On Mon, Dec 17, 2012 at 10:19 PM, Alex Barth <a...@mapbox.com> wrote:
> > On Dec 17, 2012, at 9:15 PM, Jason Remillard <remillard.ja...@gmail.com> > wrote: > > > For my import, 80% of the > > useful feedback was off list in private emails because people don't > > want to deal with the rude behavior in the list. I made a bunch of > > decisions that might seem weird to people that just follow the list. > > But I assure you that I cared a whole lot what the 4 people who signed > > up actually help thought about all of the issues. > > This I find very interesting. To some extent it reflects my first > impressions with OSM mailing lists. I know many people who are too daunted > to subscribe, I find that is a shame. If it wasn't for friends in the > offline world who got me started on OSM, I would have been way too > intimidated by the lists to just jump in. Why is this? What can we improve? OSM is complex and the people willing to stick around long enough to know it are usually intimidating to the people who are new and uncertain about it. This imbalance is particularly strong on the mailing lists because it's so easy for a response to come off in the wrong way or for a huge number of people to respond in a flurry of "OMG don't import that!" Also, the asynchronous nature of the mailing list means pointless arguments are very easy to start and very hard to finish. I would much rather see people conversing in real time on IRC/phone/hangout where you're more immediately accountable for what you say or asking questions via the forums where it's a bit easier for threads to stay on topic.
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