Re: [OSM-dev] Ads for front page - Proposed solutions

[Michael Kugelmann]

On 16.05.2013 18:59, Rob Nickerson wrote:

I have no idea what the CWG vote was on and I can't find the up to 
date minutes to check it.
I would very much appreciate a clear and documented statment from the 
CWG and/or the board. I remember my disapintment before SOTM-EU at 
Vienna that the inclusion into the front page was refused and some times 
later SOTM-US was added.



I also believe that a email distribution list would help.
I don't comply with this: I clearly don't want to be spammed by Emails. 
And eg. I read the Wochennotiz = I don't rely that much on the other 
emails that much.
Furthermore: a banner also addresses persons up to now not part of the 
community (= w/o an OSM account!).


So IMHO the banner is fine if there are clear and defined rules 
everybody is taking care about. And these rules may not change every few 
days.



Best regards,
Michael.


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Re: [OSM-dev] Ads for front page - Proposed solutions

[Rob Nickerson]

 I also believe that a email distribution list would help.
I don't comply with this: I clearly don't want to be spammed by Emails.

Hi Michael,

That was incredibly selective quoting of my original text and makes me
wonder why I bothered putting my ideas down in writing. As noted any email
list would be opt-in only; something I addressed as an issue in the
sentence following the part you have quoted. Furthermore due to the
decreasing popularity (and visibility) of RSS, some OSM users may actually
like a monthly email delivered to them.

I don't want to be overwhelmed by irrelevant banners, and hence I tried to
propose some alternatives. I'm sorry you didn't like them.

Rob
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[OSM-dev] Ads for front page - Proposed solutions

[Rob Nickerson]

Hi,

I have no idea what the CWG vote was on and I can't find the up to date
minutes to check it. Despite this, you much surely recognise the issue. For
example, even if we restrict the banners to just those promoting
conferences then we could easily have a rotation of 5 or more banners:

* SOTM
* SOTM-EU
* SOTM-US
* OSM Plus
* SOTM Scotland
* etc..

Extend this to other non-conference meet-ups and the number could easily
quadruple.


== Possible Solutions ==

A good place to start is to improve the events page. At the moment we have
the wiki events calendar and http://calendar.openstreetmap.org.uk/map . The
wiki is complicated - I have no idea how to add an event to this, but
things could be improved. This events page can then have it's own dedicated
banner on osm.org.

To help boost awareness, there are several solutions. Here in the West
Midlands, UK, we keep an eye out for new active mappers and message those
who are more active through the OSM messaging system. During the summer
months we take our monthly meet-up on tour to increase participation in
smaller towns away from Birmingham. This works well. Furthermore, we also
keep an eye out for local Open Data / Hack days or similar, and try to
ensure that at least one OSM member attends each event.

I also believe that a email distribution list would help. The concern is
that nobody has signed up to an email when they joined OSM so perhaps we
cannot start emailing them without an opt in. This is not an issue for me
as we can create a sign-up page and promote it on OSM.org for the next few
months. The current OSM new member sign up procedure can be changed to
include the opt-in for emails.

In my opinion, you could have people sign up to two email distributions:

1. A general monthly OSM update (based on the monthly blogs that are
already being written)
2. An events email. For this people sign up to receive monthly emails about
events within a user specified geographical region (e.g. x miles/km of some
point).

Regrettably, my technical skills aren't up to much, so I would struggle to
do the 2nd. I am however happy to help with the first if (i) Pascal, Dennis
and the “Wochennotiz” guys are happy for me to repost some of their
content, (ii) I get reassurances that I can advertise the email sign up via
a banner on osm.org for a period of 3 to 6 months, and (iii) the new member
sign up procedure is updated.


Hope this inspires some more possible solutions,
Rob
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