[Talk-us] Statistics of board candidate edits

[Serge Wroclawski]

Alan,

The number of edits a user names is a data point. For some people,
it's an important data point, for others it may not be, but it's an
interesting piece of information.

By analogy, if this were a cyclist organization, I would hope that a
board member had experience as a cyclist. The number of edits a user
has made is only one factor, but it can illustrate quite a bit,
especially the type of edits a user has made, and the frequency of
their edits.

What's just as interesting, if not more interesting to me is how many
edits a person has made through on the ground surveying vs using other
datasets or imagery. That is hard to capture, but getting a user's #
of edits in the US, and their "core location" gives me some hints. If
I know someone lives in Orlando, FL and their edits are mainly focused
in Africa, I can make a reasonable assumption that unless they travel
to Africa frequently, that they're using imagery.

Why is that important? For me it speaks to someone's mapping modality,
and therefore their experience with the project. It speaks to their
involvement, their experience editing, etc.

What I've found really curious, and frustrating, is the amount of
negativity directed towards Paul for simply putting out data about the
candidates. To me, this is the same kind of information that we
celebrate when organizations like the Sunlight Foundation aggregate
and distribute. Others are free to disagree, certainly, but I found
the data to be helpful. It won't be my only factor in the decision
making process, but it will be a factor.

Now there are other questions for the candates I'd like to know, such
whether or not they're paid to work on OSM, and if so, by who. I'd
like to know from the incumbents what they've done in the past that's
notable or some other way by which we can judge their performance.

Maybe someone would like to ask these questions- I'm pretty turned off
my the negativity and largely disengaged from the process other than
my need to stand up when I see someone being unfairly attacked simply
for providing information.

- Serge