<html><head></head><body>I am a member of some international OSM Slack channels.<br><br>However, because it requires a whole different app (which I only have space for on my computer), I only check it monthly at best.<br><br>On the other hand, I read every talk-au message within a few days of original posting, because they all arrive in my email inbox on my phone.<br><br>If the number of talk-au emails reaches overwhelming levels, it might be necessary to investigate other solutions. However, I don't think we have reached that point yet.<br><br>If we ever did explore alternatives, I would prefer an open platform, which we can host ourselves, rather than Slack or some other proprietary system.<br><br>Regards,<br>David<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On 20 September 2019 4:31:44 pm AEST, Frederik Ramm <frederik@remote.org> wrote:<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
<pre class="k9mail">Hi,<br><br>On 9/20/19 03:14, Herbert.Remi via Talk-au wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 1ex 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid #729fcf; padding-left: 1ex;">I will post several concerns and information on several issues, but the<br>first is this platform itself. <br></blockquote><br>You call this platform a "forum" which is ok in the abstract sense, but<br>note that there is actually an Australia forum in addition to this<br>Australia mailing list<br>(<a href="https://forum.openstreetmap.org/viewforum.php?id=24).">https://forum.openstreetmap.org/viewforum.php?id=24).</a> The forum<br>provides a slightly different user experience but is used less.<br><br>In other countries, people have set up Slack channels or Facebook groups<br>or even more esoteric channels of communication, in addition of or as a<br>replacement for mailing lists - browse<br><a href="https://github.com/osmlab/osm-community-index">https://github.com/osmlab/osm-community-index</a> if you want to get an idea.<br><br>There's no strict rule about where the OSM community should discuss<br>their issues, however media that requires prior registration with a<br>third-party entity - like Slack or Facebook - are sometimes frowned upon<br>as they give control over who can participate to that third party and<br>might require the participant to agree to wide-ranging exploitation of<br>their personal data by a commercial entity.<br><br>In Germany where I hail from, the forum and the mailing list are used by<br>about the same number of (but largely different) people, and since the<br>total number of contributors is large enough to guarantee lively<br>discussion on both, that's totally fine. Germany also has mailing lists<br>for individual states but they are used very little, and even<br>state-specific issues would often be discussed on the nationwide list to<br>ensure they get enough attention.<br><br>Speaking very generally, OSM has achieved the success it has with a<br>"just do it" attitude: Instead of saying, 15 years ago, "BEFORE we<br>start, let's come up with a good data scheme and a feature catalogue",<br>people said "let's just start and then fix things as we go along".<br><br>My recommendation would be to just stat discussing whatever needs<br>discussing on the talk-au mailing list and branch out as the need<br>arises. If something is worth discussing then a non-ideal UI should not<br>be the blocker, and if it is, then maybe the issue is not so important.<br><br>Bye<br>Frederik<br></pre></blockquote></div></body></html>