Hi, I'd like to ask for a quick show of hands on the idea of making the whole built-in OSM messaging system public (not retroactively of course, but change it so that anyone can ready any message written in the future).
I am not sure whether this is a good idea myself, that's why I ask. The rationale behind this is the following: We suspect that there is quite a bit of "new user intimidation" going on here in Germany, where people sometimes almost obsessively "protect" their area against changes and might, sometimes rather impolitely, challenge newcomers. Since this is not happening in public, the newcomer has nobody to help him, and anyone can basically say anything ("Haven't you read that pelican crossings are deprecated?") without someone else noticing. Being what he is, the newcomer will of course take everything at face value and go down a path of trouble. If all intra-OSM messaging were public (somewhat like a Wiki "talk" page), then even if only few people took the time to actually read other people's conversations, it would be easier for the community as a whole to get involved and protect its interests against individuals causing trouble, and knowing that what oen writes is public, people might also exercise some restraint when choosing their words. Another thing one could to if public messaging does not find favour is posting a caveat immediately over the "write message" text area, something along the lines of "if you're about to criticize someone whom you don't know, think twice and always assume good faith", whatever. Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail [EMAIL PROTECTED] ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" _______________________________________________ Talk-de mailing list Talk-de@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-de