[Imports] Import Plan for Buildings & Address in Washington, DC, USA

[Serge Wroclawski]

On Mon, Jul 14, 2014 at 7:09 PM, Alex Barth <alex at mapbox.com> wrote:
> From the Mapbox team, I myself and my colleague Aaron have been in touch
> with David Jackson from DC/OCTO who's leading the import to help him work
> through setting up tools, so has Mikel who is not affiliated with Mapbox.
> Brian DeRocher and Steven Johnson (also not affiliated with Mapbox) have
> offered to provide training.

I'm glad that you responded to the criticism about not engaging the
local community by reaching out to the local community- that's
excellent news.

> What's exciting about this project is that DC government is engaging first
> hand. Young people will learn about OpenStreetMap hands on, and they'll even
> get some cash for it - and this is all part of working for their city!
> That's awesome and I'll continue to support that. Mapbox isn't planning
> right now to do any of the upload or map review work.

I'm very confused about this. I thought that David said no money would
exchange hands.

When we say "Is anyone being paid?" we mean "Is anyone being paid?". I
feel that there is a great deal of honesty missing here, which also
sends me a message of lack of respect. I'm glad that it's being
explained now, but I why has getting the answer about money been like
pulling teeth?

I personally have concerns about these interns because they will be
coming new into OSM  (ie they are not OSM community members) and they
will have the same bad incentives that we've seen in the past with
paid mappers. Frederik has suggested some ways of addressing the
concerns- I'm interested to see what you and David's responses are to
those suggestions.

- Serge