In the UK there's a really annoying TV advert in which Michael Winner (past-it film director and restaurant critic) urges "Calm down, dear. It's only a commercial". You can find it on YouTube if you want. Our beloved (ahem) Prime Minister used the phrase to slap down a critic in the House of Commons and was rightly panned for it.
So I realise I'll probably be panned for saying the same, but: Calm down, dear. It's only a free map of the world. The amount of drama (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=drama) in OSM at the moment is quite bewildering. It's almost as if we've decided to stop being "Wikipedia for maps" and start being "Encyclopaedia Dramatica for maps". We have whole conspiracy theory threads because ESRI expressed a mild preference that mentioning the actual sum of their donation in the press release would be tacky, or something. (It was $25k. I've probably broken some embargo or something. So sue me.) This has now morphed into "OSMF is institutionally broken" via some thought process I can't pretend to understand. Meanwhile on talk@, some poor student who posted an innocent survey got jumped on. And the licence change... oh my lord. Rather than accepting and offering help to the kind, generous guys who are actually committing vast amounts of time and branepower to get it done - and maybe we'll hit 1st April or maybe it'll be a few days after or well, whatever, it's not the end of the world - we're all running round, on-list and off-list, shouting "OMG WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE". There is so much good stuff to celebrate in OSM right now. We have never been so popular nor had so much media attention. There are people planning to spend almost $1m to make OSM easier to use. The remapping work has picked up momentum way beyond my expectations. Everyone, basically, loves OSM. Let's remember that; value the contributions of other volunteers; and try to actually enjoy ourselves. I hope you will slap me down next time I'm a drama queen on the lists, and in turn, I hope you'll all accept this friendly "calm down, dear" in the spirit in which it was intended. cheers Richard [cross-posted, please consider trimming follow-ups if replying] _______________________________________________ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
