Re: [Talk-us] Increasing the number of US Mappers

[Bryce Nesbitt]

On Wed, Oct 14, 2015 at 3:18 PM, Clifford Snow 
wrote:

> Martijn's recent diary post "How can we double the number of active
> mappers in the US in a year?"
>

"Bigger tent" by "adding rooms".
Make it easier for specialist communities to find the map, and bring
mappers.
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Re: [Talk-us] Increasing the number of US Mappers

[Richard Fairhurst]

Paul Norman wrote:
> The problem is that if you make a discussion group too small, it 
> doesn't have enough activity to sustain interest in it.
> 
> Larger regions might work, but even a statewide group abandons 
> the might meet for a geobeer idea where it takes 6 hours to drive 
> across the state.
>
> Unfortunately, I don't have any great ideas.

Groups on osm.org.

Mailing lists only appeal to a certain subset of people. They look geeky,
they require yet another login/subscription, and we all get too much email
anyway. They're good for engaging the kind of people who like mailing lists,
but these days that doesn't include a lot of tech-savvy people.

The idea behind having groups on osm.org is to encourage self-organising
communities, whether by region or topic. You don't have the hassle of
finding out who the OSM lists administrator is, emailing them, convincing
other people to join, etc. etc. You just go to osm.org and start a group. If
it doesn't work because the area is too small/too big, no problem, you try
another one.

Users can join groups, and then when they post diary entries, can optionally
tag them as belonging to the Oxfordshire group or the cycle-mapping group or
whatever - and there you go, that's a discussion facility. Groups have
bounding boxes which enables the site to suggest that people might want to
join the group in the area they edit (maybe even on sign-up). So it's not a
big change, but it makes much better use of the existing social
functionality on osm.org (diary, home location, etc.) than we're already
doing.

We got some way with implementing it but the effort stalled; I got stuck
trying to figure out how pagination works on osm.org! But I would love to
see coding resume on it and will happily take part if it's not just me
working solo.

http://groups.apis.dev.openstreetmap.org/diary
http://groups.apis.dev.openstreetmap.org/groups/4
https://github.com/openstreetmap/openstreetmap-website/pull/297

cheers
Richard




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Re: [Talk-us] Increasing the number of US Mappers

[Mike Dupont]

Many people don't use mailing lists.

What about an recent edits around me feature?  What if we could
comment or vote (like) directly on a changeset/node/line? What if the
discussion could be directly a part of the editing process. Community
could form more naturally. So you could subscribe to a discussion on a
node or area and get updates. Also it would be great to be able to
filter out bots or huge world wide edits.

Other people might want to talk about railroads. Others want to review
talk about recent unreviewed edits. All of these things could be
queried and displayed.

On Wed, Oct 14, 2015 at 9:12 PM, Paul Norman  wrote:
> On 10/14/2015 5:30 PM, Greg Troxel wrote:
>>
>> - in each state, have a state mailinglist, limited to people who
>>actively map in the state, because they live there, or because they
>>drive there to work.  Explicitly discourage non-locals from joining.
>>These lists would have more of a "people you might meet for a geobeer
>>session someday" flavor, rather than people you've never met and
>>won't.
>
>
> We've got Puget Sound (northwest Washington State) and New York State lists.
> I wouldn't say either has been that much of a success. talk-us-pugetsound
> has had 4 messages in the last year, all announcements, and the region has a
> reasonably active OSM community for the US. talk-us-newyork has similar
> numbers, though I'm not sure how active the OSM community is there, as
> opposed to the geo- community.
>
> The problem is that if you make a discussion group too small, it doesn't
> have enough activity to sustain interest in it.
>
> Larger regions might work, but even a statewide group abandons the might
> meet for a geobeer idea where it takes 6 hours to drive across the state.
>
> Unfortunately, I don't have any great ideas.
>
>
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Re: [Talk-us] Self Storage Places

[Ed Hillsman]

I have used landuse=garages since coming across the following in the wiki: 
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:landuse%3Dgarages 
.

It does make sense. Storage units are in effect remote (outsourced?) 
garages/basements/attics.

Ed Hillsman
Albuquerque, NM


> On Oct 4, 2015, at 12:20 PM, Minh Nguyen  wrote:
> 
> On 2015-10-04 00:59, Paul Johnson wrote:
>> One could argue for industrial since we're talking about rental
>> warehouse space.  Is there a shop or (ugh) amenity for this?
> 
> I've never been quite sure how to tag self storage facilities. Taginfo [1] 
> shows significant usage of the following tags, each of which I've probably 
> tried out at some point:
> 
> amenity=self_storage
> amenity=storage
> building=self_storage
> building=storage
> building:use=storage
> landuse=self_storage
> landuse=storage
> man_made=storage
> shop=self_storage
> shop=storage
> shop=storage_rental
> shop=storage_units
> 
> So yeah, some consensus would be great...
> 
> [1] http://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/search?q=storage#values
> 
> -- 
> m...@nguyen.cincinnati.oh.us
> 
> 
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Re: [Talk-us] Increasing the number of US Mappers

[Bryan Housel]

Agree with everything you said about *why* groups are important, except that: 
now that it's 2015, Facebook groups is really a better place for this.


> On Oct 15, 2015, at 3:43 AM, Richard Fairhurst  wrote:
> 
> Paul Norman wrote:
>> The problem is that if you make a discussion group too small, it 
>> doesn't have enough activity to sustain interest in it.
>> 
>> Larger regions might work, but even a statewide group abandons 
>> the might meet for a geobeer idea where it takes 6 hours to drive 
>> across the state.
>> 
>> Unfortunately, I don't have any great ideas.
> 
> Groups on osm.org.
> 
> Mailing lists only appeal to a certain subset of people. They look geeky,
> they require yet another login/subscription, and we all get too much email
> anyway. They're good for engaging the kind of people who like mailing lists,
> but these days that doesn't include a lot of tech-savvy people.
> 
> The idea behind having groups on osm.org is to encourage self-organising
> communities, whether by region or topic. You don't have the hassle of
> finding out who the OSM lists administrator is, emailing them, convincing
> other people to join, etc. etc. You just go to osm.org and start a group. If
> it doesn't work because the area is too small/too big, no problem, you try
> another one.
> 
> Users can join groups, and then when they post diary entries, can optionally
> tag them as belonging to the Oxfordshire group or the cycle-mapping group or
> whatever - and there you go, that's a discussion facility. Groups have
> bounding boxes which enables the site to suggest that people might want to
> join the group in the area they edit (maybe even on sign-up). So it's not a
> big change, but it makes much better use of the existing social
> functionality on osm.org (diary, home location, etc.) than we're already
> doing.
> 
> We got some way with implementing it but the effort stalled; I got stuck
> trying to figure out how pagination works on osm.org! But I would love to
> see coding resume on it and will happily take part if it's not just me
> working solo.
> 
> http://groups.apis.dev.openstreetmap.org/diary
> http://groups.apis.dev.openstreetmap.org/groups/4
> https://github.com/openstreetmap/openstreetmap-website/pull/297
> 
> cheers
> Richard
> 
> 
> 
> 
> --
> View this message in context: 
> http://gis.19327.n5.nabble.com/Increasing-the-number-of-US-Mappers-tp5857059p5857085.html
> Sent from the USA mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
> 
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Re: [Talk-us] Increasing the number of US Mappers

[Greg Troxel]

Bryan Housel  writes:

> Agree with everything you said about *why* groups are important,
> except that: now that it's 2015, Facebook groups is really a better
> place for this.

Except that osm is part of the Free Sofware / Open Data world, and it
isn't reasonable to expect contributors to have a relationship with an
advertising company.




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Re: [Talk-us] Increasing the number of US Mappers

[Bryan Housel]

Relax, I am not saying “contributors must have a Facebook account”, rather I am 
saying “People with a Facebook account should be able to join a local interest 
mapping group”.

This is about increasing the number of casual mappers interested in OSM. For 
example, Maptime is an organization that runs local meetups for this purpose.  
They currently seem to prefer Meeetup/Twitter, but I think a stronger presence 
on Facebook would do more to further their aims.


> On Oct 15, 2015, at 9:33 AM, Greg Troxel  wrote:
> 
> 
> Bryan Housel  writes:
> 
>> Agree with everything you said about *why* groups are important,
>> except that: now that it's 2015, Facebook groups is really a better
>> place for this.
> 
> Except that osm is part of the Free Sofware / Open Data world, and it
> isn't reasonable to expect contributors to have a relationship with an
> advertising company.
> 
> 


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Re: [Talk-us] Increasing the number of US Mappers

[Richard Fairhurst]

On 15/10/2015 14:28, Bryan Housel wrote:

Agree with everything you said about *why* groups are important,
except that: now that it's 2015, Facebook groups is really a better
place for this.


Yeah... but no.

Every time this comes up, someone suggests "use my favoured platform". 
Which might be Facebook, or it might be Google Groups, or Meetup, or 
whatever.


Which is tempting, except these platforms have incredibly uneven 
penetration both demographically and geographically. Chatting to three 
friends in the pub last night (all older than me, none geeky, one even 
of American birth) I was interested to find I was the only one on 
Facebook, and even then I'm a pretty reluctant user.[1] The other three 
had made a conscious decision to stay away.


You can _get_ people to OSM via Facebook; it's one of many good channels 
for that. And you can use it to organise within a particular 
demographic, particularly young and urban.


But it's not an answer to "how do we make mapping fun and 'sticky'?", 
whereas groups on OSM can be. You can integrate OSM groups into the 
discovery process - sign up, have groups suggested to you, get invites 
from people who've seen your mapping - which you can't easily do with a 
third-party solution, especially given the Facebook real name/OSM 
username mismatch.


cheers
Richard

[1] Anecdata alert: if you extrapolate that 25% across the 3,000 
population of Charlbury, it looks pretty sickly compared to the 2,400 
registered users of the Charlbury website.


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Re: [Talk-us] Increasing the number of US Mappers

[Greg Troxel]

Bryan Housel  writes:

> Relax, I am not saying “contributors must have a Facebook account”,
> rather I am saying “People with a Facebook account should be able to
> join a local interest mapping group”.
>
> This is about increasing the number of casual mappers interested in
> OSM. For example, Maptime is an organization that runs local meetups
> for this purpose.  They currently seem to prefer Meeetup/Twitter, but
> I think a stronger presence on Facebook would do more to further their
> aims.

Sure, but what tends to happen is that the local osm group the organizes
on $OBJECTIONABLE_PLATFORM and those that don't use it are marginalized.


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Re: [Talk-us] Increasing the number of US Mappers

[Luis Villa]

Just a data point, if OSM is anything like Wikimedia: anywhere outside of
the US and Western Europe, mapper conversations are likely already
happening *primarily* (and possibly even *exclusively*) on Facebook. And in
the US and Western Europe, mapper conversations among people who joined in
the past 1-3 years are also likely already happening at least in large part
on Facebook. The question is not whether you should start conversations
there; the question is whether or not you're engaging with and benefiting
from the conversations that are already happening.

Luis

On Thu, Oct 15, 2015 at 10:30 AM Greg Troxel  wrote:

>
> Bryan Housel  writes:
>
> > Relax, I am not saying “contributors must have a Facebook account”,
> > rather I am saying “People with a Facebook account should be able to
> > join a local interest mapping group”.
> >
> > This is about increasing the number of casual mappers interested in
> > OSM. For example, Maptime is an organization that runs local meetups
> > for this purpose.  They currently seem to prefer Meeetup/Twitter, but
> > I think a stronger presence on Facebook would do more to further their
> > aims.
>
> Sure, but what tends to happen is that the local osm group the organizes
> on $OBJECTIONABLE_PLATFORM and those that don't use it are marginalized.
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Re: [Talk-us] Increasing the number of US Mappers

[stevea]

Agree with everything you said about *why* groups are important, 
except that: now that it's 2015, Facebook groups is really a better 
place for this.


No, Facebook is not a better place.  Vast billions of people do not 
(will not, refuse to) use Facebook.  Onerous Terms of Service, the 
feeling that a telescope is being shoved up our...there are many 
reasons, let us respect those choices.


I agree with Richard (Fairhurst) here:  "(Facebook) is not an answer."

If OSM is going to do "groups" let's do them.  Not outsource, 
delegate, or "use my favorite platform."  Heck, if you wanted to be 
kind of quick (and admittedly crude) about it, you could almost turn 
our existing wiki system into such a thing.  OK, don't (really, 
DON'T!), but please, let's invent the right wheel here from within 
the folds of our very own project.  We have good (software, forum, 
"groups,"...) toolsmiths, let's grow this within OSM.  We could even 
use an off-the-shelf solution from the open-source world, if the 
right fit is found and it well meets our needs.


To further Greg Troxel's point:  for us, the only platform which is 
not an $OBJECTIONABLE_PLATFORM is OSM.


Luis Villa writes:
"The question is not whether you should start conversations there; 
the question is whether or not you're engaging with and benefiting 
from the conversations that are already happening."


OK, if I accept that, then it is incumbent upon those users to "post 
back" (or otherwise "make informed") users on the OSM platform.  Heck 
(again), even software could do this.  Facebook translation bot, 
anybody?


I find it almost unbelievable that after an entire decade of 
spectacular growth to millions of people in this project, we are 
still quibbling about basic communication platforms that allow us to 
identify and grow our community.  We truly can do better.


SteveA
California

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Re: [Talk-us] Increasing the number of US Mappers

[Steve Friedl]

There is no single solution that will please or attract everybody; speaking for 
myself, if the only way to participate is to join yet another forum, I'm pretty 
sure I would not bother, and in practice these side forums often fail to 
develop a critical mass sufficient to make it thrive.

I do understand that many don't care for Facebook, and the tone of some is 
similar to the frothing anti-Microsoft rants of the GNU folks, and that's fine 
for them, but not everybody feels that way, and avoiding a large pool of 
willing participants - especially the younger ones - just because not everybody 
will choose to play seems like a missed opportunity.

Sometimes one has to choose between being right or being effective, and this 
sounds like one of those times.

Steve -- Addicted mapper SJFriedl, plus longtime participant in open-source 
software development

-Original Message-
From: stevea [mailto:stevea...@softworkers.com] 
Sent: Thursday, October 15, 2015 11:12 AM
To: talk-us@openstreetmap.org
Subject: Re: [Talk-us] Increasing the number of US Mappers

>Agree with everything you said about *why* groups are important, except 
>that: now that it's 2015, Facebook groups is really a better place for 
>this.

No, Facebook is not a better place.  Vast billions of people do not (will not, 
refuse to) use Facebook.  Onerous Terms of Service, the feeling that a 
telescope is being shoved up our...there are many reasons, let us respect those 
choices.

I agree with Richard (Fairhurst) here:  "(Facebook) is not an answer."

If OSM is going to do "groups" let's do them.  Not outsource, delegate, or "use 
my favorite platform."  Heck, if you wanted to be kind of quick (and admittedly 
crude) about it, you could almost turn our existing wiki system into such a 
thing.  OK, don't (really, DON'T!), but please, let's invent the right wheel 
here from within the folds of our very own project.  We have good (software, 
forum,
"groups,"...) toolsmiths, let's grow this within OSM.  We could even use an 
off-the-shelf solution from the open-source world, if the right fit is found 
and it well meets our needs.

To further Greg Troxel's point:  for us, the only platform which is not an 
$OBJECTIONABLE_PLATFORM is OSM.

Luis Villa writes:
"The question is not whether you should start conversations there; the question 
is whether or not you're engaging with and benefiting from the conversations 
that are already happening."

OK, if I accept that, then it is incumbent upon those users to "post back" (or 
otherwise "make informed") users on the OSM platform.  Heck (again), even 
software could do this.  Facebook translation bot, anybody?

I find it almost unbelievable that after an entire decade of spectacular growth 
to millions of people in this project, we are still quibbling about basic 
communication platforms that allow us to identify and grow our community.  We 
truly can do better.

SteveA
California

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Re: [Talk-us] Increasing the number of US Mappers

[stevea]

Steve Friedl writes:
There is no single solution that will please or attract everybody; 
speaking for myself, if the only way to participate is to join yet 
another forum, I'm pretty sure I would not bother, and in practice 
these side forums often fail to develop a critical mass sufficient 
to make it thrive.


So, recognizing that "side forums" do and will exist, support them 
(with ideas like a Facbook bot that rolls into a central-to-OSM 
repository those discussions in their own "room.")


I do understand that many don't care for Facebook, and the tone of 
some is similar to the frothing anti-Microsoft rants of the GNU 
folks, and that's fine for them, but not everybody feels that way, 
and avoiding a large pool of willing participants - especially the 
younger ones - just because not everybody will choose to play seems 
like a missed opportunity.


I'm not saying to avoid, just make things more OSM-centric, and watch 
as people flock there.  Not everyone will, I recognize, but tools 
that plug into them and "flow back" can reduce or even eliminate 
missed conversations being "islanded" in one place vs. existing at 
the "definitive" (OSM-centric) locus.  Yes, this comes at a price of 
modest effort and duplication of threads, but initial costs can be 
small, and bandwidth/storage are cheap.


Sometimes one has to choose between being right or being effective, 
and this sounds like one of those times.


I don't know about that, I'm saying we can do both:  right AND 
effective.  Some initial effort is involved, (as it always is) and 
then it can run largely on auto-pilot -- some administration and 
maintenance -- and those costs remain relatively small.


Is this much different than the many forum-style softwares that are 
out there?  An organization/project as big as ours would need it to 
scale to a relatively large size, but that can be done.  Should such 
a system have a modular approach to importing data from other 
platforms, well, Bob's Your Uncle (a successful result is obtained).


SteveA
California

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Re: [Talk-us] Increasing the number of US Mappers

[stevea]

The wiki is bubble-gummy enough to gin up a rough working skeleton of 
a project, but that's a bit geeky.


Our wiki doesn't necessarily foment dialog, conversation, multiple 
threads, sophisticated Facebook-automatic translation technology, 
(magic, as far as I know) like an old-fashioned tree-structured 
forum, with moderators and such.  I'll land somewhere around here, 
perhaps as Steve Coast says "US states" seem like a cleaving place (I 
don't want to put words in his mouth) and I agree:  US states is a 
natural place to continue cleaving hierarchical scattering and 
identification of specific communities.


The wiki is a rather rough-and-ready place for that (e.g. 
California/Railroads), but it isn't tree-structured forum like other 
places are.  We have a place for those dedicated to craftily building 
wikis, but that certainly isn't for everybody.  We talk of a place as 
we say "tree-structured forum-ish with a cleaving around US states is 
a place to go."  Sure, maybe next.  I might say it is an emerging 
consensus, but I must listen more.


Other places can be extended to be more statewide-conversation 
threaded, or perhaps something new and fancier can be dreamed of 
here.  With software, it is sometimes "wish" software:  a whisper 
along these lines gets mentioned in the right hallway or lunchroom, 
some dedicated volunteer finds some Libre/GNU code and 
tap-tap-hammers for a few days some custom scripts while listening to 
a community of consensus, and pow, we've got something.  OSM is a big 
project, and this could happen.  Heck, it might already be happening.


Build a good channel (forum-based-community...at least until the 
better next is here), and they will come.


I appreciate the listening that happens here.

SteveA
California

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