[OSM-talk] Random thoughts

[Ed Loach]

Thanks to the draft community news on the wiki I've been drawn back
onto this list after reading the thread Nop started on Monday. What
brings me back is considering what the community can do to help
advance to phase 5 *without* remapping. 

I have been in contact with a couple of mappers who were showing as
not responded (using the Authors panel in JOSM, before P2.2 launch)
who mapped near here before I became involved with the project and
haven't been involved much recently (since they finished at
university it seems). I suspected they might not have received any
emails about the change or even be aware of it, which indeed proved
to be the case (the first mapper I tracked down on Facebook, who was
still in touch with the second - both happily relicenced their
contributions). There are 2 others I'm trying to contact which are
proving more difficult; one I'm trying to contact via a local mapper
who once mentioned knowing them, though I've not heard from that
mapper either recently (though they have agreed to relicence); the
other I have only so far tried contacting via OSM messaging. Both
edited in the earlier days of the project and haven't edited
recently, so my hunch is their account linked email addresses are
outdated.

Now I don't want to suggest we contact all the people still showing
as undecided as some presumably have their reasons for not yet
deciding either way, and many *will* have received the emails sent
out already. What I was wondering is how technically feasible it
would be to show on the www.osm.org/user page for any given user
whether emails to them about the licence change had bounced. This
doesn't reveal the email address (so no personal information given
out), but would help those who want to try and track down the
"missing" contributors know that there is a good chance they won't
be aware of the change yet. It might also be that this is something
I should have suggested before the emails were sent to make
reporting the bouncing status easier to record (if it isn't already
on record).

I do hesitate to suggest this as I realise the volunteers are all
busy and I am unable to help with patches as I don't even begin to
understand how integrated rails is with whatever
sends/processes/receives emails. I just felt that if such a patch
were possible it would offer those of us who could try and help
track people down know where to target our efforts in a positive
way, rather than delete and re-enter data which I personally feel is
wrong (though what will be lost locally I suspect will be minimal).
I'm also a bit concerned about the vagueness of the plan to move to
phase 5; if a user deletes a tainted way which a non-agreer touched
at say v3 and the process reverts it to v2 then the way will return,
so deleting it manually now and adding another copy might make
things worse rather than better. Far better to wait until the
proposed steps are finalised to see what will happen, in my opinion,
while trying to maximise acceptances.

Anyway, I'll try and stay on this list to see what replies I get. I
usually manage 2 or 3 days on this list before disabling mail
delivery as I get so frustrated at some of the bickering I see ;)

Ed