On Mon, Oct 3, 2011 at 1:34 PM, Hillsman, Edward <hills...@cutr.usf.edu> wrote:
> As I recall, you’ve offered advice and encouragement for mapping parties, so > I’m seeking advice on running one. This is being organized by several > people, none of whom has run one before. I probably will be the only person > who has attended a mapping party, some 2.5 years ago, run in a different > format than we will be able to do here. [ ... ] In short, your event sounds really ambitious. You could have dozens of newbies for each experienced OSMer. I would expect that to have to be VERY well organized to be successful. My preference is for one-to-one coaching. OSM is so diverse that folks come at it with their interests from all directions. I think that a general, group, presentation to address all interests would be too superficial. That general presentation can work as a warm-up so that everybody gets the right background information; "it's a cooperative project", "We never copy from anything and only use our direct observation as source[1]", "If you something incorrect, don't complain, fix it!", etc. Then "These are a bunch of cool things that people are mapping", "These are a bunch of cool things that people are doing with the data". And a list of good references and how to use them, Local user groups, Map Features on the wiki, the help site, Talk@ list, newbies@ list, #osm irc, etc. But this presentation should inspire lots of questions, so a chance for follow-up one-to-one is really important. One-to-one, I like to start with "What is it about OSM that interests you?" Followed by, "and do you have questions about how to do some part of that?" I let them run the computer and I'll coach them through JOSM / Potlatch when they ask for help. Sometimes it starts out with "Here is the wiki. Here is the map Features page..." rather than mapping. And I always start with them looking at a place they know intimately, like their home or office. This is no time for guesswork about "do these roads connect or not?" Recently, I've been recommending regular local meetups, rather than mapping parties. This is more of a "German" approach. If I might stereotype the German OSM community, I would say that they map during the month, then get together to talk about it as their monthly Stammtisch. Our English friends tend to map on the way to the pub, then talk about it there. It is my understanding that these events are overwhelmingly attended by folks who are already OSM contributors. When newcomers attend, they are welcomed, and coached and then can go off to "practice" on their own for next time. Building a local regular event will organically increase the number of active local mappers as the group grows. And a monthly pub meetup is WAY simpler to organize, is less of a time-commitment for a newcomer, and is ideal for one-to-one coaching. I've stopped organizing mapping parties because I find local groups both more successful at creating new mappers and more fun for me. I'll still happily attend mapping parties organized by others. The two most-recent MPs that I attended were Toronto and Ottawa. In Toronto we had four regulars and four newbies. Perfect! We did a little presentation. Paired up for a half-hour survey. Came back for some peer-coached first edits. It worked nicely even if the weather could have been better. In Ottawa we had five regulars and several of us had not met before. Our planned and booked venue fell through completely, so we moved to a coffee shop. We ditched mapping entirely and had a fantastic time getting to know each other and sharing mapping stories. Afterwards several of us were inspired to do more mapping than usual, including a bunch of Ottawa clean-up stuff. Both of these were good results. Toronto worked well because we have dozens of active mappers including several who showed up and are really good coaches. Others have run mapping parties of various sizes. It would be great to get their feedback as well. Best regards, Richard [1] then introduce approved / compatible sources later. _______________________________________________ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us