You make some good points why introducing people to mapping in OSM initially through in-the-field surveying is the best approach and i would also say that this is the most natural and intuitive approach that also best communicates what OSM is primarily about (local knowledge, in particular the stuff you can’t see on imagery).

But i think there is also some disadvantage to a mobile device only approach.

Connecting to the wider OSM ecosystem - communication channels, documentation, data sources of various kinds, maps - tends to be much less natural and convenient on a mobile device than on a larger screen with keyboard and mouse.

Regarding multilingual diary entries - i think having all in one is the more inclusive approach here - otherwise discussions in different languages will get segregated - which is not of benefit.

What do you think is the reason for that? It’s a bit strange for me, because the emptiness of the standard map style is the problem which all are complaining about since OSM appearing.

I think the reasons are complex and consist of OSM specific reasons and ones that more broadly originate in social mechanisms in FOSS development in general.

OSM-Carto has the additional difficultly that it wants to be real time updated - which puts substantial additional constraints on the methods that can be used.

Just a question, maybe you know the answer. Can the Discreet Isolation algorithm work on global datasets by itself?

I have not looked in more depth into optimization of these methods. This depends a lot on the exact use case and the method used. If you are practically ok with limiting the maximum distance to consider you can use spatial indexing to limit the number of pair relationships to analyze. Specialized tree structures combining the spatial dimensions and the semantic dimension (like elevation, population) could be even better.

But also keep in mind that distance calculation is relatively cheap - so 10^12 of these is not necessarily a reason to invest a lot of effort into setting up complex algorithms and data structures for optimization.

Been there, done that (in 2015):

https://imagico.de/map/osm_populated_en.php https://imagico.de/maps/#map=5/54.111/46.538&lang=en&l=veg&r=pplaces&o=3&ui=8

The resonance for innovative map design related methodology development receives in the OSM community is often very limited. The most substantial public recognition the above received was from outside OpenStreetMap:

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s42489-021-00079-y

Still trying to understand your overall tag interpretation reasoning: It seems to me that your aim is ultimately to interpret all combinations of tags as what they most likely are meant to indicate within the classification model of your style, independent of how rare they are and how much more common a different tag combination is to indicate the same thing. That is surely a valid approach to map rendering. It, however, to me seems (a) difficult to understand for the map user, because the meaning of a certain design (like the pattern for natural=sand + wetland=tidalflat) is not documented anywhere and the aggregation of very different tag combinations into a common design is not always intuitive and (b) pretty hopeless to maintain, because the number of two tag combinations (and even more if you also interpret three tags together - which you do in some cases i think) with at least 22 occurrences in the database is quite exorbitant.

Regarding your numbers and interpretations - i assume these are for your map coverage area (UK and Ireland). Globally wetland=swamp and wetland=mangrove have a much higher significance (in numbers, but especially also in area covered). wetland=tidalflat might mostly be mud in the UK - but globally it is not. As i explained recently natural=wetland + wetland=tidalflat is by most mappers considered predominantly a geomorphological classification.

Your interpretation of different wetland tags also does not seem to fully be as indicated. Example: https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/5320809 - the tag combination in question, wetland=saltmarsh + surface=mud has world wide 48 occurrences.

I am often wondering about your reasoning for the tag interpretation you use. For example you are now endorsing the tag combination natural=sand + wetland=tidalflat - see for example https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/249534182 - which has 22 uses world wide, with a rendering distinct from both natural=sand and natural=wetland + wetland=tidalflat while you do not support in a similar fashion the substantially more widespread (but of course equally semantically weird and quite definitely non-consensus) combinations natural=grassland + wetland=wet_meadow (68 uses world wide) and natural=grassland + wetland=marsh (69 uses world wide).

Another note on your drawing of rivers in “the actual width of a small river” at high zoom levels: Be aware that even within the limits of the UK (~50-60 degrees latitude) the drawing width you use at z20 varies between about 3.35m and 4.31m. This is relatively easy to avoid by calculating the scale factor within SQL and using that to determine the drawing width. A generic way to do this can be found in

https://github.com/imagico/osm-carto-alternative-colors/blob/master/sql/map_functions.sql#L40

If you are fine with being limited to mercator projection maps you can of course also do this analytically (which is much simpler and also likely faster).

Tagging consistency of wetland=bog is also a serious issue by the way - it is widely used as a generic peat producing wetland tag rather than specifically for low nutrient acidic rain fed wetlands.

It seems to me for example what is imported in Norway as wetland=bog (which comes from a generic ‘mire’ classification in the source data) includes both fens and blanket bogs.

My guess is also that blanket bogs are likely to be frequently tagged natural=grassland because grass is often a significant (and visually dominating) component of the vegetation. And this practically can even be a more meaningful characterization in OSM because many of these will be perfectly walkable (as you’s expect from natural=grassland) while natural=wetland + wetland=bog often is not.

Very interesting read.

I am not too sure about the idea of supporting the extension of natural=heath beyond woody vegetation (i.e. using it for blanket bogs and other habitats with predominantly non-woody plants). I know this is pretty widespread practice - also outside the UK (see for example here) - but it kind of reduces the natural=heath alone to a rather insignificant meaning.

This is of course partly because the alternative in many cases (like for bracken) would be using natural=grassland + grassland=* - which in case of non-grass vegetation does not feel right to many mappers either.

So ultimately your approach might be the right one - just pick a reasonably intuitive secondary tag for the primary tag that happens to be most commonly used for the feature in question anyway (for whatever reason that might be) and establish that as the tagging to use. But in that case it would be important to have secondary tags for the full range of uses of the primary tag, in this case heath=* values for the common cases of heath in the strict sense, i.e. dwarf scrub habitats. Unfortunately neither for natural=heath nor natural=grassland secondary tags are well established so far.

Well - evidently OSM-Carto has a huge part in encouraging (ab)use of the name tag as a generic label tag by labeling the tagged name (any in many cases only the tagged name) on almost everything no matter if it is common for the type of feature to have a name in the strict sense.

But at least for amenity=atm OSM-Carto is not at fault (because it has been labeling ‘operator’ since adding ATMs in 2015).

Regarding cultural bias - i have made the experience that the distinction between the abstract concepts of a name, a brand, an operator or a description and the broader concept of a label is difficult for many to make. We (as technically minded western Europeans) think of the name as a more or less unique identifier for a specific individual feature (unique at least on a regional level, in many cases beyond that - and if not we like to add additional qualifiers, like Freiburg im Breisgau). But for many the name is just what we use language-wise to refer to a specific feature, like I visited place X and i stayed at the Holiday Inn or I will go buy some stuff at Lidl - which we would classify as a label. In principle i think a good solution might be to actually have a label=* tag meant broadly for any string that is used locally to refer to the feature in question while the more specific existing tags retain their more specific meaning for any mapper who wants to and is able to tag in a more differentiated fashion. This would allow data users to select the most specific form of information they need available but have the less specific data as a fallback.

Regarding landuse=residential - it is a fairly common practice to tag landuse=residential + place=* + name=* for smaller settlements or suburbs/neighborhoods. See https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/tags/landuse=residential#combinations

@Heather - danke für den Kommentar. Ich möchte hier wie gesagt eigentlich nicht die konkrete Initiative diskutieren, einige Kommunikationskanäle zu schaffen, auf denen Leute aus bestimmten Kulturkreisen sich sicher davor fühlen können, mit Andersartigkeit in Verhalten und Kultur konfrontiert zu werden, die über das Maß hinaus geht, das sie in der Lage oder bereit sind, zu tolerieren. Daran ist grundsätzlich überhaupt nichts auszusetzen - und ich halte es sogar für äußerst wichtig, dass solchen Bedürfnissen Raum eingeräumt wird, solange das nicht mit totalitären Ansprüchen und Allmachtsphantasien einhergeht nach dem Muster “An unserem kulturellen Wesen soll die Welt genesen” (zum Verständnis: Ich paraphrasiere hier eine Floskel, die historisch im 19. und Anfang des 20. Jahrhunderts die verbreitete Haltung deutschen Kulturimperialismus und kulturellen Exzeptionalismus wiedergibt).

Ich möchte aber zu zwei Aspekten Deines Kommentars Stellung nehmen:

Zum Einen ist die Vermischung von OSM and OSMF unangemessen und gefährlich. Die OSMF ist eine (auch nach eigenem Selbstverständnis) massiv englischsprachig dominierte und damit kulturell aus englischsprachigen Kulturkreisen (primär angloamerikanisch) dominierte Organisation. OpenStreetMap ist hingegen ein soziales Projekt der egalitären kulturübergreifenden und Sprachgrenzen überwindenden Zusammenarbeit für und durch das gemeinsame Ziel der Sammlung lokalen geographischen Wissens. Es zeichnet sich gerade durch die weitgehende Abwesentheit gemeinsamer sozialer Normen und einer gemeinsamen Leitkultur (eine andere kulturimperialistisch und elitär konnotierte Floskel) aus und die gemeinsamen Werte beschränken sich explizit auf Grundsätze der Zusammenarbeit bei der Erfassung von Daten. Diese Besonderheit von OpenStreetMap (die wie ich bereits vielfach betont habe, z.B. hier) ist kein Konstruktionsfehler, den es zu korrigieren gilt, sondern die zentrale Idee hinter dem sozialen Projekt OpenStreetMap. Eine Abkehr von diesem Prinzip (dass das, was OpenStreetMap zusammenhält nicht eine zentral codifizierte Leitkultur ist, sondern ausschließlich das gemeinsame Ziel der dezentralen Sammlung lokalen geographischen Wissens) würde, wie oben dargelegt, das Ende von OpenStreetMap als sozialem Projekt bedeuten und langfristig würde das daraus übrig bleibende zentralistische Projekt der Datensammlung durch Crowdsourcing wie die erwähnte Internationalen Weltkarte an seiner eigenen Hybris scheitern.

Zum Anderen: Die Aussage “We are simply stating that the project needs to be more open, healthy and inclusive.” “open” und “healthy” sind hier hochgradig subjektive Begriffe, die ohne eine Klärung, was damit gemeint sein soll, nicht wirklich eine substantielle Aussage darstellen. Aber das Ziel der Inklusivität ist ja wohl in Bezug auf einen Regelwerks-Entwurf, der zumindest zu einem Drittel seiner Länge Ideen der Exklusivität und Intoleranz artikuliert, nicht wirklich einsichtig. Wie bereits oben gesagt: Es spricht nichts dagegen, Kommunikationskanäle zu schaffen, auf denen ein solches Regelwerk gilt. Aber dies als Mittel der Inklusivität zu präsentieren, ist bestenfalls ziemlich unterkomplex.

English translation from deepl:

@Heather - thanks for the comment. As I said, I don’t actually want to discuss here the specific initiative of creating some channels of communication where people from certain cultural backgrounds can feel safe from being confronted with otherness in behavior and culture that goes beyond what they are able or willing to tolerate. In principle, there is nothing wrong with that at all - and I even consider it extremely important that such needs are given space, as long as this is not accompanied by totalitarian claims and fantasies of omnipotence along the lines of “Let the world be healed by our cultural essence” (for the sake of understanding: I am paraphrasing here a phrase, which historically reflects the widespread attitude of German cultural imperialism and cultural exceptionalism in the 19th and early 20th century).

However, I would like to comment on two aspects of your comment:

First, the conflation of OSM and OSMF is inappropriate and dangerous. OSMF is a (also according to its own self-image) massively English-dominated and thus culturally from English-speaking cultural circles (primarily Anglo-American) dominated organization. OpenStreetMap, on the other hand, is a social project of egalitarian cross-cultural and cross-language collaboration for and through the common goal of collecting local geographic knowledge. It is characterized precisely by the virtual absence of shared social norms and a common guiding culture (another phrase with cultural imperialist and elitist connotations), and shared values are explicitly limited to principles of collaboration in the collection of data. This peculiarity of OpenStreetMap (which as I have pointed out many times, e.g. here) is not a design flaw that needs to be corrected, but the central idea behind the OpenStreetMap social project. A departure from this principle (that what holds OpenStreetMap together is not a centrally codified guiding culture, but exclusively the common goal of decentralized collection of local geographic knowledge) would, as pointed out above, mean the end of OpenStreetMap as a social project, and in the long run the centralized project of data collection through crowdsourcing that would remain from it would, like the aforementioned International World Map, fail because of its own hubris.

On the other hand: The statement “We are simply stating that the project needs to be more open, healthy and inclusive.” “open” and “healthy” here are highly subjective terms that do not really constitute a substantive statement without some clarification of what is meant by them. But the goal of inclusivity is, after all, not really plausible in relation to a draft rules that articulates ideas of exclusivity and intolerance for at least a third of its length. As stated above, there is nothing wrong with creating channels of communication where such a set of rules applies. But presenting this as a means of inclusivity is, at best, rather undercomplex.

Bitte behaupte nicht, dass die Probleme, die ich angesprochen habe, lediglich theoretische, abstrakte Bedenken wären, nur weil Du ihre praktische Relevanz nicht erkennst. Ich habe ganz bewusst davon gesprochen, dass hier die konkrete Notwendigkeit für die OSMF besteht, substantiell umzusteuern (falls das nicht klar wurde: indem man den totalitären und kultur-imperialistischen Tendenzen, die im Rahmen dieser Initiative artikuliert werden, eine klare Absage erteilt und sich kritisch mit solchen in den eigenen Reihen auseinander setzt). Du bist frei darin, diesem Ratschlag nicht zu folgen, aber behaupte später bitte nicht, dass wenn die von mir vorhergesagten konkreten praktischen Konsequenzen eintreten, das käme ganz unerwartet und das hätte ja niemand vorhersehen können.

Danke für den Verweis auf “rule of law”. Das ist zwar nicht wirklich ein Pendant zur Normenklarheit, aber die Wikipedia-Seite verweist auf einige andere Konzepte, die dem etwas näher kommen, insbesondere:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_certainty

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vagueness_doctrine

English translation from deepl:

Please do not claim that the problems I have raised are merely theoretical, abstract concerns, just because you do not see their practical relevance. I deliberately spoke of the concrete need here for OSMF to substantially change course (in case that was not clear: by clearly rejecting the totalitarian and cultural-imperialist tendencies articulated in the context of this initiative and critically engaging with such within its own ranks). You are free not to follow this advice, but please do not claim later that if the concrete practical consequences I predicted come to pass, it would be quite unexpected and no one could have foreseen that.

Thank you for the reference to “rule of law.” That’s not really a counterpart to clarity of norms, but the Wikipedia page points to some other concepts that are a bit closer to it, esp:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_certainty

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vagueness_doctrine

Da ist nichts theoretisches in meinen Erläuterungen und den geäußerten Sorgen, die totalitären und und kultur-imperialistischen Tendenzen sind ganz konkret und ich habe die entsprechenden Dokumente, die dies belegen, auch verlinkt.

Der Vorwurf, dass ich über das Thema nicht genug nachgedacht habe, ist hier wirklich unangemessen. Ich habe wie ja erwähnt und verlinkt, über das Thema der inter-kulturellen Kommunikation und über die sozialen Mechanismen und Regeln in OpenStreetMap über die Jahre viel nachgedacht und Leuten aus verschiedenen Kulturkreisen zugehört und mit ihnen gesprochen und bin auch für neue, ergebnisoffene Diskussionen zu dem Thema immer zu haben.

Was mich interessieren würde, falls jemand hier mitliest, der/die entsprechende Kenntnis hat: Gibt es in Ländern mit “common law”-Rechtstradition eine analoges Prinzip zur Normenklarheit, also eine analoge Anforderung an Rechtsnormen bezüglich der Verständlichkeit in ihrer praktischen Bedeutung?

English translation from deepl:

There is nothing theoretical in my explanations and the concerns expressed, the totalitarian and and cultural-imperialist tendencies are quite concrete and I have also linked the relevant documents that prove this.

The accusation that I have not thought enough about the subject is really inappropriate here. I have, as mentioned and linked, thought a lot about the topic of inter-cultural communication and about the social mechanisms and rules in OpenStreetMap over the years and have listened to and talked with people from different cultural backgrounds and am also always open to new, open-ended discussions on the topic.

What I would be interested in, if anyone is reading along here who has relevant knowledge: Is there an analogous principle to clarity of norms in countries with “common law” legal traditions, i.e., an analogous requirement for legal norms in terms of comprehensibility in their practical meaning?

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

Ich denke, dass ich recht klar (und mit meiner Antwort auf Dich in einigen zentralen Punkten sogar zweifach) deutlich gemacht habe, was mir Sorgen bereitet. Wenn das von einem Mitglied des OSMF-Vorstands trotz meiner ja doch recht umfassenden Erläuterungen zu dem Thema aus der Vergangenheit, die ich verlinkt habe, überhaupt nicht mehr nachvollzogen werden kann (und ich rede hier von reinem nachvollziehen einer anderen Sichtweise, nicht von Zustimmung zu meiner Argumentation und Schlussfolgerungen), ist das Problem natürlich noch grundsätzlicher als angenommen. Wie soll eigentlich, wenn jemand wie ich, der sich ja doch glaube ich recht leidlich öffentlich in zwei in der OSM-Community verbreiteten Sprachen artikulieren kann und der kulturell Dir und den meisten übrigen Mitgliedern des Vorstands letztendlich im globalen Vergleich recht nahe steht, so fundamentale Schwierigkeiten hat, seine Sichtweise auf OpenStreetMap-Themen für den Vorstand nachvollziehbar zu artikulieren, das Gros der globalen OSM-Community auch nur eine Chance haben, dass ihre Perspektive bei der Policy-Entwicklung und im zugehörigen Diskurs angemessen repräsentiert wird?

Ich sehe natürlich schon auch, dass historisch bedingt die Sensibilität gegenüber totalitären Tendenzen in Kontinental-Europa vermutlich stärker ausgeprägt ist als im anglo-amerikanischen Kulturkreis. Deshalb möchte ich noch mal explizit deutlich machen: Ich möchte hier niemandem individuell einen Vorwurf machen, dass er oder sie diese Tendenzen bis jetzt nicht erkannt hat. Dass ich meine Sorgen über diese Tendenzen hier artikuliere soll vor allem auch dazu dienen, dass Andere auf das Problem aufmerksam werden.

Wenn allerdings jetzt diejenigen, die an dieser Initiative in der OSMF beteiligt sind, derartige Hinweise substantiell unberücksichtigt lassen (und ich rede hier nicht nur über das, was ich geäußert habe, es gab in dem Treffen am 21. August wie auch in Wiki eine Menge wohl durchdachte - aber teils natürlich in nicht perfektem Englisch vorgebrachte - kritische Äußerungen) dann erwächst daraus natürlich schon ein massiver Vorwurf.

English translation from deepl:

I think that I have made quite clear (and with my answer to you in some central points even twice) what worries me. If a member of the OSMF board, despite my quite comprehensive explanations on the subject from the past, which I have linked, can no longer comprehend this at all (and I am talking here about purely comprehending another point of view, not about agreeing with my argumentation and conclusions), the problem is of course even more fundamental than assumed. If someone like me, who I think is quite capable of articulating publicly in two languages widely spoken in the OSM community and who is culturally quite close to you and most of the other members of the board, has such fundamental difficulties in articulating his perspective on OpenStreetMap issues in a way that is comprehensible to the board, how should the bulk of the global OSM community even have a chance to have their perspective adequately represented in policy development and related discourse?

Of course, I also see that, for historical reasons, sensitivity to totalitarian tendencies is probably more pronounced in continental Europe than in the Anglo-American cultural sphere. That is why I would like to make it explicitly clear once again: I do not want to reproach anyone individually here for not having recognized these tendencies until now. The fact that I am articulating my concerns about these tendencies here is primarily intended to make others aware of the problem.

If, however, those who are involved in this initiative in the OSMF now substantially disregard such indications (and I am not only talking about what I have expressed here, there were in the meeting on August 21 as well as in Wiki a lot of well thought-out - but of course partly in not perfect English presented - critical statements) then this naturally already grows a massive reproach.

Nein, kann ich nicht (in erster Linie aufgrund fehlender Normenklarheit). Und es geht mir wie gesagt auch nicht um den spezifischen Inhalt der Dokumente und deren Nuancen, es geht mir um das große Ganze in OpenStreetMap und wie diese Initiative da einzuordnen ist.

Vor diesem Hintergrund möchte ich Deine Frage (was ich denke dass in OpenStreetMap ganz grundsätzlich toleriert werden sollte - will heißen: Was in OSM einen Platz haben sollte) wie folgt beantworten: Jegliches Verhalten, welches irgendwo in einer Kultur oder Gesellschaft auf dieser Welt sozial akzeptiert wird, solange es mit den Grundwerten und grundsätzlichen Zielen von OpenStreetMap - Versuch der Beschreibung hier - kompatibel ist.

Und das schließt wie gesagt auch explizit das Verhalten mit ein, Kommunikationskanäle zu schaffen, auf denen Regeln gelten, die explizit intolerant sind gegenüber Andersartigkeit in Verhalten und Kultur.

Allerdings nur so lange, wie derartige Initiativen nicht versuchen, solche Regeln in totalitärer oder kultur-imperialistischer Manier anderen aufzudrücken und damit den grundsätzlichen Zielen von OpenStreetMap zu widersprechen. Dann sollten sie von allen, denen OpenStreetMap als soziales Projekt am Herzen liegt, sozusagen bis aufs Messer bekämpft werden. Und derartige totalitäre Tendenzen sind in der OSMF wie erläutert schon seit langem vorhanden und werden von den an dieser Initiative Beteiligten bis jetzt völlig kritik- und reflexionsfrei mit einbezogen - was mich zu der obigen deutlichen Warnung veranlasst hat.

Falls die OSMF hier nicht erheblich umsteuert, gibt es im Grunde nur zwei Möglichkeiten:

• die OSMF zerstört OpenStreetMap als egalitäres soziales Projekt der inter-kulturellen Zusammenarbeit (wie detaillierter oben beschrieben, eventuell eine Zeit lang weiter erfolgreich als kulturell homogenisiertes, anglo-amerikanisch dominiertes Daten-Sammel-Projekt nach dem Schema “Neuauflage der Internationalen Weltkarte im digitalen Zeitalter unter Nutzung von Crowdsourcing”)
• die OSMF scheitert und verliert jegliche Bedeutung als positive Kraft und moralische Autorität in der weltweiten OSM-Community außerhalb eines ganz engen Kulturkreises.

English translation from deepl:

No, I can’t (primarily due to lack of standards clarity). And as I said, it’s not about the specific content of the documents and their nuances, it’s about the big picture in OpenStreetMap and how this initiative fits in.

Against this background I would like to answer your question (what I think should be tolerated in OpenStreetMap in general - meaning: what should have a place in OSM) as follows: Any behavior that is socially accepted somewhere in a culture or society in this world, as long as it is compatible with the basic values and fundamental goals of OpenStreetMap - Attempt to describe here.

And as said, this also explicitly includes the behavior of creating communication channels where rules apply that are explicitly intolerant of otherness in behavior and culture.

But only as long as such initiatives do not try to impose such rules on others in a totalitarian or culturally imperialistic manner, thus contradicting the fundamental goals of OpenStreetMap. Then they should be fought to the knife, so to speak, by everyone who cares about OpenStreetMap as a social project. And such totalitarian tendencies have been present in the OSMF for a long time, as explained, and have so far been included by those involved in this initiative completely without criticism or reflection - which prompted me to issue the above clear warning.

If the OSMF does not significantly change course here, there are basically only two possibilities:

• the OSMF destroys OpenStreetMap as an egalitarian social project of inter-cultural collaboration (as described in more detail above, possibly continuing to succeed for a while as a culturally homogenized Anglo-American dominated data collection project along the lines of “reimagining the International Map of the World in the digital age using crowdsourcing”).
• the OSMF fails and loses any significance as a positive force and moral authority in the worldwide OSM community outside a very narrow cultural circle.

@laznik - there are many interesting ideas in what you write but there is one fundamental flaw in your considerations IMO: You are mixing moral and economic considerations and arguments without clearly establishing how these two connect and that this connection as you see it actually exists in the real world.

Capitalist economy is an inherently amoral endeavor. There are all kinds of efforts in various parts of the world to moderate and tame capitalism with morally motivated constraints. But the idea to do this through appeal to a capitalist’s sense of fairness is just naive. The only way you can hope to impose moral constraints to economic actors is through hard rules that are enforced with zeal.

Practically this would boil down to adopting a license where the rights of the data users depend on the profitability of the data use or the wealth of the data user. Independent of the fact that it is unrealistic for the OSM community to adopt a license like that (it would be a non-open license according to the contributor terms so you would need a new contract with every single of the past OSM contributors), it would be practically unrealistic to implement it in a meaningful way. Just look at the difficulties governments have in practically taxing companies based on profit and/or wealth in a fair fashion - it would be naive to expect the OSM community with no legislative powers whatsoever to do any better.

Yes, automation of mechanical work in mapping is severely underdeveloped in OSM at the moment.

But this concerns not so much what many people think of when they hear “automation in mapping in OSM”, i.e. the large scale industrial automation with low quality results a la Facebook where the mapper - if at all - only remains as a click-monkey to mechanically confirm and take responsibility for entering the data without actually contributing local knowledge. The unused potential is IMO more on the level of micro-automation of mechanical and time consuming steps in the work of mappers. Like for example line/polygon geometry generation of individual features identified by the mapper - the iconic example would be the one click mapping of buildings from imagery.

By the way - automation of imagery alignment could in addition or instead of using GPS traces (which can be tricky because assigning a GPS trace to a feature visible in an image often requires human judgement) be based on cross correlation between different imagery sources (in particular of lower resolution imagery of vertical view satellite imagery with known and low systematic position errors).

There are quite a few interesting ideas in your suggestion worth contemplating. However what i am pretty sure about is that automatically rewarding a third party with own economic interests (like the OSMF) economically for the work of mappers is a bad idea.

I am also not sure how the whole system sketched is supposed to deal with:

• the fact that there is no objective system to quantify the relationship between the work efforts of the individual mappers and the benefit for the data user (which seems to be necessary to assign the merit reward).
• the possibility that mappers could enter work hours into the system which they have not spend - like it is meant to be - based on the intrinsic motivation of the mappers what to map and how to map but based on outside incentives (like being paid in conventional paid mapping project or also other organized and directed mapping project with non-monetary compensation).

@Richard - keep in mind however that the option to edit diary comments in a similar fashion as diary entries (i.e. without the edit and the edit history being transparently visible) would fundamentally change the character of the conversations because it gives participants in the conversation the possibility to freely rewrite history.

The move away from proprietary tools to open source infrastructure is commendable. People in the OSMF could use the opportunity to not only substitute proprietary tools with FOSS tools in a 1:1 replacement but also to move to work more with tools and platforms the OSM community is used to and familiar with like wikis, issue trackers and etherpads with barrierless public read access and no more than an OSM account being required to actively contribute. This could help a lot with recruitment of volunteers from the hobby mapper community.

Are there any concrete plans to also substitute Google services for email within the OSMF?

Rob, i have, and as it turned out due to the time constraints this was a good idea, made available my notes in advance, i did not see a reason to re-state everything from those notes in the meeting. And i stated there quite clearly i think that i do not feel comfortable with discussing matters i consider outside the remit of the OSMF that are traditionally discussed openly by the community and decided by broad consensus in a closed AB meeting.

It seems you might have a bit of an inaccurate translation - i am describing my observations from the meeting. The idea that everyone in such a meeting should seek confirmation for every observation they make is not really feasible. But when i describe observations about others, in particular about their motives, i am well aware that those are just subjective impressions of myself and not objective facts. You are welcome (and i encourage you to) elaborate on your motivation and reasoning behind your ideas in public discussion.

I get your point about the matter in the core not being about the specific examples (discourse, website, translations) but that you consider these to be just examples of what you perceive to be a broader issue. That already got clear in the meeting but it is good that you reaffirm this again. My answer to that is: Embrace diversity. If you are dissatisfied with the progress in some parts of the community then demonstrate how it can be done better. Set up a discourse instance for OSMUK and demonstrate to the rest of the community how useful it is. Develop improvements for the OSM website and discuss their benefits with the wider community to reach consensus to adopt them. Yes, i know this can be daunting and you often end up spending more time discussing with and convincing people of the merits of your work than on the actual work. But that is an inherent part of working in a highly diverse community. And good ideas (and i mean really objectively and sustainably good ideas) will over time always get the support they need. What really helps in that regard is having more options, more choices and more diversity that allows people to vote with their feet.

If you think that there is a systemic problem in OSM beyond the level of individual projects to make progress (and i mean objective progress and no just failure to develop in a direction one would subjectively like it to go) then you would need to provide substantial evidence for that. At the moment i don’t see this being the case. Everyday we see new projects in the OpenStreetMap world being started - from mapping and QA tools to communication platforms, from map design project to new social groups working together on things. At the same time we of course also see things reaching the end of their productive life. But not every tool or platform that has reached a state of maturity with relatively slow paced change prevailing is dead and useless and needs to be replaced by the fashion of the week.

To make sure things don’t get lost and since not everyone reading here will also be reading (or able to write) on osmf-talk here the comment i also posted there:

I think this is an important consideration and as you say in particular in light of the significantly widening economic activities of the OSMF it deserves getting priority.

However i also think that limiting these thoughts to a potential policy on “paid services” would not sufficiently address the underlying issues in terms of social dynamics within the larger OSM community.  Within today’s economic context if some activities receive direct reimbursement or not (i.e. paid vs. unpaid services) often does not make such a big difference.

My thought is that a clear and universal subsidarity principle within and among organizations in the OSM world could help addressing some of the same problems you mention in context of paid services as well as more broadly negative social and economic implications of economic activities of organizations whose primary purpose is non-economic in nature.

In a nutshell subsidarity would mean that in an organization (be that the OSMF or a local chapter or even within one of them, like in the board - working groups relationship), no one should engage in activities or aim to fulfill functions that could be or are covered by more localized activities within the community.

That would pertain to the OSMF-LC relationship just like the relationship between a local chapter and the businesses, more local organizations and individual volunteers within its realm.  In the above form the principle is too vague and abstract to be very useful, it would need to be put into more concrete practical rules, this is just meant to give an idea what i mean.

I don’t think the OSMF should try to impose such a principle onto local chapters as a hard requirement for recognition, it would more be something that works through leading by example - the OSMF would impose such a restriction on itself (which could be a tough sell and might only work through a direct initiative from the OSMF members) and suggest to local organizations to handle things similarly.

No one is pointing fingers, i am trying to raise problem awareness - the fact that language as well as digital tools and communication platforms can be (and are used as) powerful tools of colonialism should be pretty self evident.

Since you mentioned colonial history - one thing that our European colonial history has shown us is that well meaning intentions (humanitarian motives if you want) and colonial oppression can often go hand in hand.

I don’t want to discourage anyone from discussing the topic in any constellation. But this topic in particular will always profit from engaging with viewpoints outside the cultural sphere you usually engage in (and with cultural sphere i mean more who you interact with on a day-to-day basis, like in your job, and not so much where you were born and grew up) - hence my suggestion to specifically look for panelists who don’t share some of the cultural traits and dispositions most of those already selected do.