[OSM-newbies] How to deal with unresponsive new users?

[Richard Weait]

On Wed, Jan 16, 2013 at 5:55 PM, Clay Smalley <claysmalley at gmail.com> wrote:

> I've come across a particular new user who is making a lot of common
> newbie errors. The first thing I did was send them a friendly message, in
> which I pointed them to the wiki and the mailing lists, and also pointed
> out (politely) a few mistakes they made and how to fix them (and that I
> would fix the mistakes for them).
>

Hi Clay,

If you don't include a specific invitation to return your email, then they
might not do it.  I've contacted many users without getting a response.

If you are pointing out mistakes, and fixing them yourself, perhaps that is
shutting the door on the topic for them?  Perhaps leaving it undone with
something like:

"you'll find that is is typical to frimmle zipblorts with doodle-znurfs,
instead, and I'll leave you to try that for yourself.  Be sure to let me
know how you make out.  Also feel free to ask any questions."    Of course
the remainder of the email should be appropriately polite, encouraging,
etc.

Or, all OSM site mail could be ending up in a spam filter.  :-(

So.  I don't know of a guaranteed formula for getting a response.  Try the
above, if you haven't, yet.  If the user persists as non-responsive, send a
note to data at osmfoundation.org.  We can try, gently, as well.
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