[openstreetmap-website] User page (#23)

Frederik Ramm frederik at remote.org
Sat Mar 10 15:32:16 GMT 2012


On 03/10/2012 04:13 PM, Tom Hughes wrote:
> Before I start doing a technical review of this, what do people think of
> the general design of it and the direction it's going in?

I don't really have a plus or minus opinion on it.

I just want to offer one thought, and that's there being a fundamental 
difference between your average commercial web portal landing page (be 
that your facebook home page, your twitter stream, whatever page you 
land at after login with myriad services) and OSM.

OSM doesn't need you to use the web page. Commercial sites often do, and 
they try to make their web appearance addictive in many ways so that the 
users logs in often (or ideally, doesn't ever log out) - that they stay 
"connected" and available for messaging (usually, various kinds of 
messages intended to make him spend money).

In my personal everyday OSM use, I don't normally have a web session at 
all. I use the web page to inspect object details or to browse the map, 
but I never log in unless I need to send someone a message who hasn't 
sent me one before (I much prefer emailing people but that is currently 
only possible if I can reply to a message from them - and I am HUGELY 
glad that I can receive these messages in my email client and not just 
in my OSM inbox). I do most of my edits in JOSM and I don't use the OSM 
user blog, so there's really no reason for me to log in - and I'm happy 
that way.

So, I would hope that whatever direction the re-shaping of the user 
pages goes in OSM, thes pages will always remain an optional extra that 
you can use if you want, rather than becoming a central spot that 
everyone is expected to log in to every day.



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