[Talk-ca] [OSM-talk] mass mailing osm mappers

[Sam Vekemans]

Hi,
For that,  I (we the talk-ca list) did
1:  Posted a notice on all of the Wiki Pages of people who indicated they
were mapping in Canada.  (45 or so at the time)
-tried to make the Canada wiki page as clear as i could
(http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User_talk:Srw) is an example)
* listing it on regional pages also helps
2 - announced on the talk-ca list,
3 - posted notes on my journal entry
4 - contacted everyone from around my placemark
5 - used itoworld (i set a pre-set to each of the major areas) as a way to
filter out the bots  and see who the top mappers are for each area*
6 - i asked each on the talk-ca list to share the news with others (as
talk-ca discussions progressed)
7 - we had some mapping parties which also helped   (although mapping
parties IMO)

*what is assumed is that those who are the top mappers in the area, would
also be the ones who would want to host a regional mapping party & are also
the most active.. so they are monitoring the progress of their area
quicker.  & local people are more likely to respond to other local people.

8 - gave it lots of time (after announcing)

note that Canada already had/has the Garmin Map Version so this was
something that people can use in the mean-time. (ibycus topo)

So if everyone on the import team were to try their hardest to get more
people on the talk-nz list,    Perhaps you want to create a OSM - specific
mailing list?  (since <nzopengis at googlegroups.com>, ) is generic (and was
the 1st for the area).

Your bound to annoy some people, and we certainly did.  (even though we dont
interfer with their data, it's still an annoying think knowing that your
work you did in the last few years, could be easily dropped in in a very
short time.
So a solution is to;
1 - divide up the area into small .1x.1 degree tiles and make these tiles
available for local mappers to drop in the data.
2 - doing the above would a) get those local mappers more involved as they
know the data doesnt need to be imported & it can be done at any time   b)
you can really see how OSM has the higher value data (shop names etc) which
is also a benifit and c) if your LINZ is older, then you can enjoy seeing
how accurate OSM map is.
3 - although this method takes a lot of time, the map will slowely get
better (and im sure the back-end servers would be happy too).  And it also
gives lots of time for errors in the rules.txt files that were used to be
spotted & corrected as more users are working with the data


My Pocket change,
Cheers,
Sam

On Wed, May 12, 2010 at 2:38 PM, Frederik Ramm <frederik at remote.org> wrote:

> Robin,
>
> Robin Paulson wrote:
> > we would like to make as many NZ mappers aware of the import as
> > possible, firstly to reduce these concerns, and to stop the potential
> > outfux of NZ mappers who see themselves being replaced by bots and
> > scripts. also, it would of course be beneficial to include more people
> > in what we are doing
>
> Do you not have a talk-nz list or something where this could be
> announced? A good idea would also be to create wiki page and link to
> this from the changeset comment or so, so that anyone investigating an
> edit through the web site will get to read your pamphlet.
>
> > are there any issues with mass contacting either (a) everyone who has
> > set their location as in NZ, or (b) everyone who has made an edit
> > within NZ? is there an AUP for osm which forbids this?
>
> Both of these are unwanted; (a) is not possible without actually moving
> your own location around in small increments - a certain Russ N.
> reputedly has a script that does that and got bollocked for it. (b) is
> possible and you might *just* get away with it if you're talking 10 or
> 20 messages, but not if it is in the hundreds, and especially not if
> some of them complain.
>
> I think it would be nice to have a feature where users can actually
> enable a check box in their profile "I wish to be contacted by other
> mappers in my area about mapping events or other things of relevance",
> and then an interface where you can simply draw a bounding box and say
> "send this message to all mappers in this box who have the checkbox
> ticked".
>
> But as long as we don't have that, we don't normally mass-email mappers.
>
> Bye
> Frederik
>
> --
> Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"
>
> _______________________________________________
> talk mailing list
> talk at openstreetmap.org
> http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
>
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