At 12:09 PM 3/13/2008, Andy Robinson (blackadder) wrote: ... >However it is not easy to contact new users if they wish to remain in the >background. We could however help the project without compromising privacy >if we obtained a little more information at signup (www) and then provided >those new users with the names of those near them that are willing to help >answer questions. If all users selected their location (dropdown list of >country/city or clickable map), then this would be easy to do. Additionally >users who wish to be "mentors" can mark their own user pages with this >election and the server can do the rest. Neither party need know where the >other actually resides but simply that they have an interest/reside in the >same basic geographical area. That might be same country, region or city. > >We all keep promoting the community spirit of OSM but we don't exactly make >it very easy to be a social community when you first sign up. > >Anyone else have some ideas?
Stealing some of the ideas already suggested, a key thing would be to get in engagement in, or at least awareness of, some of the community resources *immediately* on sign up. I guess a "new user" by definition is one who signs up at http://www.openstreetmap.org/create-account.html (as distinct from the wiki). 1) Further encourage folks to to sign up by putting a link in the main page "OpenStreetMap is a free editable map ..." box that non-logged in users see. Yes, there is a "sign up" link, but it does not explain why or encourage! 2) Expand the sign up page: - pre-checked main and/or new newbie mailing list tick boxes (but easy and obvious to opt out) - drop-down country and state/city box as Andy suggests. 3) A welcome email with some of the key starter links on the wiki and an invitation to the country-specific mailing list of country selected and said mailing list exists (hmm, can that be confirmed programmatically?). 4) Needs thinking through, but some sort of easy path to also signing up for a wiki account and using the neat "Your home" feature on the User details settings page. I remember I found it a little confusing that I had to sign-up twice. Mike _______________________________________________ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
