[OSM-newbies] Conversational gambit: New to OSM?

[Philip Striplin]

Well, I'm a very new OSMer, but I'm starting to have opinions already.

I wanted to put together a decent local map and googled until I  
stumbled on OSM.  It fitted my needs, I liked the idea of adding to  
something public and so I jumped in.

I guess the trickiest thing for a newcomer is the absence of a  
"dummies guide" - there's lots of content on the wiki and elsewhere,  
but you do sort of need to know what questions to ask before you get  
anywhere.  The documentation on Potlatch is more accessible than josm,  
although I found myself using josm more.  User docs for software is  
one thing I do for a living, so this is something I hope to contribute  
to in due course, but at present I'm still learning the nuts and bolts.

One of the scariest things I found was that it is possible to  
seriously stuff up the map by doing something innocent. Perhaps a top  
10 things NOT to do might be a useful guideline.

Every question I've asked so far on the forums and elsewhere has been  
dealt with courteously, but I have seen some abruptness.  There should  
be no such thing as a stupid question on a newbie forum.

One thing which still baffles me is that there are a number of  
different ways to accomplish many tasks, and you can often find a  
description of what those ways are, but there's not a lot which says  
"this is the best way if you want to achieve such-and-such a rendered  
effect".  Trial and error does work, but I wonder how often the wheel  
is being reinvented - and whether the consistency of the map is  
suffering.

Regards

Phil


On 5 Oct 2009, at 04:18, Richard Weait <richard at weait.com> wrote:

> Hi newbies list,
>
> Are you new to OpenStreetMap?  Here are some questions as conversation
> starters.  All are optional.
>
> 1. What first brought your attention to OSM?  A magazine article?  A
> web site interview?  SteveC's FLOSS Weekly interview?
>
> 2. What made you decide to get involved and join this list?
>
> 3. What is the trickiest part about starting with OSM, for you?  Can
> you suggest how to make this tricky thing less-tricky?
>
> Or, of course, feel free to post your questions about beginning to
> contribute data to OpenStreetMap.
>
> _______________________________________________
> newbies mailing list
> newbies at openstreetmap.org
> http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/newbies