Hello everyone, Here are some snippets from this conversation I would like to address:
* I would actually like a test/mentoring system, then at least I would know if I'm rubbish or not! * When I came on board, I wondered why there weren't learning materials I had to study, and then a test to be sure I was ready to map. * I also wondered why I was able to contribute to any task instead to being routed to tasks meant especially for newcomers, with a mentoring team watching over my work, giving me suggestions for improvements. * Required reading and a mapping test? These are common 'misunderstanding' with OpenStreetMap. When I first found OSM it was a basemap in another software, but what really caught my attention was how horribly mapped my home town was. So I went searching on the internet, learned a tiny bit about the project itself - but also found a local OSM group. So what did I do, I basically approached them with the mentality that 'they would fix this for me, right?' - totally wrong - what they did was empower me to fix it myself. Not exactly what I had hoped, but in the long-run; the much better solution. And that leads to answering a few of those questions above - why is there 'no one watching your work' - actually there are, millions of them. Maybe not specifically looking at that last thing you traced and providing direct feedback; but eventually everything in OSM will get 'peer reviewed', and reviewed again - and ran through a dozen QA tools - and further edited; and so on and so forth. There are NO barriers to entry in OSM; that is probably one thing that is quite confusing to anyone unfamiliar with the Open Source concept. Much like Wikipedia, you don't need to be a published author or go through some vetting system in order to contribute; that's the point - we want everyone in the world to be able to contribute. All that said, we built LearnOSM.org to provide those learning materials - sure, much like OSM, it isn't complete; and we continue to work on improvements. And originally the Tasking Manager did not have a validation system; no it does, and problems have been pointed out, and we're working to improve it. There were also some comments around 'volunteer satisfaction' - not that I want to take you away from HOT - but back to my 'intro to OSM' story - nothing is more satisfying than getting your local neighborhood onto OSM and showing where 'the big time map providers' are way behind: http://tools.geofabrik.de/mc/#15/39.3681/-104.8825&num=4&mt0=mapnik&mt1=cyclemap&mt2=bing-map&mt3=google-map Happy Mapping, =Russ Russell Deffner russell.deff...@hotosm.org Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) http://hotosm.org _______________________________________________ HOT mailing list HOT@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/hot
