Wipedia has added Page Previews. I think it would be cool to have something similar to that and Github Hover Cards for OSM.
What will this enable that we can't do today?
We could potentially have hover cards for users, features or changesets.
For users, the hover card would include a quick bio, profile page and maybe (at a later stage if it's too hard) simple stats. An important feature here could be to add a "message" button to directly communicate with the user. This would allow people exploring a changeset to get a quick glance at who is mapping in that area.
For features/changesets, this could add either tag information when hovering over an iD, or possibly a mini map of the entire feature if we can get it rendered somewhere.
Whom does this benefit?
For beginners, a hover card would bring a greater sense of community to the mapping context. It would lower barriers to messaging mappers in that area.
For power users, it would bring helpful context - such as the level of experience of a mapper - to the decision about a changeset's potential validity/invalidity.
Any drawbacks?
If implemented in different parts of the site without thinking about user flow, I think this might clutter the interface.
It might slow down the experience if it sends too many requests back to OSM's API.
Another consideration is what we should include in the cards? This additional context could open up to scope creep if not carefully thought out.
Resources needed to build and maintain?
This depends on what we want to include in the cards. If we start with simple mirrors of the existing user profile, additionally adding a messaging button, then I don't think we need an additional server. If we're rendering statistics, then we could benefit from the work done in OSMesa or the recent Missing Maps API stats. If we're rendering features, it would need a different pipeline maybe including a tiler.
See also:
Any ideas for a project name?
hovercards ?
Describe this project in a single emoji:
📃
Other
Thanks to @bhousel @jenningsanderson @mojodna @batpad for bouncing around the initial idea.
I am proposing OSM Hover Cards
Wipedia has added Page Previews. I think it would be cool to have something similar to that and Github Hover Cards for OSM.
What will this enable that we can't do today?
We could potentially have hover cards for users, features or changesets.
For users, the hover card would include a quick bio, profile page and maybe (at a later stage if it's too hard) simple stats. An important feature here could be to add a "message" button to directly communicate with the user. This would allow people exploring a changeset to get a quick glance at who is mapping in that area.
For features/changesets, this could add either tag information when hovering over an iD, or possibly a mini map of the entire feature if we can get it rendered somewhere.
Whom does this benefit?
Any drawbacks?
Resources needed to build and maintain?
This depends on what we want to include in the cards. If we start with simple mirrors of the existing user profile, additionally adding a messaging button, then I don't think we need an additional server. If we're rendering statistics, then we could benefit from the work done in OSMesa or the recent Missing Maps API stats. If we're rendering features, it would need a different pipeline maybe including a tiler.
See also:
Any ideas for a project name?
hovercards ?
Describe this project in a single emoji:
📃
Other
Thanks to @bhousel @jenningsanderson @mojodna @batpad for bouncing around the initial idea.