CWG meeting 2012-02-06

Communication Working Group meeting which took place Monday 6th February 2012

Attendees

• Henk Hoff
• Harry Wood
• Jonathan Bennett
• Richard Fairhurst
• Richard Weait

Topics

• "Britain's New Radicals" observer article
• Ulf memorial fund
• rebuild group and mailing list

IRC Log

20:59 harry-wood : hello
20:59 rweait1 : hello.
20:59 JonathanB : Evening.
21:00 toffehoff : Hello all.
21:00 toffehoff : I'm in a cafe in Salt Lake City.
21:00 rweait1 : Wow. Enjoy your beer and joint.  :-/
21:00 toffehoff : Hope this connection is better than last time I was on an "foreign" connection ;-)
21:01 harry-wood : I'm in snowy London …except it mostly melted already
21:01 rweait1 : Can I add "Ulf's Legacy" to the agenda?
21:01 toffehoff : Beer, in early afternoon …. Neuh...
21:01 toffehoff : user.
21:01 toffehoff : Sure I meant.
21:01 rweait1 : Beautiful t-shirt weather here in Toronto.
21:01 rweait1 : and a rare blue sky.
21:02 rweait1 : okay, who's starting us off?
21:02 RichardF : hellooooo
21:02 toffehoff : I've send you all an email about half an hour ago...
21:03 harry-wood : ooh. Looks like we're missing IRC log from last time
21:03 toffehoff : About the 2012 plan. If we agree, we can publish that onto the WG-page on osmf.org
21:03 harry-wood : http://www.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Working_Group_Minutes#Communication_Working_Group
21:04 toffehoff : I'm afraid I don't have it....
21:04 toffehoff : the IRC log.
21:04 harry-wood : jonathanB here? Dont suppose you have that do you?
21:04 JonathanB : I do -- gimme five to reformat and I'll post.
21:05 toffehoff : So, what's on today agenda?
21:05 harry-wood : coool.. Just paste it in a <pre> tag. We can sort it out later
21:05 RichardF : I'll mention, just for the record:
21:06 RichardF : a few months ago I discussed entering OSM for a thing in the Observer (UK newspaper) called "Britain's New Radicals"
21:06 RichardF : about organisations that are changing the country and the world for the better
21:06 RichardF : and CWG people said "sure, just do it"
21:06 RichardF : anyway, I heard from them this week and we've been listed as one of the 50
21:06 RichardF : so we get a nice mention in the Observer and everything
21:06 harry-wood : cool
21:06 toffehoff : :-)
21:06 rweait1 : Well done.
21:06 harry-wood : anythng we need to do?
21:06 RichardF : could possibly do with some images to send them if anyone has any suggestions!
21:07 harry-wood : Maybe the one of TomH in reindeer antlers?
21:07 RichardF : hmmmm ;)
21:07 harry-wood : …no maybe not
21:08 RichardF : well, I can probably find one anyway
21:08 toffehoff : Maybe some of the featured images of the wiki?
21:08 harry-wood : an image of the map
21:08 RichardF : there's a nice one by a friend of Mikel on the Press pages which I'll ask him if we can use
21:09 Blackadder : Did you find a log for last time? I might have it
21:09 harry-wood : ooh hello Blackadder
21:09 Blackadder : hi, was just passing ;-)
21:09 harry-wood : think JonathanB has it
21:10 Blackadder : cool. ping me if needed
21:10 JonathanB : I do -- rough version now at http://www.osmfoundation.org/wiki/CWG_meeting_2012-01-23
21:10 harry-wood : Next on the agenda...
21:10 harry-wood : What the plan for the plan?
21:10 harry-wood : Do we need to write more of a plan than that? Or those bullet points are enough?
21:11 harry-wood : (see henk's email half an hour ago)
21:11 rweait1 : Has Henk swapped Dutch for Arabic to lighten his load?
21:12 toffehoff : :-)
21:12 rweait1 : Do we have a lead on an Arabic-speaking contributor?
21:12 toffehoff : I remember we had a discussion a couple of weeks ago about the languages would like to have.
21:12 toffehoff : Arabic was one of our "challenges"
21:13 rweait1 : I don't have any objection to those four points.
21:14 toffehoff : The only thing we may want to add is if we expect to spend any budget on these items.
21:16 rweait1 : toffehoff, I can't see why we would. Would we hire a translator for a community that isn't interested enough to translate for themselves?
21:16 toffehoff : If we do not expect to spend any budget, that's ok. If we do, it may be good to mention it.
21:17 harry-wood : Maybe "expanding the number of active CWG members" doesn't need to be one of the bullet points. It's kind of a meta-plan. We need more people to some other things we're planning
21:17 harry-wood : Taking on more communication challenges within the community, such as work on documentation
21:17 RichardF : +1
21:18 toffehoff : What kind of documentation are we talking about?
21:18 JonathanB : Yes -- "more people" is like "more money"
21:18 RichardF : toffehoff: simplifying common aspects of OSM in the same way that switch2osm simplifies getting maps onto your own site
21:19 toffehoff : I think the Engineering WG also has a target to make more technical documention available.
21:19 JonathanB : ...and that's something we can offer to help with
21:19 toffehoff : Fine, just so we do not duplicate things....
21:19 harry-wood : documentation may mean new websites explaining things, or improving existing documents on the wiki. But also some grand unified plan for different attempts at documentation
21:20 JonathanB : (full Minutes up at http://www.osmfoundation.org/wiki/CWG_meeting_2012-01-23 now)
21:20 rweait1 : no objections to any of that from me.
21:20 JonathanB : What we seem to be missing is a grand front page to *all* OSM documentation
21:21 harry-wood : Yes. And trying scope out the different docs so that it's clear where to go for what
21:21 toffehoff : Sounds great.
21:22 rweait1 : anything else to add or remove from that plan, or can we move on?
21:23 toffehoff : So: remove the # of members and add the documentation item?
21:23 JonathanB : +1 to that
21:24 RichardF : yep
21:24 toffehoff : OK, will send this around on management@ and put it on our page on osmf.org
21:25 toffehoff : Next?
21:25 toffehoff : Ulf's legacy?
21:25 rweait1 : Right.
21:25 rweait1 : Background
21:26 toffehoff : See also mail of rweait1 @ Jan 29th.
21:26 rweait1 : Ulf's family have asked that OSMF receive funds from those who wish to honour Ulf, as a way to continue Ulf's good work and interest in OSM.
21:26 rweait1 : Board appears to be fine with CWG taking lead on this.
21:27 rweait1 : So we need to 1) set up to recive the funds 2) announce
21:27 rweait1 : and 3) decide what to do with the funds.
21:27 rweait1 : as a suitable legacy.
21:27 rweait1 : Sound good?
21:28 harry-wood : yes.
21:28 harry-wood : We need to be set up to receive donations from germany… which seemed to be a problem in the past
21:28 rweait1 : receiving Euro transfers is now set up and on the wiki.
21:29 harry-wood : Cool. Does that solve it?
21:29 rweait1 : any memo field with "Ulf Moeller" would make the contribution trackable.
21:29 rweait1 : comments are already included in paypal payments.
21:29 toffehoff : We could also make a special paypal donation button
21:30 rweait1 : I think the tricky part is "what to do with the fund."
21:30 toffehoff : which automatically adds a remark.
21:30 harry-wood : 2) announce <— No problems with that. I think we're getting quite good a announcing things
21:31 harry-wood : We'd need to decide how to announce it exactly. Depends what we're announcing.
21:31 rweait1 : we could consume the fund all at once to do something "big", or a bit at a time, over time, to do something smaller, but for several years...
21:31 toffehoff : It would be good to have a rough idea on what we're going to do with it.
21:31 rweait1 : suggestions have been, 1) sponsor attendee for SotM.
21:31 JonathanB : Something, say, annual would provide a longer legacy
21:32 toffehoff : JonathanB: +1
21:32 rweait1 : 2) donate GPS(es) to someone, each year
21:33 rweait1 : Right. so if the fund is 2-3k, can it bear interest, and buy a GPSr (or two) each year?
21:33 toffehoff : When we're talking about donating GPS-es, we could rename the maps4all project ....
21:33 rweait1 : Perhaps award those to German Cyclist mappers?
21:33 rweait1 : you mean GPS2Go?
21:34 harry-wood : maps3all is kind of the new name for GPS2go I think
21:34 toffehoff : Yes, the plan is to revamp it under the maps4all name.
21:34 harry-wood : which is well underway
21:34 harry-wood : so probably best not to suggest renaming it again :-)
21:35 rweait1 : I think we want to come to a decision on this fairly soon. And I think we want more ideasfrom which to choose.
21:35 toffehoff : If we want to do it, we need to be quick.
21:35 harry-wood : I like the sponsor SOTM attendee idea
21:35 harry-wood : how to pick a winner?
21:35 JonathanB : That could eat up 1000s per year
21:36 harry-wood : yes it could be expensive
21:36 toffehoff : I like the gps-es a bit more, since it's more scalable.
21:36 RichardF : I like the idea of using it to encourage real on-the-ground mapping.
21:36 RichardF : We don't do that enough.
21:36 rweait1 : RichardF +1
21:36 RichardF : so, either GPSes or some form of mapping prize.
21:36 rweait1 : That strikes me as Ulf, to a "T"
21:37 rweait1 : The photos I've seen of him, are Ulf with his bike and a GPS.
21:37 toffehoff : Pardon my French: "to a 'T'" ?
21:37 rweait1 : Do we give away GPSrs, or a GPSr and a bike?
21:37 rweait1 : toffehoff: To A "T". (A perfect Match)
21:37 rweait1 : :-)
21:38 toffehoff : ah…. :-)
21:38 rweait1 : picking a winner. Hard problem again.
21:38 rweait1 : Accept nominations?
21:38 toffehoff : What are the criteria?
21:38 rweait1 : random chance from those who map a cycleway?
21:39 RichardF : accept nominations. that rewards community, too.
21:39 RichardF : i.e. people have to like you :)
21:39 toffehoff : RichardF: _1
21:39 toffehoff : +1
21:40 rweait1 : Okay, before we get too deep in this, do we have other topics for today?
21:40 toffehoff : Any communication we need to help with relating the license change?
21:40 rweait1 : translations for the post on blog...
21:41 harry-wood : yes that need translating
21:41 rweait1 : harry-wood shall I send a note to the translators?
21:41 harry-wood : athough confusingly it can also be translated on the wiki
21:42 rweait1 : anything else, or should we continue with Ulf?
21:42 harry-wood : if somebody posts a translation on the blog we should make sure it gets copied to the wiki quickly or vice versa
21:42 harry-wood : what could go wrong ?:-)
21:42 harry-wood : I think mostly we could do with pinging our normal translating folks yes
21:43 rweait1 : I will do that tonight.
21:43 toffehoff : Anything we need to do with switch2osm?
21:43 harry-wood : RichardF what d'you think?
21:43 RichardF : nope, don't think so
21:43 harry-wood : looking good
21:44 RichardF : I'll set up some translation infrastructure for it in due course but am waiting for it to calm down first :)
21:44 harry-wood : Aforo mamoemoroere blasssrssson was pointing out that we could have a page on google maps javascript & osm tiles
21:44 harry-wood : ^my attempt at spelling an icelandic name
21:45 rweait1 : What about an "Ulf Moeller Memorial Mapper of the Year Award" with no attached prize. Just recognition.
21:46 harry-wood : yeah. that doesn't solve the what to spend the money on question
21:46 harry-wood : but maybe the money could just go to OSMF …boring though that is
21:46 rweait1 : something like: "for recognition of excellence in mapping cycle infrastructure"
21:46 harry-wood : hehe
21:46 rweait1 : we coudl even add the GPS to that until we run out of GPS money.
21:47 RichardF : rweait1: good idea
21:47 rweait1 : or "cycle infrastructure and local community."
21:47 toffehoff : Good idea, but the name needs tweaking, so it also hints to cycle-infrastructure.
21:47 rweait1 : I'd like to propose that the Foundation chip in an amount for the fund.
21:48 rweait1 : toffehoff, sure.
21:48 rweait1 : The CyclePath Award.  :-)
21:48 rweait1 : (not serious)
21:49 toffehoff : The Off-The-Beaten-Track award.
21:49 harry-wood : The "highway=cycleway or is it cycle=yes" award
21:49 rweait1 : Or leave it as "The Ulf Moeller Memorial Award" and leave the details subject to refinement over time...
21:50 toffehoff : We could leave it like that for now.
21:50 toffehoff : More interesting are the criteria for the award.
21:51 rweait1 : Do we leave criteria and judging in the hands of CWG as well?
21:51 toffehoff : I think we can agree on it being a nomination-based award.
21:51 toffehoff : That's a good question...
21:51 harry-wood : unless we don't get enough nominations
21:51 toffehoff : I didn't say who needs to nominate ;-)
21:52 rweait1 : maybe email ideas this week and I'll provide a summary for next week?
21:52 harry-wood : Also what if we get an embarrassing amount of money to spend on an award?
21:52 toffehoff : We could let the community vote on the winner.
21:52 rweait1 : With the goal of hiving this done and ready to annoucemnext week.
21:52 rweait1 : harry-wood. That could happen.
21:52 rweait1 : Include a bike in the first award?
21:53 rweait1 : Buy a server for cycle map tiles?
21:53 JonathanB : We could approach a bike manufacturer for the first year
21:53 rweait1 : Oh yes, we could
21:53 rweait1 : +1
21:53 toffehoff : +1
21:53 rweait1 : and thne buy a bike for the second year.
21:53 rweait1 : etc.
21:53 rweait1 : One problem at a time I guess.
21:54 toffehoff : :-)
21:54 toffehoff : It's getting near the hour.
21:54 rweait1 : Thanks for indulging me.
21:54 harry-wood : so if we have get an embarrassing amount of money then it goes to next years prize fund
21:54 rweait1 : we can adapt.
21:54 toffehoff : I would be great if we can make something lasting out of it.
21:55 RichardF : a bike is a really great idea.
21:55 rweait1 : We could make an annual donation to a victims of violence fund or something.
21:55 rweait1 : Provide map consulting for a victim shelter.
21:55 toffehoff : Let's see how much we end up with first....
21:55 rweait1 : Okay. Send me brainstorms this week.
21:56 rweait1 : and bike manufacturers.
21:56 rweait1 : anything else?
21:56 harry-wood : sounds like a plan
21:56 harry-wood : I went to management team meeting on Wednesday
21:57 harry-wood : we discussed one topic only. License change and the DB "rebuild" process
21:58 harry-wood : There's a rebuild mailing list where technicalities of a the DB rebuild are being discussed.
21:58 rweait1 : How'd that go?
21:58 harry-wood : This is super-important and on the critical path for license changeover on april 1st
21:59 harry-wood : but it's not particularly helpful to shout about that mailing list far and wide and try to get lots of people on there.
22:00 harry-wood : The communication challenge is mainly this contact & re-map campaign
22:01 harry-wood : There was some lively discussion about whether or not april 1st should be regarded as a solid deadline.
22:01 rweait1 : what were the arguments for and against?
22:02 harry-wood : Frederick is very involved in the technicalities and was keen to say that the job should be done right, and if this mean taking a month or two longer, then so be it
22:03 harry-wood : SteveC said …some things which wound up Frederick
22:04 rweait1 : oh really?
22:04 harry-wood : suffice to say there will certainly be some people who regard it as a major failure if we do not hit the April 1st deadline
22:04 JonathanB : For what reason?
22:04 harry-wood : major failure of the board, the foundation, and of OpenStreetMap (from an outsiders perspective)
22:04 rweait1 : hmm, I don't recall that from any discussion at LWG. We all just want it done right.
22:05 RichardF : I think we'll hit it.
22:05 rweait1 : How so from outsiders? What do outsiders know about it?
22:05 toffehoff : They can't get anything done "They are an unreliable group" that kind of thing.
22:05 JonathanB : rweait1: +1
22:05 rweait1 : The license change is such a tiny, arcane bit of nonsense.
22:05 rweait1 : It's important to US, but outsiders?!?!
22:05 harry-wood : Well there's a fun debate to have there certainly
22:05 rweait1 : Every time I speak to groups about the license, they glaze over with indifference.
22:06 rweait1 : Who, outside of OSM(F) could possibly care?
22:06 toffehoff : Organisations who want to use OSM data.
22:06 rweait1 : Not iPhone app authers. They jsut want free tiles. :-)
22:06 toffehoff : Companies in the automotive industry
22:07 RichardF : why wouldn't we hit it? we know what we're doing and we've got the smartest technical guys there are.
22:07 rweait1 : Right.
22:07 harry-wood : yes. My view is we should be aiming to hit it. We've got two months. Lots can happen in two months
22:08 rweait1 : But why would we care what Anonymous auto manufacturer says, if Frederik says we need another four weeks?
22:08 harry-wood : so the work of the "rebuild" group is super important
22:08 JonathanB : We can definitely hit it in as much as we can start offering an ODBL-only planet
22:08 toffehoff : There are two things: the remapping effort and the rebuilt effort.
22:08 rweait1 : Really. If anonymous auto manufacturer is so interested, where are they helping us?
22:08 toffehoff : Who says that they aren't?
22:09 rweait1 : They know that we do everything with volunteers don't they?
22:09 toffehoff : Yes, but at some point they are not waiting any longer. Having heard we're working on a new license for more than a year ....
22:10 harry-wood : Are we having a practice run for the debate we need to have with the community when we don't hit the target date? :-)
22:10 rweait1 : toffehoff. So what?
Blackadder left the room (quit: Quit: heading for the next unmapped place=).
22:10 rweait1 : How does that affect them?
22:10 rweait1 : effect.
22:11 toffehoff : You mean, how the license effect them?
22:11 rweait1 : Yeah. Why do they care?
22:11 rweait1 : And if they care, why aren't they helping, instead of hiding?
22:11 toffehoff : Having way much more clarity on the derived works.
22:12 rweait1 : Sounds like nonsense to me. I can't see an auto manufacturer caring a bit about the license.
22:12 toffehoff : Recently talked with a municipality in NL. They want to use OSM as background layer. But not want to open up some of their data due to privacy issues and such.
22:13 RichardF : would encourage people to remap rather than arguing about whether or not we might hit it ;)
22:13 RichardF : and yes, I am saying that with Cornwall open in P2 on my other monitor!
22:13 rweait1 : and with that change of subject, are we done?  :-)
22:13 toffehoff : I think we are.
22:14 harry-wood : Regarding CWG. We may well be in the position of defending the "failures" on this one, but for now I think we can agree that it would be ….nice ….if we hit the april 1st target
22:14 harry-wood : other communcation aspects
22:14 harry-wood : are all about contact & remap campaign
22:14 harry-wood : if we can think of any way CWG can assist the "rebuild" group… we should do it
22:15 harry-wood : e.g. do they want regular conference calls which we can help with in some way? probably not. Mostly we'd be getting in the way I imagine
22:15 rweait1 : Mike's not shy. He'll ask if he wants something.
22:15 toffehoff : I think our focus should be on contact & remap campaign.
22:15 rweait1 : LWG meetings are Tuesdays
22:16 rweait1 : All done then? same/same next week?
22:16 toffehoff : Til next week!
22:17 harry-wood : ok!
22:17 RichardF : bye!
22:17 harry-wood : bye the way I propose the previous minutes
22:18 harry-wood : which jonathanB has formatted nicely
22:18 toffehoff : I'll second.
22:18 harry-wood : ( http://www.osmfoundation.org/wiki/CWG_meeting_2012-01-23 ) excellent
22:19 toffehoff : going offline now. Bye!
22:19 toffehoff left the room.