Hi, I think that one good way to promote OSM is to teach the general public to make references to the main Map <http://www.openstreetmap.org>. I know persons writing to 100s of people who could write things like the rendezvous is here <http://www.openstreetmap.org/way/5013364?mlat=48.85783&mlon=2.29513#map=18/48.85826/2.29478>. As well as webmasters, for example of Universities of which every building can be mapped in detail. Alas, they don't know well how to do that.
So, very welcomed by its co-authors, I improved this section in the Browsing Help page <http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Browsing#Adding_a_Marker>, some other parts of that page and the French translation. I showed that, and the writers were suddenly able to make links. They wondered why [the heck] that page is unfindable and is not highlighted as the help page of that map <http://www.openstreetmap.org>. Generally, a program has a Help button to help using it, and sometimes even a F1 key assignment. So, I made that request to openstreetmap-website <https://github.com/openstreetmap/openstreetmap-website/issues/871>. I received a one man's reply, without any discussion, closing the issue instantly and disregarding my reply. It amounts to saying that what I and the other contributors of that page have written is crap. "Full of all sorts of hacky low level details" (like the essentials to make a link to OSM.org). Furthermore, that opinion extends to links to other wiki pages "full of years works of ac[c]reted nonsense". In order of appearance, "zoom and pinch" ( <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/en:Multi-touch#Multi-touch_gestures>Wikipedia), "geolocation <http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Geolocation>", "Nominatim <http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Nominatim>", "Mapping projects <http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Mapping_projects>", "Cycle Map <http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/OpenCycleMap>", "Transport Map <http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Transport_Map>", "MapQuest <http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/MapQuest> Open", "List of OSM-based services <http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/List_of_OSM-based_services>", "Map Features <http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Map_Features>", "Key:highway <http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:highway>", ... Finally, that OSM.org map <http://www.openstreetmap.org> would "not be intended for the end user" but "the target audience is mappers". All that in the frequent style that I call "not", disparaging what others did or think without a single constructive word about how to improve it or what it should be. I feel like being insulted instead of thanked (as well as many other persons). I have, of course, immediately stopped improving and translating the OpenStreetMap documentation. And I, who spent much time tagging, like the boundaries of south Belgium, feel very much like stopping to participate to OSM entirely. You may want to add your comments to that issue. Best regards, André.
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