I love the project idea, unfortunately I had bad experiences with the community. I had lots of fun walking my neighbourhood to perform quests in the app until like one or two other users started reverting my edits. I checked their comments and it was some weird pedantic arguments, like I shouldn't mark a street as not walkable because there is no official sign that prohibits walking; the fact that it's basically a highway with no sidewalk would not matter.
I ended up digging through the OSM wiki for definitions and rules to argue my case but in the end it felt very much like people on a power trip insistent on getting their way. It has ruined the fun in StreetComplete for me and I haven't participated since.
I actually feel better about making edits if I know people may revert them. I don't have the time or interest to dig in deeply to what exactly they want, so I normally wouldn't contribute. But if I know people double check and fix mistakes, I'm more likely to try and be helpful with the app.
"I feel more comfortable contributing to huge open source projects through the use of AI because I know that the maintainers will review my code for me and catch the issues I didn't"
I don't want to attribute anything to how you expressed that you feel, but I believe that this is what's known as "Deferral of Responsibility" and it can actually _negatively_ impact the quality of the data you are claiming to want to help curate.
Please don't use quotes in this context, you're putting words in someone else's mouth that the person did not say and did not mean. In this case, the contributor is making a good faith effort to help, providing data that no one else is in a position to provide, and worries less because any issues can be corrected. In the AI case, anyone can run the slop generator and massive changes can be produced that overwhelm the ability of maintainers to check. It's not the same.
Respectfully I disagree. The purpose of quoting is to present a hypothetical statement that I believe is comparable to what the original person wrote. This is a common and well-known method of communicating such a comparison in a concise way.
As I wrote in my original post, I am not attributing any intent to what the person wrote, and am focusing on how what they are describing is equivalent in nature to the hypothetical statement I presented and can actually be harmful, even if the intentions are pure.
While the scope of the issues being compared is not equivalent, you're excluding from your rebuttal the scores of low-experience developers submitting changes to open source projects with their own pure intentions.
To borrow your own words; those contributors are making a good faith effort to improve the open source project by providing AI-generated change requests that they believe no one else is in a position to provide (time, priorities, etc), and worry less because any issues with their submissions can theoretically be corrected by the maintainers.
Please take some time to understand the nuance in the statements I am making. I assure you I chose my original words with intent.
I could have framed it better through the use of "It's like saying..." or something equivalent. There's clearly a spectrum in how folks handle nuance in a text post online. I should have accounted for that in my original post.
atollk · · focus · HN ↗
I ended up digging through the OSM wiki for definitions and rules to argue my case but in the end it felt very much like people on a power trip insistent on getting their way. It has ruined the fun in StreetComplete for me and I haven't participated since.
technothrasher · · focus · HN ↗
zeeveener · · focus · HN ↗
I don't want to attribute anything to how you expressed that you feel, but I believe that this is what's known as "Deferral of Responsibility" and it can actually _negatively_ impact the quality of the data you are claiming to want to help curate.
not2b · · focus · HN ↗
zeeveener · · focus · HN ↗
As I wrote in my original post, I am not attributing any intent to what the person wrote, and am focusing on how what they are describing is equivalent in nature to the hypothetical statement I presented and can actually be harmful, even if the intentions are pure.
While the scope of the issues being compared is not equivalent, you're excluding from your rebuttal the scores of low-experience developers submitting changes to open source projects with their own pure intentions.
To borrow your own words; those contributors are making a good faith effort to improve the open source project by providing AI-generated change requests that they believe no one else is in a position to provide (time, priorities, etc), and worry less because any issues with their submissions can theoretically be corrected by the maintainers.
Please take some time to understand the nuance in the statements I am making. I assure you I chose my original words with intent.
not2b · · focus · HN ↗
zeeveener · · focus · HN ↗