Clarify and prioritize overall project purpose #383
Conversation
This PR proposes the following: 1. Make "collaboration and common purpose" our top priority. If we are successful, it's because of our ability to work together. This map is first and foremost a reflection of our community and we should prioritize our community perspective over any strict adherence to external principles. 2. Explicitly declare that we take our inspiration from paper maps from this region (however, this is secondary to our community opinion).
| - Promote collaboration and common purpose in the American mapping community | ||
| - Express the American experience through cartography, taking inspiration from the familiar features of North American paper maps |
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Expressing the American Experience through cartography is a catchy slogan worthy of PBS. ❤️
What would clarify the purpose even better than this section would be a statement affirming the intended audience and geographical scope. #372 (comment) posed a good question about the degree to which we’re focused on the U.S. versus the rest of the world and how much of the U.S. Additionally, we’re already off the far end of roadgeekery with our shield work, but we also have railfans and trailfans in our midst eager to have a piece of the action. This is FAQ-level material.
Also separately from this mission statement, we should document our sources of inspiration in more detail. Already, we’ve taken inspiration not only from North American road atlases but also from political and topographic maps. Potentially in the near future, trail maps and tourist maps can be added to the mix too. This is important to highlight because our process is fundamentally different than some other OSM projects: I think I’m not the only one who doesn’t put a lot of stock in my own design skills. To compensate, we’re actively (re)learning regional cartographic conventions and applying them in every discussion. Familiarity is a shortcut to usable and sensible design.
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Do you see an additional statement of scope and/or design/inspiration belonging in the lede section or further down?
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I think we can continue this line of thinking in #385 to clarify what’s being said here. No concerns on my end.
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I'm overdue to make some trips to the library but perhaps some links to some paper map resources/indexes if anybody knows any would also be a good idea? Could even just be links to github comments where people have shared good pictures. |
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Directly including paper map samples in the repo itself would be problematic for a CC0 repository, but we could certainly describe the types of maps or link to my talk at State of the Map US: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4T8FxOPlqXA It sounds like we need to create a section that specifically discusses our cartographic principles and I think that deserves its own discussion issue beyond this high-level purpose PR. |
This PR proposes the following: