[OSM-dev] Map of nearby users

[Frederik Ramm]

Martijn,

On 10/29/2011 08:14 PM, Martijn van Exel wrote:
> * http://trac.openstreetmap.org/ticket/1852 suggests the sending of
> 'GeoMessage' (basically what I was talking about too). There is no
> discussion whatsoever on this ticket so if it is a contentious issue,
> that is not reflected here.

I certainly remember that I discussed this with a number of people at 
different occasions and most were of the opinion that under no 
circumstances should people receive automated emails about local events 
without first having "opted in".

This means that you's have to offer a checkbox in the user preferences 
saying "I would like information about local OSM events"; of course you 
would then first have to find a way to convince local mappers to tick 
that box in their user preferences ;) I guess it could perhaps be 
acceptable to send an email to everyone telling them that this new 
checkbox exists and would they please check it if they want to receive 
information about local events or so - but that already is contentious, 
there are people who say that this must not be done.

A more technical issue is probably the fact that the area of residence 
may not alway be the area of mapper interest, and the question how 
exactly the software would determine the list of recipients - could the 
sender of the message specify a bbox or a center point and radius, or 
could they just specify the center point and everything else is done 
automatically?

Personally I think it might be a good idea to let mappers specify 
precisely: "I want to receive information about events in this 
rectangle" (or even: "these rectangles"). That would automatically give 
you the opt-in, plus the flexibility for the mapper to choose his 
hometown as well as that of, say, his parents where he goes twice a 
month or so.

Bye
Frederik

-- 
Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"