<div class="gmail_quote"><div>I second Richard's request for better how-to's (although I think an open wiki format can work), and would add reviewing/improving communication. I have this list on digest, and find even that difficult to keep up with. I can't image not having it on digest, being a newbie, and understanding what was going on here. Maybe a forum (<a href="http://help.openstreetmap.org/">http://help.openstreetmap.org/</a>, looks to be a start, but could use design help) or something similar would work better, or more defined, topic specific mailing list? </div>
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Message: 3<br>
Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2010 10:07:32 -0700 (PDT)<br>
From: Richard Fairhurst <<a href="mailto:richard@systemed.net">richard@systemed.net</a>><br>
To: <a href="mailto:talk-us@openstreetmap.org">talk-us@openstreetmap.org</a><br>
Subject: Re: [Talk-us] Community Involvement<br>
Message-ID: <<a href="mailto:1279732052442-5321954.post@n2.nabble.com">1279732052442-5321954.post@n2.nabble.com</a>><br>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii<br>
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<br>
Apologies for butting in on your mailing list - thought this one was<br>
sufficiently non-US specific it deserved an answer.<br>
<br>
Toby Murray wrote:<br>
> Yes, navigation is a pain. The "map features" page is a pretty<br>
> good index of things to map but it often links to proposal or stub<br>
> pages (like the doctors page) that don't give a lot of information<br>
> about "how to map this feature" but rather offer discussions about<br>
> the tag or some OSM jargon that is not really helpful to<br>
> newcomers. The problem is that as one gains more experience<br>
> within OSM those pages DO become somewhat helpful so there<br>
> is little incentive for experienced mappers to change them to<br>
> make it better for new mappers.<br>
<br>
We desperately need a real OSM Beginners' Guide (rather than the apology<br>
that currently passes for one on the wiki), written by people who care about<br>
documentation, focusing on the basics, and liberally illustrated with pics<br>
and videos.<br>
<br>
And I hate to say it, but it shouldn't be open to general public editing -<br>
otherwise you get the situation at the moment where people come along and<br>
add their personal hobby horses every other day, and it degenerates into an<br>
unreadable, sprawling, unfocused mess.<br>
<br>
It's not just about tag documentation (to a certain extent, better editor<br>
presets are making that less important), but about a general introduction to<br>
OSM. A DokuWiki install on <a href="http://dev.osm.org" target="_blank">dev.osm.org</a>, with a small team writing the core<br>
docs, would be a good way to do it. I'd love to have a go (after all, my day<br>
job is as a writer and editor), but what with Potlatch and all don't have<br>
the time to head up such an initiative. But it would be the single most<br>
useful thing anyone could do for OSM right now.<br>
<br>
I did suggest to Mr Weait of this parish that he might like to be involved,<br>
as he has a clear track record in writing nice how-tos on his blog. Maybe we<br>
could get a team together?<br>
<br>
cheers<br>
Richard<br>
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