[OSM-talk] Implement tutorship for newbies

[stevea]

I like the thinking of BOTH Marcos and Clifford here!  In the interests of disclosure, I am acquainted with Clifford after meeting him at SOTM-US in Seattle 2016.  However, it hardly matters to me whether I've met somebody in person in OSM, I consider all who volunteer in this great project are on the OSM team together with the rest of us; OSM is a great big "we."

Community-building is one of the more challenging, and at the same time, ad hoc, "sporadically created," highly personalized, often sub-community-specific (maybe meeting at a pub, maybe all done via videoconference — more common than it used to be! — maybe having a "tech meetup' at a university library with home-brought snacks...) activities OSM does.  Some people discover their local community by clicking on the History button (encouraged!) and finding out who also maps in their area, then contacting them via our built-in "missive" (user-to-user messaging) system — also encouraged!  There are tools like Meet Your Mappers [1] that Martijn van Exel has mentioned, the Heat Map display by Pascal Neis [2] and many, many other such tools.  (Slack communities, "Mappy Hour" Zoom meetings, semi-regular coding/Mapping Parties, hiking and biking aficionados, after-school groups who meet in the library...).  The mix of technologies is vast:  some are already "built-in" to OSM (wiki, missives...), some get bolted on as third-party tech / apps (Slack, Zoom, social media...) and create different nexuses of community (building) activity.  Wonderful!

I want to encourage as many of these as possible, and am excited that there are not only people proposing that we better help along a "tutoring" kind of ability, but that other community builders are excited about tutoring and encouraging, too.  Great mentor relationships truly strengthen the fabric of OSM, I can say as both mentee and mentor in our great project.  (Who has been MY mentor here?  All of you!)

Fantastic ideas, especially ones where you know how to do it (or like Clifford's offer to help Marcos set one up, you have helping hands to do so) that welcome people, tutor people, instruct people, "give the basics so they can hit the ground running" for people...OSM must always be planting, watering and growing these so they continue to blossom.  While basics like "welcome" and "here's how to get started on this or that..." are always with us, the various subjects required and how we share these with our fellow mappers do vary over time, especially as technology rapidly changes.  (Tagging practices change too, though slower).

There really is nothing like cultivating a one-to-one relationship with another mapper:  I myself enjoy dozens, maybe even hundreds of these and (for me) it is the "people aspect" that is an undeniable important part of OSM.  The mapping is great, the people are amazing!

As do so so here, having a wide-open, welcoming, friendly, "how can I help you?" attitude is a wonderful place to start.  So is keeping our hearts, minds and ears open to all the vibrant creativity that people plant, tend, water and grow to make these and other fantastic resources happen (like "assign me a tutor, please").  There is room for all kinds of "helping others" aspects of OSM:  our garden to grow them is as big as the Earth itself and the vast creativity of our most valuable resource:  we volunteers who say "I'd like to help."  May we continue to be fruitful and multiply.

Happy gardening — I mean, mapping!
SteveA

[1] https://wiki.osm.org/wiki/Meet_Your_Mappers
[2] https://www.yosmhm.neis-one.org