On Sat, Aug 23, 2014 at 10:51 AM, OSMR <osm_resea...@mail.com> wrote:
> We understand that as a member of multiple lists some OSM contributors may > have received the survey invitation more than once and that may have felt > like a disrespectful attempt to impose on one's personal time and inbox > space. That was definitely not our intent and although we tried to be > judicious in our use of national mailing lists (where we only posted in > about 10% of the lists), it is difficult to completely avoid duplicate > invites to some members. Simply posting the message on talk pages without > having it mailed to members seems not to be an available option in the > current OSM list setup. > So many of are frustrated by the limitations of our internal messaging system. But if it were open to just anyone, our system administrator would spend there valuable time blocking individuals that spammed us. > > The research we are pursuing is, we believe, of interest and its insights > helpful to the OSM community in terms of understanding several issues that > can help its organizational functioning and mission accomplishment (they > address member perceptions, behavior, and profile). Numerous OSM members > have been extremely supportive of our work and virtually all of the survey > takers show an interest in learning about the findings at the conclusion of > the research, a fact that suggests there is value in this research. > > Yet in order to obtain statistically meaningful results, a certain number > of responses is required and we have frankly not reached it yet (hence the > renewed request for participation in some national lists). Rather than > resigning ourselves to the thought that voluntary participation is > impossible to induce (which would largely suggest academic research to be a > futile endeavor), we choose to believe that, given the opportunity, enough > people will see the value of such research and sacrifice some personal time > for the greater good (a behavior that we believe is not foreign to the OSM > contributor base). However, to reduce the irritation that apparently these > invite messages can produce, we have limited the number of lists approached > and will close the survey as planned at the end of August, regardless of > the number of responses we will have received. > Many of us would like to see more research on the OSM community to help us develop better way to communicate and identify areas of both improvement and strengths. To that end, I like we'd like to be more of a partner in your project rather than just being the subject. It is not surprising that a large number of people completed the survey. By contributing to OSM we are by nature a sharing group. But many of us would like more in return. It would be nice to explain up front what the survey will return to us. Will we be able to analyze the results? Will we have access to the data? Please note, that we give you free and ready access to all of our data. > > There are clearly things that could be improved about this work – we > agree, for example, that offering the survey in multiple languages would > help obtain more globally representative samples and insights. Yet in most > academic research the tradeoff between ideal methodology and resource > limitations is a salient concern, and that is definitely the case here. > Yes, multiple languages should be a high priority. I don't have the numbers, but I suspect we have a very large percentage that are not English speakers. The iD editor has well over 10 languages. I suspect that no focus group was used to test the survey or you might have discovered that we didn't like sections of the survey. > > Finally, it is even the exchanges noted on the talk pages and the > [limited] negative feedback we have received that help us learn about how > the community works internally and interacts with the “outside world” – we > are thankful for all the interested members’ feedback. To the others, we > apologize (again). > I'd like to suggest that instead of being the "outside world" that you become a member of our community. One that provides research that helps us improve. Not everyone in our community is a mapper, they contribute in other ways. Research would be a valuable addition. Thanks for listening, Clifford -- @osm_seattle osm_seattle.snowandsnow.us OpenStreetMap: Maps with a human touch
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