[OSM-talk] 3000 registered users but the stats arn't all rosy

[Andy Robinson]

Lars Aronsson wrote:
>Sent: 01 September 2006 9:33 PM
>To: talk at openstreetmap.org
>Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] 3000 registered users but the stats arn't all rosy
>
>Andy Robinson wrote:
>
>> They show that we surpassed 3000 registered users yesterday and
>
>Thanks for providing statistics.  I like statistics.
>
>However, "registered users" is a bubble of air.  It doesn't cost
>them anything to register and the registration gives us nothing.
>Perhaps they only registered to see if they could spam us.  We
>should instead count the contributions (uploads, edits, etc.) and
>the number of active contributors.
>

The point has valid, but I'm interested in how well we are introducing
ourselves. We have good active data for the numbers of users uploading GPX
files and adding nodes but we are still talking of less than 150 active
users doing this each month. But how many more are taking an interest but
don't have a gps receiver and who don't feel comfortable trying their hand
at editing. The 3000 registered users is bound to include some who wish only
to spam and some that look but go away. But it's the best indicator of new
interest trend we have right now. Page hits and page exit statistics
analysis might tell us a bit more too.

>> the fact that the increase over the last 3 months has been linear
>
>It is today September 1, and "the last 3 months" are June, July,
>and August.  In Scandinavia that is summer and since we have a
>great variation between winter and summer at 55-70 degrees north,
>most people are not indoors at their computers during the summer.
>These three months are not comparable to the rest of the year.
>On the other hand, it is not realistic to compare August 2006 with
>August 2005 for OpenStreetMap.
>

I'm sure this plays a part at the moment. In the long run the northern
hemisphere would presumably balance out the southern but for sure right now
I fully agree we have a summer vacation period impact of some degree.


>If I'm worried about anything, except for SQL performance, it's
>our limited geographic reach.  We're doing great in some
>countries, but nothing at all in others.  Perhaps we should divide
>statistics by geographic areas, just like Wikipedia compares the
>number of articles in different languages.  I guess we could use
>UTM's 6x8 degree zones for this.
>
>I share your concerns for development, but I'm against the kind of
>central planning and appointing of roles that you propose.  I
>think it's more important to keep doors open to creative people
>who want to contribute.  When official roles are appointed, users
>tend to shy away from tasks that are appointed to others.
>

Totally agree we must keep the doors wide open. I'm all for letting anything
go. Having said that if you want to achieve something specific you need a
plan for that. I'm an engineer and I would never get a f'in thing built if I
didn't have a plan to work to. So my thoughts regarding development are not
to pigeon-hole tasks to coders but simply to provide a better map of the
tasks that might be done. At the moment I don't have a good handle on that
so I find it difficult to communicate the needs to others. Someone with the
remit to know what does need doing should someone ask, or to assign a task
to someone employed to undertake a task (which might conceivably happen in
the future), I think is important. At the same time I'd still hope we
receive plenty of wild ideas and innovation out of the left and right fields
to keep all our appetites whetted.


>
>--
>  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
>  Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se
>
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Cheers

Andy

Andy Robinson
Andy_J_Robinson at blueyonder.co.uk