Rule 1: Have Fun!
The OSM project depends on folks participating because we want to and
because, measured in our own terms, we have fun. Whoever we are.
Whatever we do.
Crowdsourcing depends on as many people as possible being involved and
engaged. For us, that means women and men, professors and school
children, folks from literally every country in the world, non-native
and native English speakers. All are on this list. Repeat: All are on
this list. We welcome you. We hope you will stay and read ... and may
be get into posting too. We are not doing a very good job at that, are we?
So, "Steve's better map" thread. Let's end it. Rational, courteous
presentation and discussion of visions is of vital importance,
particularly on this international list. So, if there are positive
things you want to pick up as specific new threads, please go ahead ...
but be guided by my advice below.
Lastly, and I know at least one of the principal players has signed up
for this. A truly great free MOOC course is starting again tomorrow, 3rd
November. If you want to be more effective in forming opinion in
OpenStreetMap to the point that things actually happen, sign up. At
minimum, focus on watching the first and last videos in the course. The
course is much more general than the title suggests.
*Inspiring Leadership through Emotional Intelligence**
**https://www.coursera.org/course/lead-ei* (English with English,
Chinese (Simplified), Russian, Turkish, Ukrainian subtitles).
Mike
*Mike's personal checklist for dealing with "stormy weather"*
I have evolved this after many years on this list and our occasional
"storms". I am aiming this at the active Thinkers within our community
whose input I respect and encourage:
o Think of your whole audience (above) and how to engage them. Most of
your audience will never actually reply to you. [Although every now and
again you will get a really nice offlist message. They always make my day.]
o Engage positively, the academic buzz-word is "Positive Attractors" ...
watch the first course videos. After all, you want to persuade people
that You Are Right. That, whether you like it or not, is done
emotionally as well as logically.
o When there is a "storm". Post less (or may be not at all), not more.
I am a native English-speaker and scan-reader (= I can read very
quickly), but not even I can keep up with the current thread, so I miss
interesting and thought-provoking things ... so what about everyone
else? Wait a day, structure what you want to say strategically over two
or three well placed mailings. (If you follow the totality of *all* my
postings to all lists over the last two weeks, you will see I am doing
exactly this. And I will win eventually!)
o Separate personalities from their arguments. If you want say You Are
Wrong, it is perfectly possible to say this without direct personal
attack. Yep, some people will violate this and upset you, just ignore it.
o Separate people's character from their ideas. ... Oh, I have already
said that. :-)
o Lastly. A positive argument, crisis, storm, whatever, has two phases.
The first can be unpleasant if we are not all 100% emotionally and
socially very intelligent, which alas we are not. "Airing dirty washing"
(English idiom = talking publicly about things that were previously
private). Violent disagreements. Healthy, but highly adversarial
debate. And so on. It is only positive if there is a second closure
phase, that involves calm reflection, consensus-seeking, taking other
people's views into account ... and deciding on a course of action that
you may not be 100% happy with, but a large number of people are ... And
we actually do something! It really annoys how little we consciously
move on to the that ultra-important phase 2!
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