Alan, The number of edits a user names is a data point. For some people, it's an important data point, for others it may not be, but it's an interesting piece of information.
By analogy, if this were a cyclist organization, I would hope that a board member had experience as a cyclist. The number of edits a user has made is only one factor, but it can illustrate quite a bit, especially the type of edits a user has made, and the frequency of their edits. What's just as interesting, if not more interesting to me is how many edits a person has made through on the ground surveying vs using other datasets or imagery. That is hard to capture, but getting a user's # of edits in the US, and their "core location" gives me some hints. If I know someone lives in Orlando, FL and their edits are mainly focused in Africa, I can make a reasonable assumption that unless they travel to Africa frequently, that they're using imagery. Why is that important? For me it speaks to someone's mapping modality, and therefore their experience with the project. It speaks to their involvement, their experience editing, etc. What I've found really curious, and frustrating, is the amount of negativity directed towards Paul for simply putting out data about the candidates. To me, this is the same kind of information that we celebrate when organizations like the Sunlight Foundation aggregate and distribute. Others are free to disagree, certainly, but I found the data to be helpful. It won't be my only factor in the decision making process, but it will be a factor. Now there are other questions for the candates I'd like to know, such whether or not they're paid to work on OSM, and if so, by who. I'd like to know from the incumbents what they've done in the past that's notable or some other way by which we can judge their performance. Maybe someone would like to ask these questions- I'm pretty turned off my the negativity and largely disengaged from the process other than my need to stand up when I see someone being unfairly attacked simply for providing information. - Serge _______________________________________________ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us