Re: [Talk-us] Flash Map Mobs!

[Eleanor Tutt]

Clarification - I don't think Meetup itself allows notification by text
message. I think that's something you would have to set up yourself using a
different service. (That's why I said it was a long term idea...it probably
takes some work and I'm not sure what particular tools people use.)

I was under the impression you announced the day of - if you announce more
in advance, text isn't so important. :)

Eleanor

On Sun, Oct 18, 2015 at 4:40 PM, Martijn van Exel <m...@rtijn.org> wrote:

> Hey Eleanor,
>
> Thanks for sharing your ideas.
>
> > On Oct 18, 2015, at 12:32 PM, Eleanor Tutt <eleanor.t...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > Very cool & good pointers!
> >
> > Am I correct that you set the location on Meetup in the morning and then
> you meet in the afternoon? (i.e., quick & "flash mob"-y?) That sounds like
> a lot of fun as it wouldn't take a lot of pre-planning or worrying about
> expectations.
>
> Until now I have picked the location a few days - a week in advance.
> Day-of would be interesting too, especially in combination with your idea
> below:
> >
> > It might be worth promoting the *idea* of the flash map mob as a
> permanent Meetup event - you could probably make it sticky so it always
> shows up on the front of the page, but without a set date attached (does
> Meetup allow that?) That could help with awareness/excitement I think.
>
> I think that is a great idea and I am going to try it right away.
> >
> > Long-term, the "generic" meetup might even have a way to text to opt in
> to "flash map mob" notifications - I know I have opted into several text
> notification services from local organizing groups and I definitely notice
> those announcements more than I would notice a Meetup for day-of
> announcements. I'd be sad if I missed the flash map mob b/c I wasn't
> checking Meetup and/or email! YMMV depending on how people typically
> organize in Salt Lake City.
>
> I didn’t know Meetup had such sophisitcated methods of letting folks know
> about events and have them RSVP by text message too! Do you know how to set
> that up?
>
> Thanks,
> Martijn
>
>
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Re: [Talk-us] OpenStreetMap US elections: October 12 townhall with candidates

[Eleanor Tutt]

Michael -

Let me start with where we agree! I share your enthusiasm for Martijn's
position statement (and I am basing that on the position statement itself -
NOT Martijn's contribution history) and I will concede that it would make
sense for *one* of the OSM US board members to have in-depth mapping
experience (though, honestly, if none of the elected board members end up
having in-depth mapping experience they can call upon established community
members for guidance.)

However, as others have said, OSM US needs a diverse board with different
skillsets. I have worked with and served on many boards and the best
functioning boards have a variety of perspectives represented (I second
Mike Thompson's list above as a good starting point.) In fact, I
specifically do NOT want a board with only "heavy mappers" represented -
because to grow our community we need new mappers, and new-ish mappers will
understand their perspective better than established mappers.

There are also many valid reasons why someone may not make a lot of edits
to OSM. To give one example - perhaps, like myself, they are a community
organizer. There have been several times that I have intentionally *not*
mapped something, because I know that someone else in my city who has been
curious about OSM has an interest in the place. Instead of doing the fun
work of adding to OSM under my own name, I will often do the hard (and -
based on your post - apparently thankless?) work of introducing OSM to
someone else, telling them something like, "hey - here's a perfect thing to
add! your favorite restaurant isn't on the map yet."

In other words, the number of edits made does NOT correlate to a person's
investment of time and energy into OSM as a map *and* a community of people.

The OSM US board needs to inspire and support a community of people - their
job is not to edit the map.

Thanks,
Eleanor

PS: I also appreciate that Randy Meech mentioned gender in his post - I
believe that encouraging women to join, contribute, and *stay involved in*
the OSM US community (because it isn't just a "pipeline" problem) is
critical to OSM US's long-term growth, and electing competent women to the
board (like the candidates running!) is one way we can encourage
participation.


On Wed, Oct 14, 2015 at 11:56 AM, Mike Thompson  wrote:

> Michael, I appreciate your interest, research and opinions.  Thank you for
> sharing it with us.
>
> To continue to build on the success of OSM in the US, we need people with
> diverse skill sets.  Alex has already listed some of them. Here is a list,
> in no particular order:
> * yes, editing the map
> * software development
> * server administration
> * documentation creating/ wiki editing / tutorial creation
> * outreach
> * communication / pr
> * legal
> * ability to organize events / projects
> * ability to teach others about osm
> * ability to inspire others to join OSM / use OSM
> * ability to form partnerships with third parties (governmental, non
> governmental, commercial, other open projects)
> * "supervise, control, direct and manage" (part of what the bylaws call
> for the board to do).
> * (probably others I overlooked)
>
> Not everyone can be - or need be - a "heavy mapper."  I will be
> considering skills, experience and ideas in all of the above areas in
> making my decision.
>
> Mike
>
>
> On Wed, Oct 14, 2015 at 10:19 AM, Randy Meech 
> wrote:
>
>> Wow Michael, that sure is an all-male US board you're suggesting. I hope
>> nobody heeds you our we have bigger problems than I thought.
>>
>> The question of growth in the US is complex, as is the question of gender
>> and contributing to communities such as this. Communities, that is to say,
>> that have zero self-awareness about the problems in a message like this.
>> Who knows: maybe threads like this explain the edit history, too.
>>
>> One thing that's certain is that there is no correlation between the work
>> of a competent board member and making edits. Things like leadership,
>> fundraising, organizing, project management, events, etc. are part of the
>> work of a board.
>>
>> It's too bad we also require the ability to don a radiation suit to deal
>> with threads like this.
>>
>> -Randy
>> Dear US electorate,
>>
>> Am Thu, 08 Oct 2015 20:16:50 -0700 schrieb Alex Barth:
>> > And - it's not to late to run for elections! Get your name up on the
>> > list by October 10th.
>> >
>> > https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Foundation/Local_Chapters/
>> United_States/Elections/2015#Candidates
>>
>> And this is my censorious analysis reviewing all candidates:
>>
>> https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Nakaner/diary/36098
>>
>> *Summary* I think that some candidates are suitable and some are not
>> suitable. It looks as the number of edits and the time since the first
>> map edit is proportional to the suitability of each candidate (with some
>> exceptions).
>>
>> You, the US community, have got some very great candidates which have

[Talk-us] Join us for summer mapathon BINGO - weekend of Aug 1

[Eleanor Tutt]

Hello!

We've got our next OSM US quarterly mapathon coming up the weekend of
August 1st - obviously you can host a mapathon in your area any time of the
year, but it's also pretty awesome to know that people are mapping across
the country at the same time. :)

If you want an idea for a theme, we created an OpenStreetMap mapathon BINGO
card (https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/439/18875377873_968818d547_z.jpg) that
includes images of (and tagging conventions for) summery things to add to
OSM. Ice cream shops! BBQ pits! Car washes! Swimming pools! Let's get 'em
all
into OpenStreetMap. You can read more on our blog post here:
http://openstreetmap.us/2015/07/summer-mapathon-bingo/

If you're organizing a mapathon, please add it to the wiki page here so
that everyone knows about it:
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Mapathon/US_Summer_Mapathon_2015

We also have a new OSM US slack channel for current  future mapathon
organizers to informally chat about ideas/outreach
strategies/successes/etc. - send me your email (elea...@openstreetmap.us)
if you would like an invite.

Thanks!
Eleanor
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Re: [OSM-talk] Some thoughts against remote mapping

[Eleanor Tutt]

On Tue, Jun 16, 2015 at 4:07 AM, moltonel 3x Combo molto...@gmail.com
wrote:


 What I've been mulling over is the home location data on the
 profile. Right now it's close to useless. I'd like to be able to set
 multiple areas (not points) and rate them can survey / good local
 knowledge / particularly interested.


^^^ This is an excellent idea and a feature I would definitely use.

Also, this thread is of great interest to me, but I'm entering it quite
late and many points have already been discussed. I'll just say a few
things:

1)  I am thankful to Erica Hagen for her original post, as I think these
are critical things to think about.

2)  Hagen's point that there are degrees of local that we are failing to
account for reminds me of many discussions I've had in my own community
about what it means to be from a place, whose voices are viewed as
representative of a neighborhood, who has access to power, etc. While much
of the discussion here has been in the context of
international/humanitarian mapping, these same questions play out on a
micro scale in cities and neighborhoods. It is worth thinking about who is
mapping in your own community and whether you are working to involve
neighborhood residents, do offline outreach, etc. at home.

Thanks,
Eleanor
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Re: [Talk-us] Facts about the world

[Eleanor Tutt]

Hi, Serge.

As a member of the chapter board, I feel a bit erased? misrepresented? by
your email. It hurt, especially because I think you and I share some common
ground about why we map and that it is important to feel a connection to a
place.

At any rate, while you are more qualified to speak to the history of OSM as
a whole than I am, I do want to say a few things that will maybe help you
get the know my personal history with OSM:

   - When I was new to OSM and first learned about editathons, I didn't
   know anyone involved with OSM or have any preconceived ideas about the
   project.  All I knew was that editathons sounded amazing, so I made the
   effort to connect with other local mappers and start building more of a
   community in my region.  My first editathon - led by another community
   member - involved walking around outdoors on a college campus.  My second
   editathon - led by myself - involved walking around outdoors in a
   neighborhood commercial district.  In my experience, editathons have always
   been a way for community members to get together and map in whatever manner
   made the most sense - sometimes outdoors, sometimes indoors.  There can be
   value in both.
   - I remember Paul's post, I was elected to the chapter board, and - it's
   true! - I don't have very many OSM edits compared to many members of the
   community.  That doesn't mean I don't go out and map my community - I
   described in a different email how I do so.  But I contribute in other ways
   as well.  Last month, I led a group of students in a survey of a nearby
   neighborhood.  I spent hours walking through the neighborhood with them,
   helping mark points, and then helping them enter their data when they
   returned.  I did not personally make a single edit with my OSM user name.
   However, I contributed to those edits invisibly, behind the scenes, and I
   believe several of those students will become regular contributors.

Thanks for reading!
Eleanor

On Sat, Apr 4, 2015 at 1:55 AM, Serge Wroclawski emac...@gmail.com wrote:

 Eleanor,

 I want to clarify some things:

 On Sat, Apr 4, 2015 at 1:06 AM, Eleanor Tutt eleanor.t...@gmail.com
 wrote:

  Paul - If perception of mapping in the US isn't aligning with reality, we
  probably *do* need to do a better job as a chapter board of telling the
 full
  story.

 I believe that the story that the board tells reflect the overall
 experience of the board. Paul did an analysis of the mapping activites
 of the prospective board members before they were elected. Some of the
 board members are not active OSM mappers, so it shouldn't come as a
 surprise to anyone that people who don't do manual surveying don't
 talk about manual surveying.

  I see what you mean about the blog posts, though I do think your
  interpretation is a bit harsh. For example, the mapathon post that you
  characterize as an indoor event, while it does admittedly have a photo
 of
  people at computers, also makes it clear that the theme for the upcoming
  mapathon is the great outdoors.

 The events are characterized as Edit-a-thons and they were designed
 to be run indoors. They were essentially a response from some members
 of the community who felt that Mapping Parties were not for them. The
 advantage of an Edit-A-Thon is that they can be run indoors (unlike
 Mapping Parties), but if you look at most Edit-A-Thons going on next
 week, and you look at the history of them (look at the talk-us
 archives) they're still largely indoor events.

 The only reason that OSM NYC runs them as outdoor events is that I
 believe strongly that the experience of going out and surveying has
 value- not only data quality value, but emotional value. There's value
 in being connected to the place you live that can't be captured via
 areal photo or governmental dataset.

 - Serge

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Re: [Talk-us] Facts about the world

[Eleanor Tutt]

Thanks so much, Serge - seriously.  Your apology means a lot to me.

Happy mapping!
Eleanor

On Sat, Apr 4, 2015 at 10:33 AM, Serge Wroclawski emac...@gmail.com wrote:

 On Sat, Apr 4, 2015 at 11:09 AM, Eleanor Tutt eleanor.t...@gmail.com
 wrote:
  Hi, Serge.
 
  As a member of the chapter board, I feel a bit erased? misrepresented? by
  your email. It hurt, especially because I think you and I share some
 common
  ground about why we map and that it is important to feel a connection to
 a
  place.

 You're right that I painted everyone with the same brush, and that
 wasn't my intent; I'm sorry. It's hard to be critical of an
 organization and not the individuals, but you're right, I probably
 could have done a better job.

  At any rate, while you are more qualified to speak to the history of OSM
 as
  a whole than I am, I do want to say a few things that will maybe help you
  get the know my personal history with OSM:

 There are people on this list who were involved in OSM longer than me.
 I don't believe I have special qualifications beyond being there.

  When I was new to OSM and first learned about editathons, I didn't know
  anyone involved with OSM or have any preconceived ideas about the
 project.
  All I knew was that editathons sounded amazing, so I made the effort to
  connect with other local mappers and start building more of a community
 in
  my region.  My first editathon - led by another community member -
 involved
  walking around outdoors on a college campus.  My second editathon - led
 by
  myself - involved walking around outdoors in a neighborhood commercial
  district.  In my experience, editathons have always been a way for
 community
  members to get together and map in whatever manner made the most sense -
  sometimes outdoors, sometimes indoors.  There can be value in both.
  I remember Paul's post, I was elected to the chapter board, and - it's
 true!
  - I don't have very many OSM edits compared to many members of the
  community.  That doesn't mean I don't go out and map my community - I
  described in a different email how I do so.  But I contribute in other
 ways
  as well.  Last month, I led a group of students in a survey of a nearby
  neighborhood.  I spent hours walking through the neighborhood with them,
  helping mark points, and then helping them enter their data when they
  returned.  I did not personally make a single edit with my OSM user name.
  However, I contributed to those edits invisibly, behind the scenes, and I
  believe several of those students will become regular contributors.

 Maybe time erases this stuff, and that's a good thing.

 Again, my apologies. Especially as someone who doesn't have a car, I
 know the challenge that mapping can be for folks like us, and major
 kudos to you for your mapping and community work.

 - Serge

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[Talk-us] Say hello to the scholarship winners to State of the Map US 2015

[Eleanor Tutt]

Good morning!

I'm excited to be able to announce the winners of scholarships to State of
the Map US 2015.  We had 230+ incredible OpenStreetMap contributors from
across the globe apply for scholarships, and I know the selection committee
had an* incredibly difficult time* narrowing it down to 30 winners.

However - *30 winners! * That's* a lot of people* who will be joining us at
SOTMUS in NYC who would not otherwise have been able to attend. A big thank
you goes to our scholarship sponsors American Red Cross, Google, the World
Bank and Mapbox, who made bringing these folks to State of the Map US
possible. Thanks also to individual OpenStreetMap community members who
donated to the scholarship pool to support bringing more people and
perspectives to State of the Map US - I'm proud to be part of such a
generous community!

Here's our full blog post on scholarships - I've also listed names below if
you don't feel like clicking through.
http://openstreetmap.us/2015/04/scholarships/


   - Nohely Alvarez
   - Alexandria M. Barnes
   - Javier Carranza
   - Eleanor Davis
   - Wendy Delva
   - Sriharsha Devulapalli
   - Katie Filbert
   - Carolyn Fish
   - Vitor George
   - Mara Gittleman
   - Juho Häppölä
   - Md. Ahasanul Hoque
   - Geoffrey Kateregga
   - Srinivas Kodali
   - Juan Ignacio Lacueva
   - Heather Leson
   - Ievgeniia Luchnykova
   - Zukhanye Mayekiso
   - Stephanie Nguyen
   - Kazeem Kayode Owolabi
   - Victor Ramirez
   - Frédéric Rodrigo
   - Destry Maria Sibley
   - Alsino Skowronnek
   - Dewi Sulistioningrum
   - Matt Toups
   - Mishka Vance
   - Eugene Alvin Villar
   - Rodolfo Wilhelmy
   - Rebecca Williams

Thanks!
Eleanor
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Re: [Talk-us] Facts about the world

[Eleanor Tutt]

Hello!

While I think that (vetted, high quality) imports and armchair mapping have
the ability to improve OSM, especially for things like building footprints
that are hard to survey on the ground without traipsing across private
property, I certainly hope that people do not view the US as *exclusively*
importers and armchair mappers.

My preferred way of contributing to OSM is via on the ground field work.
I believe the structure for participatory mapping that OSM provides is
important in part because it distributes power and allows residents to map
what matters to them in their communities.

How do I map, as a US resident living in the Midwest?

1) I don't drive, so I take the bus everywhere. Because I work for a
community development non-profit, my travels take me all over my city and
region.  I will often take notes on scratch paper as I pass key
intersections/assets and later (when I have time) add these items to OSM

2) I also organize mapathons in my community, providing basic instruction
on mapping using Field Papers and/or GPS devices (I personally prefer
paper, but a local university lets us borrow GPS devices and getting to
play with tech is fun for lots of our participants).  While current OSM
contributors are the ones most likely to attend mapathons, I focus on
finding residents of the neighborhood who may not have heard of OSM
before.  One mapathon I held included a home base in a storefront art
gallery so that we could catch strangers walking by and give them a Field
Papers atlas and basic instructions.

If anyone on the list is interested in organizing a mapathon in their
community, OpenStreetMap US has a mapathon weekend coming up April 11-12
with the theme The Great Outdoors.
http://openstreetmap.us/2015/01/2015-mapathons/  If you need help, I'm
happy to talk with you about how I organize mapathons...I'm not an expert
by any means, but I've picked up a few things over time.

Thanks!
Eleanor

On Fri, Apr 3, 2015 at 7:18 AM, Frederik Ramm frede...@remote.org wrote:

 Hi,

 On 04/03/2015 02:41 AM, stevea wrote:
  Erring on the side of high ground safety might be
  a good place to plant an initial flag, but if it's location is wrong and
  we need to move it to a more accurate place, we must do so.

 Frankly - no. OSM does not depend on the inclusion of third party data
 sources for its quality. Taking a high ground safety approach with
 regards to third-party rights in data might cut us off from some third
 party data sources but then re-publishing these third party sources in
 OSM clothes doesn't do us much good anyway.

 If an individual is desperate to use a third party data source, let them
 do the due diligence on the legality of the source, but it certainly
 isn't us who must move our flag to make it (even) easier to swamp us
 with (often low quality) third-party data.

  It sounds like it is getting a bit shrill.  I'll say it again:  I wish
  light, not heat.

 I would be absolutely thrilled if more people, especially more
 Americans, would stop thinking about what data they could take and add
 to OSM, and instead grab a GPS, or their car, or their boots, or
 bicycle, or mobile phone, or all of that, and simply map stuff.

 It seems to me that in the USA, what people think about OSM is one of
 these two:

 (a) A project for hackers and couch potatoes who trawl their county web
 pages and other sources to look for stuff they could upload to OSM
 (because it's such a big country and nobody could possibly, yadda yadda
 yadda)

 (b) A project for people who roll up their sleeves, travel to places of
 humanitarian crises, and help those in need by creating maps where the
 government hasn't done their job well.

 The idea that you could also roll up your sleeves and map your own
 backyeard, village, town, or city quarter, instead of copying from
 official bicycle route publications, official railway brochures, or
 stuff that the administration has done, seems to occur to very few
 people, and others will say: OpenStreetMap is cool, but I don't think
 that actually going out and doing a survey is a good use of my time.

 I'm really sad that time and time again we have to fight about whether
 or not a specific source is permitted to be used in OSM, when we could
 just collect the facts ourselves and therefore be completely free of any
 legal implications (and also free of errors that others may have made).

 Bye
 Frederik

 --
 Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frede...@remote.org  ##  N49°00'09 E008°23'33

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Re: [Talk-us] Facts about the world

[Eleanor Tutt]

Serge - Thanks for the detailed response!  I think I do recall seeing your
blog post in the past, but I reread it now and your concerns - especially
who decides what gets shown on the map - very much resonate with me.

Paul - If perception of mapping in the US isn't aligning with reality, we
probably *do* need to do a better job as a chapter board of telling the
full story. I see what you mean about the blog posts, though I do think
your interpretation is a bit harsh. For example, the mapathon post that you
characterize as an indoor event, while it does admittedly have a photo of
people at computers, also makes it clear that the theme for the upcoming
mapathon is the great outdoors.  Eventually, most people do enter the
data they collect in the field into the OSM while at a computer, and as a
mapathon organizer, I don't always remember to take good action shot
photos.  Rather than assume no one set foot outdoors, why not assume that
no one remembered to stop mapping to take a photo, because mapping outdoors
is really fun?

I also hope you'll keep in mind that conferences involve a lot of logistics
which need to be communicated - for example, our amazing SOTM US
scholarship program required two posts (to announce availability and to
announce winners).  While a mapathon can be a success without a blog post
(though we probably *should* write more blog posts), a scholarship program
will not get applicants or donors without a moderate level of publicity.

Finally, to lighten things up, here is a photo of a kitten and a Field
Papers atlas pre-mapathon.

https://twitter.com/eleanortutt/status/583729143822450689

Thanks!
Eleanor

On Fri, Apr 3, 2015 at 8:27 PM, Serge Wroclawski emac...@gmail.com wrote:

 Eleanor,

 I don't see a reason not to be public with my reply to you.

 I organize mapping parties during the warmer months (have one next
 week) and during the colder months, organize indoor mapping events.

 The indoor events tend to get less participants than the outdoor ones,
 which is surprising.

 Why do I map outdoors? To me, the importance of OSM is in two part.
 Firstly and most importantly to me, OSM is part of a larger group of
 activites that I participate in regarding the Free Software and Free
 Culture worlds. I see OSM as part of that larger effort that I care
 about. I'm not a Geo person- rather I'm someone who has a passion for
 providing universal access and personal empowerment, and I see OSM as
 one means to that end.

 When we think about OSM, I do think we want to consider issues of
 lifespan. Will OSM be necessary if we had every town or county in the
 US providing us full access to their data, and we had access to every
 business data. If we had that, at least in the US, OSM would be
 largely redundant. But the fact is, we don't.

 In the meantime, here in the US and around the world, there is a
 desperate need for access to high quality geographic data. I don't
 know if you read a blog post I made about a year ago
 (
 http://blog.emacsen.net/blog/2014/01/04/why-the-world-needs-openstreetmap/
 )
 but we can't hand off this much power to third parties, even ones who
 act benevolently for the moment.  Instead, this needs to be in the
 hands of all of us- every single one of us.

 Mapping can be hard work. The day after a big mapping party, I
 sometimes need to just sit in my apartment alone. The whole experience
 can be exhausting. But I do it because it's important. It's important
 to think about these spaces as *ours*. This is why projects like the
 NYC Community Garden Mapping project here in NYC are important
 (http://blog.emacsen.net/blog/2014/12/01/nyc-blooms-with-openstreetmap/),
 because we can't rely just on governments or companies to tell us what
 our world looks like.

 It's great to do humanitarian mapping, and it's awesome and amazing
 that we have access to resources like governmental datasets and
 imagery, but those can't substitute for going out and doing the work
 of looking at our neighborhoods for ourselves.


 That's why I map, and that's why I organize local mapping events.

 - Serge

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[Talk-us] Last day for State of the Map US scholarships!

[Eleanor Tutt]

Hello, friends - today is the last day to apply for State of the Map US
scholarships.

Luckily, the scholarship application is quick  easy - so if you need
financial assistance to make it to New York City in June, you still have
time to fill out an application.  If you help organize your local
OpenStreetMap community, please share this important deadline with your
fellow mappers.  It's not too late!

http://stateofthemap.us/scholarships/

After you apply for a scholarship, I also urge you to submit a talk
proposal - those proposals are due on March 22 and we want to hear your
ideas.

http://stateofthemap.us/talk/

Thanks so much,
Eleanor
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Re: [Talk-us] Why does the USA currently lag in OSM map quality?

[Eleanor Tutt]

+1 to Bryce's comments about reaching out to existing communities with
shared interests who may be using other tools/methods currently.

This conversation reminds me a of a presentation I saw on Missouri's recent
attempts to survey people about internet access and map broadband coverage,
including in rural areas.  They had luck with outreach by setting up booths
at State and County Fairs - that seemed to be where enough people gathered
at once to make the outreach worth the time  effort (although they often
used pins and paper maps to gather their data given spotty coverage).  I
wonder if anyone has ever had an OSM State Fair mapping party?

Eleanor

On Tue, Feb 17, 2015 at 2:34 PM, Paul Johnson ba...@ursamundi.org wrote:

 On Tue, Feb 17, 2015 at 1:15 PM, Ian Dees ian.d...@gmail.com wrote:

 On Tue, Feb 17, 2015 at 2:06 PM, Paul Johnson ba...@ursamundi.org
 wrote:

 I'm thinking if they wanted broader input, they'd use the mailing list
 and not the forum.

 But I think a big part of it is the US is very large, and very empty.
 Plot out a wall size map of the US, now pin the tail on the map.  Unless
 you bumped a wall on the way there or have an acute sense of space with
 your eyes closed and managed to stab somewhere in the Coruscant-like DFW
 megaplex (seriously, drive US 75 south into DFW at night and you'll go over
 a rise near Anna, TX from which DFW appears to roll from where you are all
 the way to the horizon ahead of you; it's probably geographically larger
 than several of the smallest states by area, possibly even combined), you
 probably just pinned the tail to a part of the country that is just as
 empty now as before Manifest Destiny.  Possibly even emptier given The
 Removal and two waves of urbanization.

 People map where they know.  People know where they are.  Where are the
 people in the US?  Well, if you take the top ten most populated
 metropolitan statistical areas in the US,  you account for 97% of the US
 population, and with the exception of Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas, they're all
 within a day's bicycle ride or less of an ocean (I'm including places as
 far in as Portland given I've made that ride to the ocean by bicycle
 before, and I'm not even horribly fit or in great shape).  Extend it out to
 the top 100 metropolitan statistical areas, and you leave a very small
 fraction of 1% of the US population to account for the remaining 281
 metropolitan statistical areas and 536 micropolitan statistical areas.

 TL;DR, Hitchhiker's Guide validated version:  When randomly sampled by
 township and range, averaged out and rounded to the nearest integer, the
 population of the US is 0.


 It's easy and fun to hypothesize about why OSM is crummy in the US, but
 it's vastly more useful to think of ways to improve it.


 I don't think I'm speaking in the hypothetical here.

 Increasing awareness through mapping parties/events seems to help a lot in
 urbanized areas, but we still haven't figured out how to apply that to the
 rest of the country. Tools like MapRoulette and fixme can guide existing
 mappers to areas that are probably in need of help. Are there methods of
 remote sensing (street-level imagery, data from other places on the
 internet) that could help us with the locality problem?


 TL;DR for the next two paragraphs:  OSM tends to fall somewhere on or
 between esteem and self-transcendence on Maslow's hierarchy.  The rural
 extreme struggles with the physiological and can't take safety for granted,
 and it's going to take something on the order of a New Deal that directly
 benefits with improving access to sanitation, food, water, electricity, and
 internet to less than 1% of the population that is going dozens of miles
 for food and water (or collecting both in situ), generating what limited
 electricity they have access to themselves, and whose trip to the toilet
 still involves shoes and a shovel, to do much of anything to change this
 within my lifetime.  Given the political climate of the country, I think it
 goes without saying that this isn't going to happen.

 Speaking from experience, OSM is a bandwidth intensive project,
 particularly when working with geography so freaking huge as the US.  And
 for the sake of this conversation, I'm lumping in the likes of Kellyville,
 Oklahoma, with all of it's 500 acres and 1100 people simply because that's
 large enough to have electricity, indoor plumbing and store, and some hope
 of getting anything viable in terms of internet access (even if only
 through a limited bandwidth library/cafe wifi hotspot) as urban.  That's
 relatively easy to spark the same way as it is in larger places:  Just
 find the like-minded individuals, spark the interest and you'll get crazy
 detailed maps for their part of the world, and some interesting
 applications come out of it.  I've seen it happen in Portland (where it
 gripped the imagination of my hometown a bit more tightly than I expected),
 I'm watching it start to happen again in Tulsa now.  

[Talk-us] Scholarship applications open for State of the Map US!

[Eleanor Tutt]

You may have seen that early bird registration to State of the Map US at
the United Nations Headquarters in New York City opened this week:
http://openstreetmap.us/2014/12/early-bird/

Well, today I'm happy to announce that scholarship applications are also
open for anyone needing a little extra help to join us at State of the Map
US: *http://openstreetmap.us/2015/01/scholarships/
http://openstreetmap.us/2015/01/scholarships/*

Our goal is to ensure a welcoming, inclusive, community-focused State of
the Map US, and scholarships are one way we're working to accomplish that
goal. We're offering four levels of financial support - a free ticket to
the conference, $500, $1,000, or $1,500 - depending on your self-identified
need and whether you are traveling within the United States or
internationally.

If you’re contributing to the OpenStreetMap community in an interesting way
– whether that’s by organizing meetups, making maps, adding data, writing
code or documentation, or something else – and financial help will make the
difference in whether you can come to State of the Map US, we urge you to
apply! No matter where you live, we welcome your application.

Applications are due March 15, 2015.

*http://openstreetmap.us/2015/01/scholarships/
http://openstreetmap.us/2015/01/scholarships/*

I hope to see you in New York City!

Thanks,
Eleanor Tutt
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Re: [Talk-us] Statistics of board candidate edits

[Eleanor Tutt]

At this point, the number of edits conversation seems well covered, so
I'll keep this first part brief.  I think there are three important areas
of growth for OpenStreetMap US:

1) The OSM map itself (more completeness/coverage, whether through
individual edits or well-vetted bulk data imports)
2) The OSM US mapping community (more editors, more diversity, more
resources for beginners)
3) The OSM US organization (completing 501c3 status work, improving
bylaws/processes - such as staggered board terms)

Ideally, the elected board should have a mix of expertise in order to be
able to address each of those areas of growth.

In my statement (http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/eleanortutt/diary/23934),
I focused on my desire to focus on introducing neighborhood leaders (as a
relatively untapped source of enthusiasm and local knowledge) to
OpenStreetMap as well as continuing the strong work the current board has
done in supporting editathons/mapathons.

Based on this conversation, I have some additional expertise I would like
you to consider when voting that I did not cover in my statement:

* I have experience providing technical assistance to small 501c3s on best
practices for organizational bylaws and management systems

* I have been on the core organizing team for three major events in 2014
(the meeting of the National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership, the Build
for STL hackathon and OpenStreetMap editathon, and a local conference with
the theme Data and the Arts for Social Change)

* In addition to the large-scale events above, I've organized multiple OSM
editathons/workshops in St. Louis in 2014, and I am leading the new St.
Louis Maptime chapter

* I have advocated for open source GIS tools, open data, and OSM
continuously during my 7+ years of working as a data analyst in the
community development field, and I have learned a lot about what works and
what doesn't in terms of encouraging new editors and where the pain points
are for new editors as they move from their first edit to actually becoming
regular contributors

* Like Alyssa, I am currently submitting a proposal to host the next SOTM
US with other St. Louis OSM contributors

Many thanks,
Eleanor



On Mon, Oct 6, 2014 at 1:07 AM, Clifford Snow cliff...@snowandsnow.us
wrote:


 On Sun, Oct 5, 2014 at 8:21 PM, Paul Norman penor...@mac.com wrote:

 While a candidate may have other skills, I'd want to hear from them in
 their manifesto why those skills make up for their complete lack of
 OpenStreetMap experience, and why they would be more able to apply those
 skills as a board member, rather than volunteering them without being a
 board member.


 Paul,
 I would hope we are selecting candidates with the skills needed to serve
 on the US Chapter's Board. It seems the two biggest functions are finance
 and the running of the SOTM-US conference. We are not selecting
 editor-in-chief. My experience in selecting board members for non profits
 is to find the best individual to fill the needs of the organization. These
 usually include the ability to raise monies, organize, communicate and
 plan. Additionally, in some positions, leadership skills are necessary.

 We all know great mappers, but not many would do well on the Board. On the
 other hand, we know of people that have no mapping experience but would do
 great on our board.

 Let elect individuals that can help us grow OSM. Ask yourself which of the
 candidates will best serve the needs of the community? If you do, I think
 you'll see that the number of edits has little to do with serving on the
 Board.

 Clifford

 --
 @osm_seattle
 osm_seattle.snowandsnow.us
 OpenStreetMap: Maps with a human touch

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