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Wow... How odd to log into Hacker News and see this. I'm the author of the post back in 2014. The sad thing is that I'm midway through writing a new post about

Wow... How odd to log into Hacker News and see this. I'm the author of the post back in 2014. The sad thing is that I'm midway through writing a new post about why I feel OSM is failing. I have largely stepped away from the project in the last two years. I still believe strongly in OSM, and what it stands for, but I feel the project has not lived up to what the public needs.

danieka 9y ago
Do you already know where you will publish? Wouldn’t want to miss it. Edit: Having thought a bit more about this I guess you’re going to post it on your your blog.....
- emacsen 9y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16394604 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16394604
rambojazz 9y ago
Don't forget to share it here, I'm curious to read it.
- emacsen 9y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16394604 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16394604
afeezaziz 9y ago
Please do share the link to your post when you publish it. I really want to know pros and cons of OSM especially the gotchas if we want to fully support it.
- emacsen 9y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16394604 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16394604
vog 9y ago
I wanted to add you to my RSS reader to ensure I won't miss it. But it seems your blog has neither RSS nor ATOM feeds, neither for the full blog nor for the OpenStreetMap category. This is really a pity.
- emacsen 9y ago
  Great catch! Short answer: https://blog.emacsen.net/atom.xml https://blog.emacsen.net/atom.xml Longer answer: I switched blogging software a few months ago and thought I'd changed everything over, but apparently I'd missed the atom/rss feeds. Thanks for catching this!
  - vog 9y ago
    Thanks for the feed, I just added it to QuiteRSS. However, it seems the appropriate headers are not set in the HTML pages. So there is no indication in the browser that your site has a feed, let alone where to find it. I propose to add something like the following line to the <head> section of every site (or at least your main site): <link rel="alternate" type="application/atom+xml" href="/atom.xml" title="Feed">
aluhut 9y ago
I hope your post won't end up being so generalist as this comment is. OSM is the best freely available map service in Germany. Many (if not all?) local and national institutions use it as well as many private companies. The mobile apps got really nice and are useful for normal users for different purposes and all that for free. There are even apps everybody can use to fill the data gaps like: https://github.com/westnordost/StreetComplete https://github.com/westnordost/StreetComplete It needs some kind of pretty hard decadence (or corruption?) to ignore that for such a broad generalization.
- emacsen 9y ago
  > I hope your post won't end up being so generalist as this comment is. If I was going to write a simple one sentence or one paragraph analysis of why the project is not living up to its expectations, it would be easy and I would be done. Instead, I'm writing an in depth analysis of what I view as the impediments to the project;s success, and it's taking me several weeks to write because it's such a complex topic. I need to explain not only the problems to seasoned OSMers, but also make my arguments understandable and accessible to a wider audience who isn't familiar with OSM internals. It's also important to relaize that I'm not writing this from the same position as so many newbies writing about OSM- they go to the website and say "Oh this is ugly" or "This is confusing" then leave. I was very much part of the project for quite a few years, in a number of roles.
- emacsen 9y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16394604 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16394604

danieka 9y ago

Do you already know where you will publish? Wouldn’t want to miss it. Edit: Having thought a bit more about this I guess you’re going to post it on your your blog.....

emacsen 9y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16394604 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16394604

rambojazz 9y ago

Don't forget to share it here, I'm curious to read it.

emacsen 9y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16394604 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16394604

afeezaziz 9y ago

Please do share the link to your post when you publish it. I really want to know pros and cons of OSM especially the gotchas if we want to fully support it.

emacsen 9y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16394604 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16394604

vog 9y ago

I wanted to add you to my RSS reader to ensure I won't miss it. But it seems your blog has neither RSS nor ATOM feeds, neither for the full blog nor for the OpenStreetMap category. This is really a pity.

emacsen 9y ago
Great catch! Short answer: https://blog.emacsen.net/atom.xml https://blog.emacsen.net/atom.xml Longer answer: I switched blogging software a few months ago and thought I'd changed everything over, but apparently I'd missed the atom/rss feeds. Thanks for catching this!
- vog 9y ago
  Thanks for the feed, I just added it to QuiteRSS. However, it seems the appropriate headers are not set in the HTML pages. So there is no indication in the browser that your site has a feed, let alone where to find it. I propose to add something like the following line to the <head> section of every site (or at least your main site): <link rel="alternate" type="application/atom+xml" href="/atom.xml" title="Feed">

aluhut 9y ago

I hope your post won't end up being so generalist as this comment is. OSM is the best freely available map service in Germany. Many (if not all?) local and national institutions use it as well as many private companies. The mobile apps got really nice and are useful for normal users for different purposes and all that for free. There are even apps everybody can use to fill the data gaps like: https://github.com/westnordost/StreetComplete https://github.com/westnordost/StreetComplete It needs some kind of pretty hard decadence (or corruption?) to ignore that for such a broad generalization.

emacsen 9y ago
> I hope your post won't end up being so generalist as this comment is. If I was going to write a simple one sentence or one paragraph analysis of why the project is not living up to its expectations, it would be easy and I would be done. Instead, I'm writing an in depth analysis of what I view as the impediments to the project;s success, and it's taking me several weeks to write because it's such a complex topic. I need to explain not only the problems to seasoned OSMers, but also make my arguments understandable and accessible to a wider audience who isn't familiar with OSM internals. It's also important to relaize that I'm not writing this from the same position as so many newbies writing about OSM- they go to the website and say "Oh this is ugly" or "This is confusing" then leave. I was very much part of the project for quite a few years, in a number of roles.
emacsen 9y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16394604 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16394604