Check out welcome.osm.be. It is a great tool, created by the Belgium community, to welcome new users in your area. There are a number of already written welcome messages, or your can create your own. I find that reviewing their first edits and offering suggestions, plus sending a welcoming message is helpful. Most tips I provide are just common things like squaring buildings, not shortening street names, dragging nodes, etc. I fix the disruptive issues, like dragged nodes, but encourage them to fix other issues like buildings not being squared.
The message includes strong suggestions to use the wiki and to respond to changeset comments. It also includes where they can reach out to the local community. Please understand, only a small percentage responds. But I believe it helps grow the community. The tool is documented on github at https://github.com/osmbe/osm-welcome-tool. Best, Clifford On Fri, Mar 20, 2026 at 9:41 AM John Rowbotham via Talk-GB < [email protected]> wrote: > Thanks Andy. > > > > Would anyone have ideas about ways to reach out positively to new > mappers. Is there a way/system/etiquette to greet newbies, without being > too intrusive but to be sociable and supportive? > > > > Recently, I've shared messages with a new mapper who just wants to get the > right postcode on his house, and Google/Bing/GPO themselves aren't > listening. As a result I am doing a full survey of houses on a few mile > rural stretch of road which is blank on the map (well, a bit at a time as I > can only get there every few days). Obviously errors and poor > mapping/vandalism that needs calling out should be escalated to you fine > folks in DWG (and I have). But I believe we should try to encourage and > support new starters, especially local to us, and not just use the critical > methods if they do something wrong. > > ------ Original Message ------ > From: [email protected] > To: [email protected] > Sent: Friday, March 20th 2026, 15:34 > Subject: Re: [Talk-GB] Reaching out > > On 18/03/2026 13:27, John Rowbotham via Talk-GB wrote: > > > I've used the messaging service and I've used 'comment on changeset' of > course. I do wonder though if they are using mobile apps whether that > these messages ever reach them? > > It depends on the mapper and on the app. Some people these days tend to > sign up to apps with "throwaway email addresses" (because of the volume of > spam and "offers" that you'll get from most commercial sites). Without the > specifics of a particular message it's difficult to comment. > > If someone is persistently ignoring all comments (and you can see that by > looking at a third-party site such as > https://resultmaps.neis-one.org/osm-discussion-comments?uid=61942 ) then > you can ask the DWG to send them a "message that they have to read before > continuing to edit". That doesn't stop them editing, although they do have > to read the message first. To ask the DWG to do this email > [email protected] with as many details as possible about what is > happening. > > Best Regards, > > Andy (from the DWG) > > > > > > > > > > ------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > Talk-GB mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb > > > _______________________________________________ > Talk-GB mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb > -- @glassman.bsky.social www.snowandsnow.us OpenStreetMap: Maps with a human touch
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