[Talk-us] why are you missing out on the this fun?

[Coast, Hurricane]

Hi Richard!

You are so right about having fun with mapping and getting social!

Along with posting events to the OSM calendar, talk lists, and IRC,
I also use meetup.com to help outreach to new mappers. [1]
It's free and you can capture people already interested in open source,
GIS, mapping, spatial fun, hiking, biking, etc.
This link here: http://www.meetup.com/everywhere/openstreetmap
will help anyone set up a meetup anywhere in the world.
So in a way, this method helps with the "just pick a date and place and do
it!" that you mention.


I've also seen other local groups use google groups.

Also, the folks at MapQuest have open forums to help people create mapping
parties, questions with Potlatch2 and many other subjects. Check it out:
http://developer.mapquest.com/web/products/open/forums

Go out and have fun! :)

Hurricane 
[1] I also like using twitter to spread the word with hash tags and links
to events





On 1/28/11 4:00 AM, "talk-us-request at openstreetmap.org"
<talk-us-request at openstreetmap.org> wrote:

>Message: 2
>Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2011 02:09:52 -0500
>From: Richard Weait <richard at weait.com>
>To: "talk-us at openstreetmap.org Openstreetmap"
>    <talk-us at openstreetmap.org>
>Subject: [Talk-us] Why are you missing out on this fun?
>Message-ID:
>    <AANLkTikS4h8Cq_XhNbcXrVznAN8Z-usDOuQkz3q3mQ_=@mail.gmail.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
>Why aren't you getting more fun out of OpenStreetMap?
>
>Because you don't know the right people.
>
>That's right.  You'll enjoy OSM even more than you do now, once you
>meet some additional local mappers.  But to do that you have to
>actually meet them.  Yes, email is nice, IRC is fine, but you have to
>meet them in person.  And you won't know how much more fun that is
>until you do it.
>
>Do you have an OSM group that meets in your town?  You should.  There
>are regular OSM meetings in every town in Germany with more than two
>traffic signals.[1]  But there are only three OpenStreetMap groups
>that meet regularly in the US.  That means that there are only six
>traffic lights in the USA![2]  That is wrong!
>
>You need to start a local OSM group in your town.  Other mappers are
>waiting for you to pluck up your nerve, pick a location and a date,
>AND DO IT!  Book it.  Add your local group to the OSM calendar[3],
>announce it on talk-us@ and IRC.  Invite the local cycling group, Open
>Data group and Linux user group.  They are all waiting to hear from
>you.  That's all the planning you have to do.  The toughest part is
>just setting the first date and that doesn't sound hard at all.  Now
>do it.
>
>You'll meet the right people. And have more fun.
>
>[1] 17% of statistics in this email are fabricated
>[2] Some of the logic is stretched too
>[3] http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Current_events
>
>