ability to integrate them into OSM easily, and then update them (which we basically c…
Is this a technology issue? Or a funding issue?
Re: OpenStreetMap Is in Trouble
#10Is there a real hurdle in patents on map graphics held by the major mapping companies and national organisations?
Could a goal of being truly open and complete, be incompatible with the interests of privacy, national security even?
If community involvement is lacking, I immediately thought about the cimnunies who have real interest in mapping and particularly free open mapping, such as conservationists, residents of small towns concerned about planning and in my home Sussex county, hikers always fighting losing out to farming interests over ancient byways.
But these constituencies need tools. I would immediately donate to such efforts if I knew they existed. Or a corporate like ACDSystems, who publish Deneba Canvas which while sadly lost adrift far from the software I remember, incorporated superb GIS and technical drawing capabilities. This would be the kind of marketing that traditionally worked very well, tools and support for local news stories, which use to run a long while anyway.