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> it should be up there with Wikipedia as one of the great crowd-sourced triumphs of our age Yes, its an incredible and inspiring duo. But OSM is in sense extr
by nologic01 3y ago
> it should be up there with Wikipedia as one of the great crowd-sourced triumphs of our age
Yes, its an incredible and inspiring duo. But OSM is in sense extra important: it shows wikipedia was not a fluke. In a better world far more resources would be dedicate for this type of digital commons.
The second way in which OSM is special is that it is a very tangible, physical facts-focused database that avoids some of the frictions and conflicts of interpretation in Wikipedia.
Given the downhill direction of public discourse these days I wonder if Wikipedia were to be launched today, would it have any chance?
- jacquesm 3y agoThat works as long as commercial companies can not somehow acquire such a digital commons and abuse it for their own purposes. GitHub for instance.
- nologic01 3y agoThere is certainly a tight embrace of OSM by less than trustworthy entities. Just check the sponsors of this conference. Where that could lead is hard to assess for a casual observer. One hopes the good people who got this going have instituted adequate defenses.