[OSM-talk] db and user statistics update

[Ben Ward]

I think this project is amazing, ambitious and achievable.  Plus it's quite
therapeutic and gets me outdoors which is nice.  However, I don't think
we'll reach the next level without some changes to get a wider audience. I
can see there are many talented people working on the software, tools, data
structures and backend who contribute to this list.  Without these the
project wouldn't even have started. Now that GPS is a suitable Christmas
present and will soon be the in thing on mobile devices perhaps we should
look to the army of potential contributors of data.

On 16/01/07, Andy Robinson <Andy_J_Robinson at blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
>
>
> 1. There has been no increase in the trendline for number of registered
> users. However more users than ever before are editing and uploading so we
> are converting more users to active users than we were. Considering the
> fact
> that the project should be gaining visibility with time its disappointing
> that the registered user trend has not been climbing like the other
> activity
> within the project. Ideas on how we might draw in new users would be good.


I would have to say that the first impression of the wiki is one of
confusion over:
1) Where to look first
2) Where to find the map
3) What is all this anyway?

The map seems secondary to the gallons of information on different
subjects.  Your average interested user would take a look, maybe click on
the featured image, then wonder what all the fuss is about or get excited
and want to join in. Perhaps we're not trying to attract people who "can't
work it out", but starting off the amount of information to take in was
overwhelming.  Not having a lot of time to investigate the project in my
spare time I needed a 'quickstart' without lots of talk of development and
subversions and stuff like that. I had a glowing GPS in my hand and I wanted
to start contributing.

I appreciate that you must have some understanding of what you're doing
before you start contributing to avoid polluting the data, but trying to
catch up with the ebb and flow of 'nodes/segments/ways best practice',
'which editor to use', 'which version of which editor to use', 'today's
favoured map features/keys/vals', 'what is allowed source, what's not', 'how
to see your edits' and 3 minute hangs on server uploads for 10 nodes took me
a good two weeks of intermittent concentration just to know what was going
on.

The applet was a mystery.  Still is. Can you insert nodes into a way? JOSM
turned out to be the only software which told me something about what was
going on (although actually getting started without loading a "suitable
size" GPX track and without loading the entire county of Oxfordshire was
still something of a challenge).

The logins are perplexing.  Having a to register a wiki login and an OSM
login confused me at first.  When I thought I had it sorted (got a wiki
login, got an OSM login) I went to the uploads and had no idea who to login
as "I'm on the wiki, but this is the OSM login?".

The discussion is on a mailing list.  From the outside a dormant mailing
list often looks the same as a high-traffic one.  It takes commitment to
sign up to one only to discover it's dead. Or to discover that it's not what
you want to get into.  I think if this is a community project then some kind
of 'news' section would be good just to give the impression that it's still
very much a live project.  Opengeodata.org could be mistaken for Steve's
personal blog and is a completely different look and feel, so it doesn't
quite fulfill the need for a 'project news' section.

So enough complaining.  How do we/I fix some of this?

1) I'd suggest a cleaner intro to the site.  This doesn't mean killing off
the wiki at all, just moving it to a more relevant place. If you want to
know more, you navigate to the project pages.  If you just want to look at a
map you don't really want to have to hunt for the thing amongst the hundred
links.  Ok, so I know it says "The Map" at the top, but remember we're often
dealing with people who click banner ads and download the advertised
freeware then blame us for viruses.  There's only so many hours in the day,
let's not overwhelm people with information (at least until we have them
hooked on our global join-the-dots game).

2) A single-document 'quickstart' that doesn't offer too much choice and
gives a single track for the most likely combination to give quick results.
For instance:

- Sign up here
- Download JOSM from here (launchable without editing batch files)
- Configure JOSM like this
- Load a GPX (Advice on how wide to cast the query for the first OSM
download)
- Make some nodes, segments and ways
Maybe include a second page cheat sheet of current favoured map features or
maybe a style guide to cover this and editing.

I appreciate a lot of this information is available already and people have
put a lot of very good work into this, but too much choice leads to
confusion and ultimately paralysis. ("Do I want to change my electricity
provider? Really?"). I'm suggesting a simplified PDF that can be printed out
if necessary and used for reference.

I will make a start on this if anyone reckons it's worthwhile.  If someone
here is a graphic designer and fancies helping me with the layout then
that'd be great.



2. Its clear that over Christmas/New Year period the numbers editing has
> gone up while the number of users uploading has gone down. The former I
> believe is due to the presence of the Yahoo! imagery



I'd reckon: lots of time off, but a huge great backlog of GPX uploads.  Plus
I gave up with GPX uploads for a while when
a) I couldn't login with my wiki username ;-)  duh.
b) they never completed once I managed to get them in
c) JOSM meant they weren't needed to do my editing

Of course now I realise that the done thing is to upload them anyway to show
due diligence, but I have rather a backlog.

If you read this far then well done.  Have a prize.

Ben

-- 
ben at crouchingbadger.com | http://crouchingbadger.com
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