<div dir="ltr"><div>I'm also in favor of migrating to Discourse.</div><div><br></div><div>> Imports are also difficult to do right. I think that someone who cannot <br>
be bothered (in the best case) or lacks the technical capability (in the <br>
worst case) to tackle a mailing list is never the right person to <br>
execute an import.<br><br></div><div>I've only been participating in this mailing list for a few months, but here is my opinion as a newcomer:<br><br>I actually think this speaks more to a lack of tooling around imports than the skills or persistence of the importer.</div><div>Although there may be some benefit to gatekeeping the import process, I'm skeptical of the claim</div><div>that preference/ability to use a mailing list has much correlation with being able to execute a good import.</div><div><br>> We can't have an importer tune out mid-process <br>
because they have encountered an issue and are unwilling to fire up an <br>
archaic JOSM plugin to fix it.<span class="gmail-im"><br></span></div><div><span class="gmail-im"><br></span></div><div><span class="gmail-im">Again, I think this is an issue of poor tooling. Ideally, an import would not be bottlenecked on the user who proposed it,</span></div><div><span class="gmail-im">and would not rely on anything "archaic" to resolve issues.</span></div><div><span class="gmail-im">I will move this thought to a separate topic, I don't mean to derail the current thread.<br></span></div><div><br></div><div>> I believe a category on the discourse could have a post
with a detailed template that users can follow when posting about
their import. <br></div><div><br></div><div>That sounds like a great idea, that would benefit both the user proposing the import and the community discussing it.<br></div><div><br></div><div>Best,</div><div><br></div><div>William Edmisten (wcedmisten)<br></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Mon, Jun 19, 2023 at 9:55 AM James Crawford via Imports <<a href="mailto:imports@openstreetmap.org">imports@openstreetmap.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<div>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">Imports
are also difficult to do right. I think that someone who cannot be
bothered (in the best case) or lacks the technical capability (in
the worst case) to tackle a mailing list is never the right person
to execute an import. We can't have an importer tune out
mid-process because they have encountered an issue and are
unwilling to fire up an archaic JOSM plugin to fix it.<br>
</blockquote>
<p>Good point. I wanted to elaborate on this with some thoughts that
I've had: I believe a category on the discourse could have a post
with a detailed template that users can follow when posting about
their import. Time and time again I witness prospective importers
making mailing list messages without even linking their wiki page,
and often also not completing all steps that are expected before
writing the list. I see other users constantly asking for more
context to be provided, and requesting basic tasks be completed
that should have already been long done. Having a template to
follow can make it easier to understand what is expected from a
post, rather than having to go into the mailing list blind. <br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite">Neither
is Discourse of course - it can still happen that you get buy-in
on Discourse and then you find out that local mappers are
overwhelmingly against what you are doing, just they weren't on
Discourse. </blockquote>
Sure, it's damn near impossible to get good levels of representation
in OSM discussions, due to the disconnected and spread out nature of
the community. But I will say that I've never seen any other channel
of communication have the same level of international participation
except maybe discord, but for obvious reasons I don't suggest moving
formal discussion there! While you are right that a user unable to
use a mailing list probably shouldn't be importing, is it fair to
say that those users should be excluded from the discussion?<br>
<blockquote type="cite">Plus, I
have heard people say that if you are on a low-bandwidth Internet
connection, Discourse is a huge step back compared to a mailing
list. It is possible that Discourse is excluding people too - just
different people from those excluded by mailing lists.
<br>
</blockquote>
I can also see this possibly being a problem. however, you should
definitely take a look at <a href="https://meta.discourse.org/t/tutorial-for-using-discourse-over-email/111308" target="_blank">this
discussion</a> about using the discourse forum as a mailing list.
I'm not sure if that's what you're referring to in the other part of
this message, but I think that'd be great for bridging the gap. <br>
<blockquote type="cite">Having
said that, I am typing this in my thunderbird email client </blockquote>
Me as well!<br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>Thanks for the input,</p>
<p>--James Crawford (SherbetS)<br>
</p>
</div>
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</blockquote></div>