I agree the replies are in good faith, and I'm happy people took the time to respond to me. But somehow the good faith makes things frustrating. Trolls can be ignored, downvoted and banned, but communication problems are complicated. If we have a discussion and nobody changes their mind, something's wrong.
They did precisely what I was advocating: adjust for population and area (though a little coarse). And it makes the data much more insightful: look at that bright Greenland, or Brazil lagging behind the rest of the continent. That's not visible on OP's map.
And I stand corrected on the import information. I hadn't thought of that. So the information on the map is not useless, but it could be much better.
It's a visualization of different data though, counting the number of users making a change each day.
I see what you are saying about being more interested in a visualization that tried to account for some regional variances (and it's a fair point about Mercator distorting things), but I guess the thing people are taking issue with is the statement that it would be better, when it would probably be different enough to not even invite comparison.
(What I mean with that last bit is that "here's the nodes" maps simply and directly back to the database, whereas any normalization is going to involve picking some basis for the normalization and figuring out how to apply that basis and so on.)
or Brazil lagging behind the rest of the continent.
Except that when it comes to map data it they aren't lacking behind and that's exactly what is shown on OP's map. Adjusting for mappers would remove the essence of OP's map: How much has been mapped in a certain area.
If you could track every car and make a map showing how dense traffic is at a certain time you would not adjust for population either, because that would just distort you data.
but it could be much better.
I disagree. Every adjustment you make I would have to consider in addition when interpreting the map. For example then I would have to know if Netherlands or Germany is more densely populated or has more contributors to figure out which one has more map data. Right now I just look on the map, see which one is bright and know it has more nodes.
About your first link: http://neis-one.org/2012/11/active-users-osm-nov12/
They did precisely what I was advocating: adjust for population and area (though a little coarse). And it makes the data much more insightful: look at that bright Greenland, or Brazil lagging behind the rest of the continent. That's not visible on OP's map.
And I stand corrected on the import information. I hadn't thought of that. So the information on the map is not useless, but it could be much better.