Most wanted feature

What is the worst thing about OSM right now, what should be improved? And what would be the best selling point for new users. I’m going to put one thing on the list… :wink:

  1. speed

I thought there were a load of new servers put in as well?

The speed seems fine when i use the offline editor. But the online one drives me nuts.

I think its the community…(not the people, just the means of comunicating). I think this project could be awesum if theres a lot of group ‘adventures’, around the country/s, world. Apparently over 1000 people have/are? editing maps…but i wouldnt have guess that if i was asked to make an estimation.

Theres a fine line between work, and construtive hobbies… The isolation and lack of communication is what makes me tell the two apart.

The offline editor is slow for (down/up)loading, as the servers are slow. This is the worst thing about OSM. Also there is a steep learning curve.

Yeah, it does have quite a long loading time, but it doesnÂ’t consume my computer so im happy to wait at present. There are many other things that I think could be worked on with more urgency. Plus itÂ’s all free, itÂ’s not like I paid for the bits of software, so I can’t complain.

As said in another topic, the learning curve is very steep for OSM, and the wiki pages are very in-depth and do explain everything very well, but I found that until I new the basic elements, it was quite hard to find the answers I needed.

I think a very basic, more visual start up guide should be available (and I would help make it if necessary, rather than just sit back and moan). I think Very simple start up instructions are a better gear to start in; then once moving, people can then delve into the dense instruction manuals.

My whole software system is free - Ubuntu, and yes you can complain, as it is free software, and the developers want to hear about bugs and feature requests. Most people are used to Proprietary software, where you have no input into the system.

Somthing like the Portal:Users page

Well yeah, feedback is helpful for new ideas, but at present shorely the development areas are rather obvious.

emj: Thats not what i ment by basic. Everything is covered in there, wich i find very helpful now, but when i first started I wasnt shore even what to look for. By very basic i mean. 1)…sit…2)…grasp mouse in hand…3)…breath. Well…quite basic anyway

That might be a bit too basic, mabye you should edit the Portal:Users page to make it easier.
I think the issue above was the incorrect link.

Well I made a dummy html of sort of what i ment (very ruff). But I can’t attach stuff here…hmm. But Basically it has big images 1. 2. 3. And then they link to sub instructions, and then they link to the wiki site where the instructions of how to use things are.

So how I see it, ideally a person would come along, and very easily learn ‘what they need to learn about’…then the wiki can help teach them on those matters.

I feal the problem at present (the problem I had when first using OSM anyway). was, not knowing ‘what i didnt know’. Guess its is like walking into a library and just saying ‘book’

…hmm sorry for the messy wording, if thats not that clear.

You should post is to the wiki so we can all work together on this. Doing good material for newbies is a very well payed job at my work. And takes lots of time it seems.

well it is an example of what i ment, using nicked images and printscreens, and I suspect ive incoorperated a nice set of spelling mistakes as well as per usual.

I could just send people the .rar of it since the forum is small at present.

Basically its a visual set of the most simple things that i think would work better as a beginers contents to the wiki.

Share away, put on a webpage somewhere, or just post it on the Wiki, you can upload images and post the HTML there.

I’m not sure its helpful to be critical without being able to be constructive at the same time. :wink:

As far as speed goes, I think editing offline in JOSM solves most of those frustrations.

I imagine new users are brought into OSM for a variety of reasons, and the ‘best selling point’ would therefore probably vary from one to the next. The OpenStreetMap Wiki maintains a list of Neat Stuff. For me, I was (and remain!) excited by the possibility of producing maps in Osmarender, like the example on that page, of villages where I live. Still striving to gather the data to get that far…

can i just stick a .rar on the wiki, and link to it from this forum?..if so, how do i?

No replies? would really like to get down to making some very basic tutorials…but need to upload .rar so as it can be discussed…

The example is a set of html’s wich are basically just the jpg’s with links

Email to me erjohan@gmail.com and I can upload it to the wiki. I don’t think you can upload rar files to the wiki.

I’ve posted this excelent guide on http://kart.bok.nu/

Cool, cheers for that, the link from the padlock thing seems not to work, but maybe i didnt attach it…

Anyway this is an example of my origianl proposal of having a very simple explination of what you need to learn about, so i think at the bottom of each page would be links to the relevent wiki pages

I also think there should propably be an additonal page on JOSM, with a set of images for 1) make a dot 2) make a segment 3)apply tags, and maybe an additional for tags.

Give us some advice or just tell me what to do next…