Well, “having the best data” and “not caring about the intricacies of tagging” are deeply contradictory things. You can’t have good data (that can be interpreted uniformly and non-ambiguously) without a good tagging scheme.

@TomH , edit wars mainly happen because people have strong opinions about the mapped object in question, or when it’s about the quality of the edits (that might or might not be subjective). So, I don’t see a logical reason to think that a more straightforward way to do reverts will have any additional effect on people’s desire to fight over edits that already exists.

It’s pretty alarming that the term “violence” that has an absolutely clear meaning for centuries, being ingrained in criminal codes and legal language of many countries and cultures (including those using different languages but having the same semantic concept, like “насилие” in Russian, “violencia” in Spanish, etc) is used for something quite different in the context of something that has to be as clear as possible (CoC, community rules, etc.). I obviously don’t know what’s the intention of doing it, but I know the effect of it: a temporary elevation of the significance of the negative behavior in question. There’s no question that calling people names and doing other things like that is a bad thing, it’s rude, it’s unacceptable. But making it sound as if using rude and offensive expressions equals attacking someone physically isn’t the right thing to do for multiple reasons: first of all, it is demagoguery by nature (not necessarily by intention), second - it quickly leads to desensitization due to the overuse of the term, third (but not last) - it degrades the importance of the actual violence. Suggesting that words equal physical force intentionally is something that belongs to certain political ideologies and politics is something that ruins everything. I really hope that it’s just a figure of speech and there’s no ulterior motive behind it. But even in that case, it’s better to revise this approach for the sake of clarity and consistency.

… and of course, some Russian-speakers showed up to add a transliteration for the name.

This comparison by design can’t bring any conclusive results because of two fundamental metrological factors. - Unknown accuracy can only be measured against the reference data with known (higher) accuracy. It is impossible to measure it having three devices with unknown accuracy. - Smoother track doesn’t necessarily means better accuracy - it could be caused by filtering that doesn’t improve anything rather than visual appearance. In fact, filtering can create false perception of the higher accuracy while distorting data instead of improving it. Smoother appearance is highly deceiving. So, making comparisons like that might be fun, but it’s far from being practical, leave aside being scientific. And “scientific” doesn’t mean “fancy”, it means “conclusive and reliable” (and that’s the only way to achieve that).

Since the test happened in the US, there should be some high-accuracy GIS data available from DOT or another agency that could and must be used as a reference to measure everything else against it.

This reference to “gate codes” seems like a suggested solution for a non-existent problem. Because if someone wants to make confidential information public, there are millions of ways to do it and OSM is probably one of the last ones.

First of all, let me point at this OSM Wiki page: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Aviation It contains some brief but valuable information. “Real pilots”, whoever it may be, according to FAA (and other aviation authorities), must only use charts and navigation data published by authorized parties (see https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/flight_info/aeronav/digital_products/aero_guide/ and further links). Therefore, they might be using OSM only when they, for example, drive to the airport by car. Otherwise, they’d be committing a violation. Sure, they might also be checking OSM-based maps to figure out some ground features related to the flight plan, but not for the actual navigation.

I’m not sure what “codes” and “key locations” mean, but most of the navigational information is practically public, so it makes no sense to create any secrecy around it. The actual secret information is secret, so it is practically impossible that it will show up in OSM.

Дорога, которая отмечена линейным объектом - это корректная, но неполная топология. Полную топологию могут, например, образовывать вместе с ней метаданные (тег, обозначающий ширину). Некорректная топология отличается от неполной тем, что из некорректной можно сделать неоднозначный, но логически верный вывод о пространственных свойствах объекта, а из неполной топологии вывод сделать нельзя, потому что та или иная информация просто отсутствует. Проиллюстрирую. Контур леса сам по себе - некорректная но полная топология, потому что мы не знаем, что именно обводили - стволы или кроны. Дорога в виде линии - корректная но неполная топология, потому что мы знаем точно, что линия обозначает середину дороги, а не один из ее краев. Так что, пытаясь визуализировать это, мы сознательно делаем допущение о ширине, которое не противоречит данынм. А что нам делать с лесом - мы не знаем. Алгоритмы рендеринга не могут делать топологию в базе корректной или нет, они могут делать отображение этой топологии корректным или нет.

Как всегда, сторонников того или иного подхода следует спросить, ради чего они хотят делать так или иначе. Потому что ситуация, когда дорога совпадает с краем леса, служит единственной цели - упрощению задачи для рисующего (но не для тех, кто будет редактировать после него), то есть служит лени и эгоизму автора. Выкручиваться, конечно, можно сколько угодно, выдумывая полу-фантастические и фантастические поводы. Для корректной топологии выдумывать поводы не нужно, потому что факт, что обозначение дороги линией делается по осевой, которая не может быть физически той же линией, что “край леса” - неоспорим, даже если решить, что край леса - это край крон, нависающих над дорогой.

Контр-аргумент про “мы же не рисуем под рендер” будет логически ошибочен, потому что в случае X-plane рендер вскрывает несовершенство топологии (которое оказывается естественным образом скрыто в двумерном рендере), отображая то, что есть в базе. А другой рендер пытается, путем внедрения костыля, это компенсировать.

Performing an appropriate shift to compensate for the tectonic movement is technically possible when a dataset retains just one little bit of metadata: acquisition date.

This is the case where presenting any kind of global statistics as an argument is fundamentally fallacious, regardless of cumulative or not, what scale was used for a chart and so on.

It is fallacious because there is no evidence that increasing number is a result of a tendency on the DWG side. There is no “too many” or “too few” - there are multiple individual cases that lead to as many blocks as needed (excluding the undiscovered ones). Although, there might be some local clusters of reasons why blocks have been issued. Such as spam, Pokemon Go vandalism (something totally new, isn’t it?), use of illegal sources to improve the data for the commercial purpose, edits war over disputed territories. If there is an increase of vandalism related to any third-party services, it is actually an indirect proof that the number of data users grows. (Yes, it happens. No, I don’t know how many of these cases led to a block or has been found.)

So, I suggest abstaining from any negative assumptions and presenting it as a false dichotomy of “getting more users” versus “blocking more users”. If it is necessary to block someone to maintain data integrity and quality as well as project reputation - it’s totally fine. By the way, data quality degradation caused by systematic vandalism is among the reasons why loyal users might become discouraged and lose their motivation.

If you are aware of any case when a user has been blocked without any significant reason - let everybody know about it. If you think that the practice of blocking users is not transparent enough - let everybody know about your concern. But saying something as vague as “oh, maybe it’s too much”, even in a context of growing number of blocks per unit of time, is, again, fallacious and counter-productive.

I really hope that there is no post-modernist ideology involved here, such as “any user, even one who has effectively and systematically demonstrated uncooperative and even hostile behavior together with harmful actions, can be transformed into a valuable community member”. But if there is something like that behind this diary entry, I suggest presenting an accurate evidence of such possibility. Even several anecdotes could be sufficient since it makes no sense to expect a scientifically correct proof.

Even being positive, labels are still labels, after all.

While some people think that it’s about personal emotions, it is not. If anything in the original post deserves a reaction in a form of discussing fundamental features of OSM, this reaction should be based on a constructive analysis. Analysis starting from defining the goals. Because, apparently, different groups of people within OSM project have very different ones. Otherwise, it always comes to a point where some people who understand how important structural integrity of data architecture is, will always come to a conflict situation with those who consider “having fun” or “keeping growth constant” the most important features of the project. And it is pretty obvious that those who maintain that structural integrity naturally have only one effective instrument against the hijacking - “keys” for those “gates”. While those who don’t understand that without this structural integrity OSM will degrade into Wikimapia or some other meaningless project that allows “having fun” with no limits. So they want to hijack the system of push boundaries in their personal favor (allow more low-quality imports, random tagging etc.), using all available tools, including whining, blaming, appeal to emotions (specifically - to fear), demagoguery.

To give a perfect example, I can tell the story that involves Zverik, since he started this discussion originally. His personal view on quality is more or less accurately expressed by the formula “let’s add something and then - let others improve it”. This principle is behind his vision of Maps.me contribution mechanisms, behind some imports he made (like, minor water streams in Moscow). And it either automatically implies that “gatekeepers” he despises should actually drop everything they do and start improving the quality of information added as a part of “having fun”, or that it doesn’t really have to be improved at all. So, while quality is a key advantage of the OSM data (it might be quite far from perfect but it’s the best available for public, after all), gatekeepers do their job just great.

All I can say is that when criticism is taken personally or perceived as an attack, it is the most prominent sign of major issues with a project.

There is no surprise in the fact that once something is actually written as a passive-aggressive verbal attack (“politely” avoiding specific names, but making it obvious while using some people’s names to support something they haven’t actually ever supported), it will be taken personally by those who you’ve indirectly mentioned. And it has nothing to do with any other problems even if there are plenty of them.

The negativist message is even more clear if you know which connotations some of the words used in this post have in Russian. “Gatekeeper” in Russian is an insulting term that means “(an old and retarded, grumpy) person who does nothing useful but prevents others from doing something (new) or exercising their freedom”. This meaning is as common as the literal one. So, please, those who don’t speak Russian, keep this in mind when interpreting Zverik’s words. He personally used this term quite a lot in exactly that meaning I’ve described above.

So, yes, this is not a systemic issue described above, it’s nothing but venting a personal frustration in a form of hypocritically blaming others.

Zverik, https://courses.lumenlearning.com/abnormalpsychology/chapter/passive-aggressive-personality-disorder-negativistic-personality-disorder/

Oh, look who makes accusations of abuse of power and over-restrictive actions. One who took criticism of a project he is related to (that actually uses OSM data) as a personal insult (like he often does) and declared a vendetta against certain individuals, then - took over the main channel of communication of the whole community and, obviously, feels bored now.

Why exactly do you need more anarchy, to be able to carry out your personal ideas, like (just a hypothetical example) more imports of crappy Russian government data to make Maps.ME look better and brag about it? Leave rhetorics aside, start talking at least about things you actually want to do and why, instead of shaming and blaming others.

Жуткий бред

Думать тут не о чем. Если вас волнует вопрос точности, то приведите все координаты к одному виду, посчитайте разницу и переведите ее в метры. Если вы хотите уточнить координаты и высоту какой-то точки, вооружайтесь приемником, отличным от бытового или, прости господи, смартфона. Не думаю, что доступ к таковому у вас есть. Так что что остается? Правильно - не забивать себе голову вещами, которые вы не можете решить.

Вы про координаты? Не имею понятия - меня этот конкретный вопрос не волнует, он вас волнует. Переведите - узнаете.

Но без приведения координат к одному виду (градусы и десятичные доли градусов, например) сравнивать их столь же бессмысленно, как бессмысленно удивляться тому, что ваш рост в сантиметрах и дюймах выражается разными цифрами, например.

Вы понимаете разницу между записью координат в градусах, минутах и секундах с одной стороны, и градусах, минутах и десятичных долях минут - с другой?

Чем вы собираетесь разбираться, GPS-приемником геодезического класса? А ничего, что вы координаты в трех разных форматах (DD.DDDD, DD MM SS.SS, DD MM.MMM) зачем-то привели, хотя их можно было бы и пересчитать?

The whole topic sounds unclear to me.

Does OSM project itself have any obstacles for women to join and participate actively once they want to do that? Personally, I’m not aware of anything like that. Correct me if I’m wrong. However, if I’m right about this fact, any gender disproportion is a result of a personal choice simply because OSM is a volunteering project. Indeed, this choice is not totally “free” - it is always influenced by factors such as education, habits, personal preference, cultural environment.

It means that if someone wants to change gender (or any other, like age, nationality, etc) proportion in a project that is already gender-neutral by design, one has to work with these external (relatively to the project itself) factors mentioned above. Tweaking a project means changing it to make it fit some personal views and some political/social agenda. That doesn’t seem like something relevant to the declared fundamental goals of the OSM project. If it actually is relevant, could anyone point to that statement?

Don’t get me wrong - I’m totally fine with anyone’s personal views and activism while it stays personal and doesn’t force anyone to support it. Everyone has a right to stay neutral towards anything (this is a part of a free choice).