[OSM-talk] RFC - OSM contributor mark

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

On 01/11/2013 03:26 PM, Alex Barth wrote:
> Over here at MapBox we see a need to better communicate the open and contributory philosophy of OpenStreetMap on our maps.

I see two aspects:

1 - standardising map attribution (your teardrop+hammer symbol)

2 - making a nice "about" page

Both are not necessarily connected but can be.

Your "about" pages look impressive! There is certainly room for such a 
"campaign" type set of pages somewhere on OSM where we can steer 
newcomers who want to see a slide show or so. Personally, I'd even like 
the openstreetmap.org start page to be very simple with a few links - 
one to your pages, one to the map, and perhaps a couple more. I'm not 
sure however if that set of pages (which is high on visuals and low on 
facts) would be the prime target for someone clicking on a map 
attribution somewhere; the copyright page we're using now might be 
better suited for that, not least because many third parties who give us 
their data are promised attribution via that page and it might not be 
good to put that behind too many clicks.

Standardising map attribution is often asked for and I welcome the 
effort. The symbol itself I find too unobtrusive though; we should 
encourage people making maps from OSM to actually have "OpenStreetMap" 
written on the map and not a little symbol. I don't see why we should be 
content with a mini icon when both Google and Bing require much larger 
attribution - it looks like we wanted to acknowledge that we're not as 
great as them!

Also, we in OpenStreetMap have often positioned ourselves as "more than 
just markers on a map", and logo suggestions involving the typical map 
marker teardrop have been rejected (loudly) in the past because of that. 
I find the hammer-and-teardrop symbol visually appealing but it might 
not be the right symbol for OSM.

Bye
Frederik

-- 
Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"