On Mon, Aug 19, 2019 at 11:02 AM Richard Fairhurst <rich...@systemed.net> wrote: > Let’s say we have a cyclist, new to OSM, who wants to add a newly opened > section to an existing route. As Peter says, doing this to said > specification “usually requires lots of JOSM”. The steps involved to do this > in sorted order are: > > 1. spend half the afternoon trudging through contradictory pages on the OSM > wiki to find out what you have to do > 2. apparently it involves this thing called “JOSM”. Download that > 3. apparently that involves this thing called “Java”. Download that too > 4. learn to use this 80s throwback of a GIS program with the UI of a > startled warthog > 5. find route sorting stuff in JOSM somewhere > 6. make edit > 7. get shouted at by sociopaths in changeset comments because unwittingly > you did something wrong
I'd much rather that the novice's task be: 1. Map the ways making up the new section of the route. 2. If you or your editor can't handle route relations of the complexity that you encounter, don't worry about it. Either flag the changeset for review or leave an OSM note indicating that the work is undone. 3. Someone in the community who can handle relations will then have the geometry already established, so tidying the topology becomes a clerical task. Of course, this depends on the solution to step (7) above, for which I have no good answer. I have absolutely no problem with tidying a route anywhere within a hundred miles of my home base if a mapper can explain to me in words what's in the field, and has created ways so that I have the geometry. There aren't *that* many routes out there. I understand that route relations can be complex, and there's no need for everyone to be able to edit them. If we are a global collaborative community, can't we act like one and admit that there may be cases that require specialists to manage? (By the way, the "explain in words" may be a sticking point. There seem to be a lot of people who want to give me a bucket of data without explanation, and think that the data speak for themselves.) There's also something to be said for using the ugly editors to prove the concept, because at this point, we don't yet know how to do everything, much less how to make it novice-friendly! The exception is simple linear routes, and Sarah or I can give you algorithms - or at least heuristics - for maintaining sort order on those. But we're perfectly happy to consume those unsorted, precisely because we do know how to automate cleaning them up. I do want editors minimally to observe the 'don't break the route' principle. About 80% of the broken-route problem can be solved simply by, "when splitting a way, both the pieces become members of any route relations in which the original way appeared, with the same role if one is specified, preferably preserving continuity if either or both endpoints was shared with the neighbouring way in the relation." At least iD, Meerkartor and JOSM all do that. (It means downloading the two neighbouring ways. This doesn't appear to be a problem for iD). It's a purely local check, not requiring full analysis of the route. I'm willing to delegate all the more complex stuff to a specialist editor. For what it's worth, I think that the "route editing is complex" problem partly drives the 'startled warthog' and '1980s throwback' issues. In my experience, newer and prettier UI's try so very hard to be pretty and novice-friendly that in many cases, they simply reach a ceiling of complexity beyond which they can't cope or become an obstacle to the power user. (I'm looking at *you*, LabView!) Beyond that point, "ugly but serviceable" starts looking a lot more like the ideal approach. I'm not saying that any OSM editor falls in this category, but I've used far too many applications where the UI designer ruled, and the thing I want to do becomes impossible because the designer couldn't figure out a way to make it attractive enough. (I've even had the misfortune of developing applications in that sort of political environment. They were less than 100% successful.) Of course, I write this as a grumpy old man, so take my comment as senile raving if you wish. -- 73 de ke9tv/2, Kevin _______________________________________________ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
