Hallo all, I gave a talk at SotM in Brussels, summarising some of my key research findings on HOT contributor engagement to date. Afterwards, Tyler asked me to summarise my recommendations to organisers in a short message. I just saw that the recording of the talk is already online, so I did a quick write-up of some key points I wanted to make.
A diary post with links to the recording and slides is here: https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/dekstop/diary/39935 In brief, I’d like to make three key recommendations: • Carefully manage the tasking manager task listing during large disaster events. People who join during these events don't tend to stay active for long, and their contributions tend to have a lower quality. Point them towards newcomer-friendly projects where they can make some early experiences. • Introduce a notification mechanism to inform contributors of emergent campaigns. While the mailing list may work for the core community, there is likely a larger number of one-time mappers who may be willing to help out again when they’re needed, but currently they have no means of finding out. • Try to connect newcomers to the existing community as soon as possible, and in a setting that is appropriate for absolute beginners. Where can people ask questions online? Is the mailing list still appropriate for absolute beginners? Do these recommendations make sense to you? Do you have ideas about how to make them happen? (Note that I’m making the fundamental assumption that we’re trying to grow the community. One could also make a case that the existing community is big enough, and we simply need to refine the existing tools.) Greetings from London, m. _______________________________________________ HOT mailing list [email protected] https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/hot
