[OSM-talk] Please be gentle with newbies
These days I'm retired and use my old age pensioner bus pass to grab a free coffee. Often there are strings attached like a group of politicans or journalists etc. floating around. Today I got cornered by one who had been on the receiving end of a communication from a mapper saying they had made a mistake on their first attempt at mapping. It was a couple of years ago and the message was a little on the aggressive side. The receiver still remembers it clearly and in their mind OSM was a well this not the place to use those sort of words. When you send a message to a mapper you don't know who they are. You are representing OpenStreetMap when you send a message so please put your passion to one side and be gentle with the poor things if only so I can enjoy my free coffee in peace. I do sympathize, I've come across a lot of suboptimal mapping in my time and mentally expressed exactly the same thoughts that were expressed but I do try to count to ten before sending a polite note that says did you really mean to map this this way? Have you read the wiki here which gives guidance? And yes I know those who read this mailing list would always be polite but I couldn't think where else to post it. Thanks John ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Please be gentle with newbies
sent from a phone > On 4. Mar 2020, at 00:25, john whelan wrote: > > When you send a message to a mapper you don't know who they are. You are > representing OpenStreetMap when you send a message so please put your passion > to one side and be gentle with the poor things yes, in particular, it may be obvious, have a look who they are before writing to them (how many edits, since when do they map, etc) and choose your wording and reasoning accordingly. Someone with a bit of experience and a record of discussed changesets for similar reasons as what has upset you, will merit completely different addressing than a newbie with few edits who made (likely without even noticing) some problematic modifications. Generally, a polite and gentle message will get you further than a slap in their face ;-) Cheers Martin ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Please be gentle with newbies
Wikipedia has had a behavioural guideline like this since almost the beginning with the nickname WP:BITE: Please do not bite the newcomers. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Please_do_not_bite_the_newcomers On Wed, Mar 4, 2020, 7:25 AM john whelan, wrote: > These days I'm retired and use my old age pensioner bus pass to grab a > free coffee. Often there are strings attached like a group of politicans > or journalists etc. floating around. > > Today I got cornered by one who had been on the receiving end of a > communication from a mapper saying they had made a mistake on their first > attempt at mapping. > > It was a couple of years ago and the message was a little on the > aggressive side. The receiver still remembers it clearly and in their mind > OSM was a well this not the place to use those sort of words. > > When you send a message to a mapper you don't know who they are. You are > representing OpenStreetMap when you send a message so please put your > passion to one side and be gentle with the poor things if only so I can > enjoy my free coffee in peace. > > I do sympathize, I've come across a lot of suboptimal mapping in my time > and mentally expressed exactly the same thoughts that were expressed but I > do try to count to ten before sending a polite note that says did you > really mean to map this this way? Have you read the wiki here which gives > guidance? > > And yes I know those who read this mailing list would always be polite but > I couldn't think where else to post it. > > Thanks John > ___ > talk mailing list > talk@openstreetmap.org > https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk > ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
