OpenStreetMap
"This is too complicated" - is it?
Дасланы BushmanK 3 Красавік 2016 на English. Апошняе абнаўленьне 5 Красавік 2016.Quite often you can see, that somebody is arguing about certain tagging method calling it “too complicated to be used by anyone”. It is very typical thing (especially for ones who don’t care about adequate mapping, but who cares about having an icon on map).
OpenStreetMap is an international project, which makes it harder to have universal tags for everything since real-life entities are varying from one country/culture to another. This is why we have to use complex schemes.
For example, in Soviet Union governement-driven medical system we have had facilities, called “диспансер” - this word comes from French word “dispensaire” which means “dispensary”, but it is not a dispensary - it is a clinic, dedicated to certain type of diseases or conditions (sexually-transmitted infections and skin diseases, tuberculosis and pulmonary diseases, addiction to alcohol or drugs, mental conditions, oncologic diseases), which is supposed to have all required equipment for tests and treatment. Also, it had anti-epidemic functions. In USSR times, these clinics were also responsible for tracking patient’s official medical history regarding of these diseases, since there was no other option like private clinics. For example, to obtain a driver license, you had to get official papers from two of these clinics listed above to proof that you are not an alcoholic or drug-addicted and you are sane person.
As you can see, it took the whole paragraph to describe its functions. So, yes, there is an option to create special tags for each of these facilities. But will it be understandable and usable for OSM data users outside the former USSR (Russia)? Definitely, no.
But using the Healthcare 2.0 tagging scheme, it is easy to come up with this:
amenity=clinic - for compatibility with current scheme
health_facility:type=clinic - new tag for clinics
medical_system:western=yes
health_service:prevention=yes
health_service:test=yes
health_specialty:venereology=yes
health_specialty:dermatology=yes
operator=Департамент здравоохранения города Москвы
name=Кожно-венерологический диспансер №3
Is it complex? Yes. Is it self-explanatory, so you don’t really need to check Wiki in Russian to find out what it is? Yes. Is it complicated? Probably, for some people, who can’t read. Will anybody use that? Probably, those who want to tag particular medical facility. Demanding a single tag for it is, I think, a form of ignorance.
I can also mention road tagging as an example.
Number of lanes, turn lanes, dedicated lanes for buses and/or heavy load vehicles, speed limits, lighting, surface, inclination, roughness, lane alignment, mass transit routes, sidewalks, width - this isn’t even full list of features we can tag on a single polyline of road. And there are roads, tagged with a full pack of keys.
From recent publications regarding of OSM contribution, we know, that largest amount of contribution goes from very small minority of experienced active mappers. It makes the whole argument about “it’s too complicated (for newbies)” invalid, since newbies will unlikely tag anything more complex (by its nature, not by tagging scheme) than certain absolutely obvious stuff.
Абмеркаванне
Камэнтар Zverik ад 4 Красавік 2016 у 06:28
But how newbies should find out about tagging a диспансер?
Камэнтар Warin61 ад 4 Красавік 2016 у 08:09
Hopefully on the wiki.
If not then asking on a talk group,
Камэнтар Zverik ад 4 Красавік 2016 у 11:03
No, I mean, if it’s okay to map everything using complex tagging schemes, becase only a handful of people in OSM really maps, then why even bother with documenting and explaining?
Камэнтар escada ад 4 Красавік 2016 у 11:20
As soon as I have to map 2 or 3 of those clinics (диспансер), I would make a (JOSM-)preset. I’m too lazy to remember/type the first 7 tags above. And the also makes it easy for newbies (and experienced mappers that are newbies in the healthcare tagging) to use the proper tagging.
Камэнтар BushmanK ад 4 Красавік 2016 у 14:09
@Zverik, I know that you are not stupid, therefore, I guess, your question is intended to be “provoking”. But you can’t make a provoking question by exaggerating something to extreme beyond the point where it still makes sense.
Even those active mappers do not have a superpower of telepathy, therefore we need a documentation. And learning about tagging schemes from Wiki is the best way to do that. Regarding of giving examples - I think it makes sense since nobody knows everything and certain real-world concepts should be explained to be tagged properly, especially in case, if particular entity is a bit different from common case.
Actually, more important question in this aspect is should we allow to use certain presets to those, who has no idea about project guidelines.
Good example for this case is abuse of access tags: iD users constantly adding
foot=yesandbicycle=yesjust because there are some checkboxes labelled “foot” and “bicycle” - they do not know and do not care to know what’s the meaning of these properties.Камэнтар SomeoneElse ад 5 Красавік 2016 у 11:48
It’s only “too complicated” for a new user if they aren’t guided through the process when they choose to add a диспансер. New users don’t read the wiki and don’t read the email lists or the forum (initially they probably don’t know that any of these exist). What new users do see on sign is:
The CTs, which the have to agree to. A confirmation email, which they need to click on a link on. “osm.org/welcome”, which has a big “Start Mapping” button on it which they’ll probably click on*. An osm.org screen centred at their browser location If they click “Edit” they’re offered the choice of the “iD Walkthrough” or to start editing immediately.
iD (at least in my English locale) doesn’t know what a “диспансер” is and if they search for it and there are no local matches the first worldwide match is a hospital in Serbia. Compare that with adding a feature that iD does know about.
To summarise, if you want people (especially new users) to add these tags, you’ll need to make it easy for people to add them. Simply writing them down somewhere that new users won’t read doesn’t do that.
As an aside, you might like to know that “healthcare” is the current quarterly project in GB. See this post on the GB list https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-gb/2016-March/018720.html .
Камэнтар BushmanK ад 5 Красавік 2016 у 14:00
@SomeoneElse,
With roads, we do have preset for iD, but exactly that preset causes misuse of foot=* and bicycle=* tags. If people don’t read and don’t want to read (in broad meaning of this word), only way to give them knowledge is a telepathy, which isn’t an option, since we can’t force anybody to learn.
Камэнтар gileri ад 9 Красавік 2016 у 08:28
@BushmanK : your last post is spot-on !
This problem is that the current policy of the osm.org website is to remove as many “barriers” before contributing so that people that only want or can dedicate a few minutes to mapping can add something to the map, even if that “something” is sub-par mapping or worse, as they didn’t read any documentation.
You can’t remove all barriers before starting to map and expect novices with little to any OSM experience to map quality map features. So it is an intentional policy to gain as many mappers as possible, while giving the burden of QA to more experienced and more available mappers.
I wonder what’s better : * Having a lot of new contributors, but consuming “experienced” mapper time to fix mistakes of contributors who can’t be bothered to read any documentation. * Trying to make newbies read the wiki before mapping, actually display errors in iD instead of hiding them to increase “mapper retention”, etc. even if that means less new contributors but a rise in data quality.
Камэнтар BushmanK ад 9 Красавік 2016 у 14:21
@gileri,
I agree with you at certain grade. However, my view on this problem is a bit different. I think, that people with no experience and no knowledge of OSM guidelines can actually contribute well, but to give them this opportunity, authors of editors should acknowledge this problem and limit an access by certain amount of common easy-to-map features, where it’s hard to make a mistake. For example, new editor, built into maps.me app, has excellent working hours editor for amenities instead of just single input line. But in the same time, it has a single input line for house numbers, which leads to mistakes in Russia, where house numbers in cities are quite complex sometimes.
It is impossible to force anyone to read documentation, but it is possible to limit his options to make mistakes, if you stop pretending like everybody have similar knowledge, similar motivation and so on.