Brian, On 11/05/2013 01:52 AM, Brian H Wilson wrote: > If you want OSM to succeed outside cities then you need to refine your > thinking and your tactics.
That's a bit puzzling to me. You're talking as if OSM was some kind of startup where the founders make a master plan (and tactics) for how to "succeed", whatever you mean by that. OSM has always been a project made by people who came to OSM out of their own desire to create a map. We don't have people who sit down and strategise on how to make OSM "succeed in rural Oregon". If rural Oregon is ready for OSM then rural Oregon will participate; if rural Oregon has more important things to do then fine, why should we force something on them? We're all volunteers, we all do it for fun, or sometimes out of passion, but we're not an enterprise that desperately needs to "succeed" because the venture capitalists want a return on their investment. We're open for people from rural Oregon and we'll certainly welcome them contributing their spare time to OSM but if they'd rather do something else then we won't sit there and milk our brains for ideas of how to convince them. If it takes another five years for rural Oregon to participate in OSM then that's what it takes. And if it is GIS professionals in rural Oregon who are interested in making OSM "succeed" then cool, let them spearhead OSM there - let them set up booths at local trade fairs, explain to farmers how they can participate in OSM and make a better map, write articles for local papers... nobody will say that you can't be an OSM enthusiast just because you're a GIS professional. The only thing I have zero patience for is: "Aww there's so few people here and it's only computer illiterate farmers whom we'll never be able to recruit as mappers, so let's just import all the data we can get a hold of for rural Oregon so that OSM succeeds in the place". (And there's nothing in your post that suggests you were of this opinion, I'm just saying!) OSM will succeed - and that's where Darrell's diversity message fits in - if it is by the people, for the people. OSM's success is not a byte count, it's a head count. Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail [email protected] ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" _______________________________________________ Imports-us mailing list [email protected] https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/imports-us
