[Talk-us] OSM Edit-a-thon January 26th

[Alex Barth]

All good points, Serge. I'd definitely would like to see more outside
activity as the seasons are changing.

I want to particularly emphasize your last point: If you're attending or
organizing a local event, let everyone know how it went. Take pictures,
write up a quick comment with links to pictures here on [talk-us], or just
send Kathleen an email. If we get enough good stuff we can make a great
blog post out of this and use pictures as material for announcing the next
event. Also, let us know what could be better (got the lead time down).


On Wed, Jan 23, 2013 at 1:15 PM, Serge Wroclawski <emacsen at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Wed, Jan 23, 2013 at 11:59 AM, Kathleen Danielson
> <kathleen.danielson at gmail.com> wrote:
> > No problem.
> >
> > What would folks think of making this a semi-organized quarterly thing?
> > Monthly is probably too frequent, but quarterly might be the right pace.
>
> I have a few thoughts on this.
>
> First, I think it's great to see OSM US step up and take a role in the
> community that involves organizing these large events. We in the US
> have a particular difficulty in comparison to our European friends in
> that our country is so large and our population so evenly distributed
> that we have trouble organizing. So I want to say how happy I am that
> OSM US, and you in particular Kathleen, are stepping up and helping.
>
> Secondly, outside it's currently 16F, and with the wind chill it's 3F,
> so I won't be doing any walking and mapping, but as the weather
> improves, I'd really like to see more organized mapping events, or
> coordinated mapping events, where we're encouraged to go out and do
> surveying.
>
> This is really key for the long term sustainability of both the
> project and the local communities, as we've seen in studies that those
> people who are our most consistent and active contributors have stated
> that local connectedness is at the heart of their involvement with the
> project. So it behooves local community organizers to do more to reach
> out and find those people, teach them mapping, and give them a place
> where they can really apply that passion.
>
> And the value that will bring to do the data will also be evident, as
> we compare the contributions made by mappers of their local area in
> Europe to the US, we see a clear correlation between localism and
> highly accurate, up to date surveyed data.
>
> Thirdly, I've been an OSM community organizer for two OSM communities,
> MappingDC and OSM NYC and I think that one of the problems that local
> organizers have is consistency. A community will spring up, have a few
> events, then hibernate. I think by having quarterly events, that
> encourages folks to organize mapping parties regularly, while still
> leaving time for local communities to have their own events if they
> want to.
>
> Fourthly, I think this is great. I think this could be even more
> awesome if there could be some feedback mechanism both before (and
> maybe more importantly) after the event. If the local communities
> could write up a paragraph (two max) and have it posted somewhere that
> summarizes the events, so we can really see what happened. And a map
> of all the local events happening would be awesome too.
>
> - Serge
>
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