Ilya Zverev: Over the years, OpenStreetMap has been overgrown with such a serious infrastructure that you can draw a map without leaving home

Ilya Zverev - the informal leader of the Russian community OpenStreetMap. For almost 10 years, he has been promoting OSM in every way: he creates new applications and writes articles, develops community and speaks at conferences. How friendly OSM is, what he has been doing for two years on the OSMF Council, and why it is necessary to regularly conduct field-mapping - Ilya Zverev spoke about this in an interview.



- How did you find out and get acquainted with the project OpenStreetMap?

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- In 2010, I needed a free map of Finland, since I was planning a trip to this country. Then I found 4 different options on the Internet, each of them checked, chose the best one. Already after going on a trip, I discovered that the map I was using was based on OSM data, which means that I could correct a few shortcomings that I found along the way. I decided to do this - correct the map. A little straightened, then a little more ... and got involved.



- How to join the community?



- At first I was not in the community, that is, I did not communicate with anyone, but only made changes. My first encounter with the community happened when I began to repair the roads in St. Petersburg. I immediately knocked on a lichku some maper, who immediately began to chastise and say that I'm doing everything wrong. After this incident, I did not touch St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region for several months, went to Pskov.



- On you "hit"?



- Yes, about the same as it still happens in OpenStreetMap, because we try not to bow and not waste time on courtesy, but immediately get down to business, despite the fact that in relation to the newcomer such behavior is not quite right .



- What do you think, why is this happening?



- OpenStreetMap - the project is not for everyone, but for those who have a certain mindset - technical, for those who like to understand everything and reach everything with their mind. Therefore, here, rather, another question is relevant: why do technicians in Russia speak politely enough? Because they are not taught this. While students of humanitarian courses are learning to understand people, techies are engaged in programming. Also in our post-Soviet culture, nothing encourages polite communication. "Young man! You do not see? We have lunch! ”- I am sure that this phrase, which symbolizes the whole Soviet culture of communication, is familiar to many. In addition, people are reluctant and hard to learn new social habits, for example, cultural communication. Technicians this new discipline is even more difficult. It is much easier for an ordinary person to explain why he needs to behave politely, in order to convey this to the technician you need graphics and jokes. And all the laziness. What for? Let them sit in their closets and scribble code.



- You said OSM is “not for everyone,” but this year it will be 15 years old. Has anyone over the years tried to turn the project to face people who are technically inexperienced?



- With the advent of the online editor iD in 2014 and the changing of the website interface, OSM began to move towards convenience and clarity for the mass Internet user. Both were done by specialists from Mapbox, from whose actions the process of humanization of OSM began. It continues to this day, but it seems to me that it is not quite noticeable for experienced participants. For example, many of them do not know that in 2017 iD had an interactive tutorial. When you first open this editor, he first offers to undergo training, and only then make changes to the main map. This is a very cool thing that quickly and simply shows a newbie the basics of mapping in OSM.



We also have a website “Welcome Mat” , which, of course, no one knows. We also have an American community that is different from everyone else by extreme friendliness. In addition, there is a humanitarian team - HOT, which not only participates in international operations to eliminate the consequences of natural disasters, but also teaches the basics of OSM to participants from countries in Asia and Africa.



The OSM wiki is getting fuller every year. It is easier to find the right articles. The editors JOSM and iD appeared tag blanks for almost all occasions. But if you don’t have enough of them, Taginfo will help you find the right tag.



In general, on trifles the project becomes friendlier. It cannot be said that he has already walked this way to the end, or that novices have no questions, but the situation is much better than 5 years ago.



- Why did you stay in OSM? What is so "hooked"?



- OSM is not only about cartography. In OSM, you absolutely do not need to draw a map all the time. Moreover, if after 5 years of joining OSM you still draw only a map - this is very strange. So, not deep enough into the project. Because in OSM you need to do everything: write documentation, program, make presentations, hold conferencing, tell everyone about the project, translate articles, look for errors, and much more. In OSM there is a place for any talent and human skill. If you are tired of drawing a map, you can always change the scope of activities and still remain in the project. Therefore, I did not leave. I had periods when I didn’t draw anything for a very long time. And during these periods I was as productive as possible in other areas of OSM. This is normal.



“Why are Americans so friendly in OSM?”



- Because they pay attention to such trifles in communication that other people, especially from Europe, do not notice at all. If you followed the news, then they had an action #metoo 2 years ago, there are many articles about feminism, burnout, toxic communication in online communities and about the correct greeting for newbies. In American culture is very important, as you say. They pay attention to the tone, intonation and choice of words. With this, they try to reduce, for example, passive aggression, which is often manifested through quite innocuous expressions.



This process is still ongoing, but now American English differs from British not only in the fact that they do not have any extra letters in words, but also in careful construction of sentences. Of course, all this affects the American OSM community. When in contact with his representatives in the mailing list, on their channel in Slack'e or on GitHub'e, you feel that you are welcome and your contribution is valuable. You can really join this community and work productively in it, because you know in advance: no matter what you do, it will be useful to someone, which means it will bring you pleasure.



This is very lacking in other communities. They have achieved such a friendly atmosphere through careful, but consistent moderation. Any online community needs a moderator, otherwise it will drop to its denominator.



- Ilya, it was you who organized most of the full-time RU-OSM events: “Circuitry”, field mapping, etc. Why did you take on this burden? Why then stopped doing this? Faced with some kind of setbacks?



- I remember only one failure: no one came to the meeting organized by me in Kaliningrad. Although I announced it in advance, I regularly reminded her about it. In all other cases - it worked.



In order to organize a meeting or a conference, two things are enough: to set a place and time. After that, everything works almost automatically. From the very beginning, I hoped that I would be able to show other people that organizing an event was neither a scary nor an issue. I thought that my experience would inspire or dismay someone and it would spread to other cities. I still do not understand why my plan did not work. Why, after me, almost no one holds carnivals and conferences.



- What were the positive results of these meetings? Why was all this? What were your goals?



- Field map shows are held in order to pull people out of their cozy homes, where they draw satellite imagery. Over the years, OSM has acquired such a serious infrastructure that it is possible to draw a map without leaving your home: there are many satellite imagery available, open data, etc. There are even “sofa charts”. But when a person draws a map without leaving the house - he breaks away from reality. Because it does not see countless objects that have even more properties. For example, a road is not only a direction, but also a width, quality of asphalt and road signs. There are so many institutions that no tagging scheme can ever take into account all the nuances. In theory, all this should be indicated on the map. But you can only discover it or discover for yourself if you walk along the street and pay attention to it. This significantly changes the view of cartography and the world. That is why, at least a couple of times, it is important to go out, purposefully gather information, and then draw a map on it.



The same is about the conference. They are important not for people who listen to the report, they are important for yourself. Speech, first of all, is organizing your knowledge, training public speaking skills, meeting other people, both from other communities and with employees of companies who can be useful to you or you can help them.



Hobbies should make you better. Therefore, if you simply describe the satellite, then you do not get all that OSM can give you. OSM can help to pump a large number of skills, but for this you need to leave the house, both for drawing a map, and for speaking at conferences.



- How can OSM be useful for civil society? Authorities?



- OSM is open and free geodata. Finding a map of your own village or city, which you can still freely use for your own purposes and needs, is not as easy as it seems at first glance. Also, OSM can save considerable funds, both to the authorities and representatives of civil society. They can use it in the same way as commercial organizations do: planning, analysis, substrate for a map, etc. I will not say right away how exactly, Maxim Dubinin (Director of NextGIS) can answer this question in detail. He has extensive experience in implementing such projects.



- Do authorities in Russia use OSM?



- Used, including for internal purposes. Because it is easier to work with him: his use does not require the conclusion of any contracts with anyone. He is, you take him freely and go ahead - do what you want!



- Often you can hear that OSM, as a project, is in crisis. Is it so?



- For the most part, Sergei Golubev has already answered this question in his interview . And quite correctly answered. But still there is a number but. What is meant by a crisis? If you ask active members of the German or English OSM communities to this effect, they will say that everything is good and even better. They are all happy with the OSM, and this will be said, both by experienced osmery and beginners. The data from the database has not gone away, all the charts are growing up, we have adopted new tagging models, improved cartstil, new OSM-based projects are being published - can this be called stagnation?



- Has the OSM community formed in Russia?



- Of course. I think it is one of the best in Runet. Because it is active both day and night, quite enjoyable to participate, especially for beginners. We constantly monitor the map data, we have quite a large expertise in imports and data processing. The Russian IT community is aware of the existence of OSM and actively uses it, perhaps even more than in other countries. So, we are doing well.



- Where does the ghost of the end of OSM then wander in the Russian community?



- One of the reasons is the property of the Russian person to look for inevitable decay in everything. All our great writers write about it. But there is no smoke without fire. Of course, I, like some users from our chat in Telegram, have a feeling that something is wrong with the project, something has changed in it compared to the years when we came to it. We are trying to comprehend and understand this, but so far we have not yet come to some sensible logical conclusion. While there is only a feeling - a feeling of stagnation.



It appeared in 2012. That year when we had relicensing. I wrote a lot about it in my blog that nothing is happening, and this is strange. And so, so far nothing has happened all these years. Now it became clear that this is more a system than an anomaly. Certainly, to some extent there is a crisis. It is connected precisely with the fact that everyone is happy with everything, that everyone likes everything, that our small project continues to improve, and the graphs continue to go up. In addition, most of the participants believe that as the graphs grow, it means that everything is good in the project. But it is not, there is still a lot of things that can be improved.



- For example?



- Community. Editors. Web site. Kartostil. Any aspect of the project, tangible or intangible, can be significantly better. Just an example, we have in the project only two or three system administrators on the entire planet. They are all volunteers. If they get sick or bother them, the project will slowly begin to fall. Many are aware of this, including in the OSM Council, but no one does anything about it. Because that's the way it is, because if everything works, then why change something? And so in OSM everywhere.



We have a limited number of people responsible for very large parts of the project. And worse, these people are the same all the time. Right from the moment the project was founded in 2004. Sooner or later, for example, they begin to die of old age, if exaggerated. And absolutely nothing is being done to secure the future of OSM. Everyone looks at the graphics of the past, but no one builds the graphics of the future. This is one of the reasons for the crisis.



- When you say that “everyone is happy with everything,” who exactly do you mean? Commercial companies?



- OSM does not suit commercial companies at all. They use it only because there is no longer any alternative. We talked about this in one of the episodes of my podcast "Carcalypesis" . But the point is that if commercial companies could change at least something in OSM, they would change it: license, tagging model, API, editors, community - whatever. If companies could influence, they would influence.



- Why can't they influence? Is something stopping them?



- The global OSM community perceives the desire of commercial companies to change something in the project as one of the biggest threats. Because if a company can change something, then this company will begin to manage the project. And OSM should not be managed by a commercial company. OSM is a volunteer initiative and it should remain so. This position protects the OSM from absorption by commercial structures, but at the same time prevents its improvement.



While the way out of the current situation has not been found: the project participants either are afraid to look for him, or they don’t know which side he is from. In any case, it will require a very strong restructuring of the entire project. In the meantime, everyone just looks at how third-party commercial companies are suffering, using data from OSM.



You also need to understand that this is a relatively new call for OSM. 5-6 years ago there were no such number of OSM data consumers. Because no one raised the issue of quality. It's simple: once we use it, the quality must be above average. This is completely normal. If something is demanded of us, it means that we are better than the average in the hospital. We have already been chosen and want the map to be better and to continue to be the best.



- At one time you tried to create a Council of the Russian OSM. Can you tell us more about this?

- The initiator of the creation of the Russian OSM Council was not me. It was a group of active participants in RU-OSM of 11 people. It all started in 2011. The council was created as a contact point, as a replacement for an official legal entity. The council was supposed to answer questions from outside and resolve internal disputes. For example, to use or not to use the data of the “Public Cadastral Map”, or who will be the forum moderator. Active advice did not work very long. Because it was necessary to meet once a week or once in two weeks. There was some kind of administrative work. And we all got tired of it pretty quickly. In addition, 11 people are quite difficult to get together even online. At the same time, the Council of the Russian OSM is not formally dissolved and it is still functioning. There is an e-mail of the Council, which is still being sent letters, someone from the Council is responding to them. Just the other day I responded to another letter that came to this address. Therefore, we can confidently say that the Russian OSM has a point of contact, and the Council of the Russian OSM works, but only as an advisory body.



- There is no desire to revive this structure now?

“It's not entirely clear why we need the advice.” And during the active work of the Council, we discussed this. They came to the conclusion that any structure is needed in order to manage some resources. And what are the resources of our Council? None: no money, no subordinates. Why then do we need a formal structure?



- You were also a member of OSMF. Why did you go there? Why then left?

- I was on the OSMF Council - this is the structure that manages the OSM. It consists of seven people. Elections are held every winter. I was in this council for two years and voluntarily left it. He freed up his place for Heather Leson from the USA, who is now very actively trying to change the OSMF Council for the better. So I am glad that I left in time and made room for it. As part of this council, I mostly talked with other council members.



We came up with various things that could improve OSM. Basically, from an external point of view. For example, the site “Welcome Mat” was conceived even when I was on the board. This year, most likely, there will be microgrants, the introduction of which I promoted at meetings of the OSMF Board about 2-3 years ago. Once a year, all board members meet in person to discuss current issues, as well as set goals and define a project development strategy for the coming year. By the way, just the other day there was such a meeting. My main contribution is ideas at such gatherings.



The OSMF Council is a team of the most active participants in the project who have decided that they can spend part of their personal time on strategic and bureaucratic work. They do not come up with new tagging schemes and do not say to whom and how to draw. They are just trying to make OSM more orderly.



- Why did you leave the OSMF Council?

- I felt that I had already become relatively useless. At some point, I stopped devoting enough time to the Council and basically only took part in the voting. I did not offer something new and did not perform any administrative work. If you are not doing anything, then why take a chair? It is better to give it to someone who comes with new forces and will try to change something.



- What would you add to OSM to make it better?

- “Roll back” button. Realistically.OSM has big problems with rolling back edits. I have already worked a little in this direction. Now at least there is a site from which simple edits can be rolled back. But edits are still considered as something sacred: in order to roll back something you need to talk for a long time with the one who brought them, discuss everything, check everything several times, and only then roll back. All this is because there is no simple “Roll back” button, as in the same Wikipedia.



- What would you like for a newcomer who just came to OSM?

- To be added to the chat in Telegram, not to be afraid to ask questions and not to leave if someone is not quite friendly. Because the most productive and most useful members are those who communicate in the community. Why is it important to communicate? I’ve watched the same story so many times: a person comes to OSM, starts drawing a lot of things, and then experienced osmery get in touch with him and it turns out that all this has to be rolled back, that it was all in vain, because serious mistakes were made caused by an incorrect understanding of the tag system or OSM license. Of course, after such a newcomer loses a fuse and interest in OSM. But if a person first came to the community, even if he was going to draw quite a bit, tried to understand what the project was, its rules and traditions, then the chances that his edits would not be rolled back would be aimed at 100%.The most important thing in OSM is not to draw much, but correctly.



- Ilya, what do you say at the end of the interview?

- Be interested in OSM. Most likely, you give him and, more importantly, he can give you much more than he does now. One has only to dig a little deeper. Participate in the RU-OSM chat in Telegram and on the forum , listen to podcasts, read articles, interviews and OSM wiki , translate and then, sooner or later, it turns out that the project is much more useful than it seemed at first glance. After all, the coolest thing in OSM is the hidden power of a project that can be directed towards the development of oneself.