[Osmf-talk] Some ideas

[Ilya Zverev]

Hi! I was planning to put my name in the candidates list, but after
Steve appeared, I decided not to. Still, I had some ideas written, as
a substitute for a big manifesto everyone seems to like writing.
Not sure it's possible to implement them not being on the board, but
still.  The goal is to make participating in OSM activities more fun.

— Mini-grants for software developers. Half when submitting an idea
and presenting a prototype, and half when done. 100+100 for small (1-2
week long) projects and e.g. 200+200 for longer (that take months).
Granted by EWG, also revive bounties.

— OSM member of the week. Somebody who did something big and
interesting. Mapping a town, gathering a first mapping party,
importing or preventing/reverting an import, writing a tool etc. Panel
of fame on osm.org or wiki, interviews, a token chocolate at sotm etc.

— Ulf Möller award to replace the Lolcat. Make it bigger. Award it
yearly at SotM in two nominations: mapping and software (or more).
Grant sub-awards montly or every two months. Welcome nominations, but
also do the search ourselves (CWG?) to promote non-vocal members.
Device a set of rules to prevent awarding the same people, prevent
postponing development just because somebody already've made something
great that month and so on.

— Bigger monetary grants by request. Clear rules, examples, publicity.
Not only for software development (while it's the main purpose), but
e.g. for organizing non-sotm conferences.

— More official conferences, btw. State of the Map usually is held too
far from mappers. 2-3 regional conferences (SOTM JP, SOTM EU) should
be organized by OSMF's sotm team.

— Enroll people who already do blogs and stuff to CWG. Reduce virtual
responsibility: they already produce useful work, so make it
beneficial: official news a bit earlier, contact data of CWG and
general OSMF members at hand, volunteer translations. Make a social
network of osm bloggers, basically.

— Membership cards for OSMF members. Not optional: I guess they cost
around 1€, so we can afford to make them for everyone (or in batches
on demand). Photo and tagline optional, would have to send
questionnaire to OSMF members. Deliver at sotm, or for extra pay.

— I'm against multi-year membership. Let members acknowledge they are
still interested.

— Automated membership database. A way to check and upgrade membership
status, automated reminders, public list of normal members. Easy way
for everyone to know, for example, how many members there are per
country.

— Clear explanation what do OSMF members get for being in OSMF. More
responsibilities? Priority check-in at sotm? 15 minutes of a board
member's time? Personal map extracts mailed monthly? Mobilization of
any OSMF member for a cause? Elaborate on this, make being OSMF member
more fun.

— Where does OSMF funds go? Besides servers/bureaucracy it's not clear
now, there should be 3-5 interesting items that say "money really
works in OSMF" and motivate further donations.

I'm not sure we should discuss those ideas in this mailing list, it
has seen quite a lot of discussions recently. I don't like and don't
understand mailing lists. This is probably a Board and working groups
matter. I'd be glad if they just bookmarked this post for a time they
need some brainstorming ideas.


IZ