[OSM-talk] Summary of the irc meeting.

[Etienne Cherdlu]

On 4/7/06, Tom Carden <tom at tom-carden.co.uk> wrote:
> On 4/7/06, Etienne Cherdlu <openstreetmap-L at gj0.net> wrote:
> > How workable would some thresholds like these be, for example?
> > Any one of the following entitles a user to be a member (for 1 year):
> > - Committing 100 lines of useful code to cvs
>
> Lines of code is no measure of quality.  We could equally reward
> people for *removing* redundant lines of code :)
>
> > - Upload 100,000 gps track points
>
> I'll just copy some from Steve's page on /traces, change the file name
> and re-upload them.
>
> > - Creating 1,000 new nodes, segments or ways
>
> Spelling out "YOU SUCK" in 12km high letters in the Pacific?  Or just
> at random, using a quick cURL script and the API.  2 minute job.
>
> > - Donating $100
>
> Out of reach of developing/3rd world contributors, and school kids,
> and many other people (e.g. unemployed people). Think who has the most
> spare time - do they also have spare money?
>
> > - Making 200 useful edits on the Wiki
>
> Delete 200 gratuitious semi-colons? Change all British English to
> American English?  Are you volunteering to verify what is useful or
> not?

All of these are, indeed, open to abuse.  But is pretty easy to weed
out vandals (who would  need to be banned anyway) and unconstructive
contributions.

In my opinion all we are looking for is that a person has made some
contructive contribution.  In return they get a say in something they
have put effort into.

If you don't reward contributors like this then the project will
pretty quickly fork and that would be a really bad thing.

>
> My suggestion is that membership requires a postal address or phone
> number - then call the number or post a letter with a confirmation
> code that needs to be entered into a form to activate membership
> (paypal do this).  I'm not worried about duplicate accounts anyway -
> I'd guess we'll have less than 100 members who vote. It just won't be
> an issue.

Why make it so difficult - who are you trying to keep out?  Ed Parsons?

--
Etienne
(Forgot to reply to the list again)