
ID editor: It is time for us to end this abusive relationship - edward
https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/woodpeck/diary/391175
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macintux
Can anyone with comprehension of the project explain what this is about? A
very confusing post and the comments don't illuminate it much.

It sounds as if OSM is, at its core, just a database with APIs (I do seem to
vaguely recall there wasn't even an official web interface) and thus the
decentralized gatekeeping is a point of contention.

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brmgb
> Can anyone with comprehension of the project explain what this is about?

The OSM project has a default editor called iD. iD is developed by developers
from Mapbox. As it is the default editor, iD via what it puts forward has a
lot of leverage on the projects.

Recently, some people have complained about some of iD features. Notably iD
pulls images from Facebook and some people feel it is an unnecessary loss of
privacy.

Unfortunately, one of the iD maintainer seems slightly burnt out and as a
result has questionable communication skills. This lead to poor handling of
the Github issue and this blog post.

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maxerickson
I mean, this blog post is poor communication, so...

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turboturbo
I followed the hyperlinks to some of the discussion. In my opinion, the
author’s characterisation doesn’t match the tone of the iD developer.

The author might be right about the lack of community involvement, but imho he
takes an overly negative an accusatory stance

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kaikai
This is a classic osm way of handling something though. They make every
smallest disagreement into a giant dramatic deal that needs to be fought to
the death. It’s a toxic community that drives out people unwilling to deal
with the crap, and that’s a large part of why splits like this happen. No one
wants to be on the tagging mailing list because it’s probably full of
opinionated curmudgeons just like the rest of the osm mailing lists, and now
those same curmudgeons are pissed about being left out of tagging decisions.
They’re pushing people away and then complaining when their opinions are no
longer centered in the conversation.

Disclaimer: I used to be involved in the mapping space (including osm and
Mapbox) and have moved on, despite my love of the work.

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thomersch_
Sorry, I can’t agree with your characterization. Obviously nitpickers exist,
but the general community can be very helpful. Some people have strange ideas
and expect everyone to go along, but everything is up for discussion.

Especially for people coming from cultures where confrontation or directness
is frowned upon this leads to the impression that OSM is a fighting ground,
but there can be no discussion without disagreement.

~~~
kaikai
No need to apologize for disagreeing! I also think the OSM community has a ton
of really fantastic people, who are excited to work together to make something
really neat. Unfortunately, it's not true across the board, and the tone of
this article does a great job of illustrating that.

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AlexTrask
I edited the code of iD on private project and it's a well done tool

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hinkley
It’s possible to have great execution on a bad idea. I’ve seen people become
enamored with their own beautiful idea that made no sense for the reality of
the situation. They get invested in it and you can’t talk sense to them.

My favorite description of this is “coherent but wrong”.

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ncmncm
tl;dr: This appears to be about the OpenStreetMap project's online editor app,
and disagreement over how to proceed with future development.

Apparently there is a more or less forked alternative editor that may be used
instead of the default, although there is no hint how.

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hinkley
Sounds like an argument about creative control. If someone was facilitating my
project and I felt like the were trying to commandeer it instead, there would
be some hard feelings.

Makes me wonder how the Docker people feel. And how the LXC people feel.

