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

[Sebastian Arcus]

Hi Clay,

Not a direct answer to your question, a little bit the opposite 
actually. I am a new user of the mapping tools (both Potlatch and JOSM) 
and I have done a (significant) mistake in the beginning (at least that 
I know off :-) ). Another user got in touch with a very courteous email 
and pointed out my error and how to rectify it. I answered with a thanks 
and a promise that I will be good in the future :-)

I just want to say that I am very grateful for that email and it's 
something I would have not noticed for a long time otherwise. Sometime 
when I change stuff on OSM I worry I might ruin some other stuff which 
I'm not aware off - and really hope that somebody will get in touch and 
let me know if that is the case.

So not really an answer, but just a note to say thanks to those who take 
the time to double check other people's work and let them know when it 
can be improved.

Sebastian



On 16/01/13 22:55, Clay Smalley 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).
>
> A few days pass. No response; subject makes a few more changesets.
>
> I notice another common newbie error in the new changesets, and I sent
> them another (polite) message pointing them out. Again, no response, and
> a few more changesets.
>
> I'm getting tired of cleaning up after everything this person does and
> getting ignored. How should I go about dealing with this? Is there
> anyone I can report them to that can deal with them better? I don't want
> to have them temporarily banned or anything. I wish there were a way to
> put a giant flashing banner above the map that says "CHECK YOUR INBOX
> CHECK YOUR INBOX CHECK YOUR INBOX" for a targeted user but I'm pretty
> sure that functionality doesn't exist yet.
>
> --
> Clay
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> newbies mailing list
> newbies at openstreetmap.org
> http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/newbies
>


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