[Talk-us] seeking advice on running a mapping party

Richard Weait richard at weait.com
Mon Oct 3 20:50:18 BST 2011


On Mon, Oct 3, 2011 at 1:34 PM, Hillsman, Edward <hillsman at cutr.usf.edu> wrote:

> As I recall, you’ve offered advice and encouragement for mapping parties, so
> I’m seeking advice on running one. This is being organized by several
> people, none of whom has run one before. I probably will be the only person
> who has attended a mapping party, some 2.5 years ago, run in a different
> format than we will be able to do here.

[ ... ]

In short, your event sounds really ambitious.  You could have dozens
of newbies for each experienced OSMer.  I would expect that to have to
be VERY well organized to be successful.

My preference is for one-to-one coaching.  OSM is so diverse that
folks come at it with their interests from all directions.  I think
that a general, group, presentation to address all interests would be
too superficial.  That general presentation can work as a warm-up so
that everybody gets the right background information; "it's a
cooperative project", "We never copy from anything and only use our
direct observation as source[1]", "If you something incorrect, don't
complain, fix it!", etc.  Then "These are a bunch of cool things that
people are mapping", "These are a bunch of cool things that people are
doing with the data". And a list of good references and how to use
them, Local user groups, Map Features on the wiki, the help site,
Talk@ list, newbies@ list, #osm irc, etc.  But this presentation
should inspire lots of questions, so a chance for follow-up one-to-one
is really important.

One-to-one, I like to start with "What is it about OSM that interests
you?"  Followed by, "and do you have questions about how to do some
part of that?"  I let them run the computer and I'll coach them
through JOSM / Potlatch when they ask for help.  Sometimes it starts
out with "Here is the wiki.  Here is the map Features page..." rather
than mapping.  And I always start with them looking at a place they
know intimately, like their home or office.  This is no time for
guesswork about "do these roads connect or not?"

Recently, I've been recommending regular local meetups, rather than
mapping parties.  This is more of a "German" approach.  If I might
stereotype the German OSM community, I would say that they map during
the month, then get together to talk about it as their monthly
Stammtisch.  Our English friends tend to map on the way to the pub,
then talk about it there.  It is my understanding that these events
are overwhelmingly attended by folks who are already OSM contributors.
 When newcomers attend, they are welcomed, and coached and then can go
off to "practice" on their own for next time.  Building a local
regular event will organically increase the number of active local
mappers as the group grows.  And a monthly pub meetup is WAY simpler
to organize, is less of a time-commitment for a newcomer, and is ideal
for one-to-one coaching.

I've stopped organizing mapping parties because I find local groups
both more successful at creating new mappers and more fun for me.
I'll still happily attend mapping parties organized by others.  The
two most-recent MPs that I attended were Toronto and Ottawa.  In
Toronto we had four regulars and four newbies.  Perfect!  We did a
little presentation.  Paired up for a half-hour survey.  Came back for
some peer-coached first edits.  It worked nicely even if the weather
could have been better.  In Ottawa we had five regulars and several of
us had not met before. Our planned and booked venue fell through
completely, so we moved to a coffee shop.  We ditched mapping entirely
and had a fantastic time getting to know each other and sharing
mapping stories.  Afterwards several of us were inspired to do more
mapping than usual, including a bunch of Ottawa clean-up stuff.  Both
of these were good results.  Toronto worked well because we have
dozens of active mappers including several who showed up and are
really good coaches.

Others have run mapping parties of various sizes.  It would be great
to get their feedback as well.

Best regards,
Richard

[1] then introduce approved / compatible sources later.



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