[OSM-talk] Where have all the contributors gone?

[Steve Chilton]

Several suggestions have already been made in response to Andy's comment.
Last night I jotted down just a few, before reading all my inbox, so may duplicate.
I have listed some "northern winter" thinks you can be doing - IN and OUT of the warm
 
If you think your local area is pretty well covered, IS IT?
Check the nonames layer. Get out and collect those missing names    IN and OUT
Ditto for maplint layer. Get out and sort them out.  IN and OUT
 
Use the excellent OSM Inspector. There is loads you can do to sort out errant geometry for instance.   IN
 
Do some landuse mapping. Easy to walk/bike your local area and tag for residential, retail, industrial, etc   OUT
 
Use local knowledge or published listings (eg local authority schools lists) to crosscheck that you have all POIs.
Get out and map any that aren't included in OSM database.     IN and OUT
 
Check whether your country's capital city has a capital=yes tag. If not add it to it's node. Maybe then we can show capitals at lower zooms and start making the blank early zooms more useful.  IN
 
Ditto for country names of your immediate neighbours, maybe using osmxapi to check whether it exists in db already. Again maybe we could then show country names at lower zooms.   IN
 
Increasingly there will be a need to concentrate on the quality of the data and the currency of the data in the osm db. For many this isn't as exciting as geting out with GPS and mapping white spaces but is fundamental to the future usefulness of osm data.
Finally, of course there are masses of non-mapping activities that need loving care and attention - the wiki and applications/coding being just two.
So - don't hibernate, activate.
 
Cheers
STEVE

	-----Original Message----- 
	From: talk-bounces at openstreetmap.org on behalf of Andy Robinson (blackadder-lists) 
	Sent: Mon 12/1/2008 12:59 PM 
	To: 'osm' 
	Cc: 
	Subject: [OSM-talk] Where have all the contributors gone?
	
	

	The latest charts are now online [1] and they show that the number of
	contributors has dropped in the last couple of months. The number of new
	users signing up each day hasn't changed much.
	
	Is it the northern hemisphere winter kicking in?
	Has the credit crunch or fuel prices made a difference?
	Students returning to studies?
	
	If anyone out there who was contributing in the summer and has now stopped
	could share the reasons I might help shed some light.
	
	Cheers
	
	Andy
	
	[1]
	"http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Stats#Database_Statistics_-_Graphical"
	
	
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