[Osmf-talk] Welcome Mat for Organizations

[Marc Gemis]

If that's the goal, the current list of companies and organisations is
probably OK-ish. (Although the definition of "big" company is still
not clear to me).

I now looked at the contact page, to see whether there is an easy way
to get in touch with the local chapters (which is probably more
important than the fora/mailing lists).
On the contact page there is "If you want to talk with the community
in a specific country or region, please consult the OSM Wiki.", but
that link is broken.

Is that page supposed to contain the list of local chapters  ? Would
it be useful to list contact information for the local chapters ? I'm
thinking e.g. websites and email addresses of local chapters.

m.
On Thu, Nov 29, 2018 at 9:09 AM Frederik Ramm <frederik at remote.org> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> On 29.11.2018 06:57, Marc Gemis wrote:
> > I'm not sure that it is clear from the current content that
> > hobby-mappers are really the backbone of the project, Also hobby
> > developers that advance the current tagging by implementing small
> > projects, are left out.
>
> The main aim of the "welcome mat" project was never to give an
> exhaustive introduction to OSM that works for everyone.
>
> The motive behind the "welcome mat" was initially a frustration about
> how many large organisations do something with or for OSM that affects
> us in some way, and we (the OSM community and the OSMF) don't hear about
> it until launch.
>
> Whether some charity starts a microgrant programme for OSM projects, or
> an aerial image provider decides to open their imagery for OSM, or a
> site that was heretofore only showing our maps suddenly starts accepting
> bug reports and sending them to us, or a humanitarian organisation
> starting a world-wide mapping project with OSM at its core, or a large
> North American country deciding that they want to make OSM an integral
> part in publishing their building data: There have been many instances
> in the past where someone did something totally well-meaning but still
> we were a bit unhappy and thought: Couldn't they have discussed this
> with us first, we might have had one or two ideas to make it more
> successful, or reduce unwanted side effects for our community.
>
> Further discussion led us to the insight that the actors behind such
> projects often don't even realize that the OSMF exists and that there's
> someone here with whom they could make contact *before* launching their
> grand plan with a press release.
>
> So the aim of the welcome mat was to say "hey, we're here, this is how
> OSM works, and we're happy to discuss your plans with you".
>
> If anyone thinks that the welcome mat doesn't work for this purpose,
> please submit pull requests to improve it.
>
> The welcome mat is not a neutral and un-biased representation of how OSM
> works, and it is not intended to be. The welcome mat is there to help
> reduce the issues we often have with un-coordinated and occasionally
> backfiring "helpful" projects started by organisations everywhere.
>
> You are totally right in saying that hobbyists are the backbone of OSM;
> I would go further and say: OSM belongs to hobbyists! Corporate
> users/contributors are welcome guests at our table but they don't own
> the house. It is the hobby mappers' and volunteers' house. However,
> making a big deal about this in the welcome mat could have the opposite
> effect of what we're trying to achieve. We don't want organisations to
> think "ah, if this project is mainly run by hobby mappers then I can do
> what I want" - we deliberately want to over-emphasize that there is some
> structure to OSM, and get outsiders to make contact with us, instead of
> treating OSM as if it were just a database with an API where you can do
> what you want.
>
> Bye
> Frederik
>
> --
> Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"
>
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