Communities have different personalities and ways to communicating. Spreading interest in OpenStreetMap around the world takes different approaches for different groups. This talk is a look at characteristics of certain existing OSM communities and why some of those approaches won't work elsewhere.
8. Mailing List Posts as of October 12th
Country Posts
Germany 105,289
Russia 121,423
France 791
United States 125
United Kingdom 262
Italy 76
Spain 0
Poland 10,101
Japan 0
Austria 0
We talk about this a lot, but what does it really mean? I mean let’s think about the US, it is a big place. Is that local? Probably not. Is there something cohesive about the group in some way though?
So I asked the wiki. I mean we talk about local community a lot.
Do you have to meet each other? Do you have to be interested in the same geographic area.
Language, interests, specific communities. E.g. hiking groups. Do we all have to like the map for the same reasons?
Over 100,000 Russian Posts on the OSM Forums. Only other country with near that many is Germany
OSM Stats so lets look at the top 10 countries from the 12th of October.
Compare this to forum posts
Or in Indonesia our biggest ourreach is Facebook.
Zoo Mapping
Atlanta Mapathon
Mapping with Kids
I mean I guess it depends on what you are defining as local. For example we were doing a project where we needed between 5-70 people to come help with mapping in Jakarta. The same 4 girls showed up to everything. I didn’t think much of it until someone told me why.
Gender, culture, interest, language. “level of geekiness”
Onemanys local is another mans invasion
Let’s think about the potential of brothel mapping depending on where you are.
Maybe, this sort of thing freaks people out
Do what works for your community, if people are on Facebook cool, if mailing lists are your thing. Just important to think about who you are reaching out to.