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Communication channels analysis: Difference between revisions
Communication channels analysis (view source)
Revision as of 15:15, 13 September 2010
, 13 years agomore about mailing mailing lists
Harry Wood (talk | contribs) (wiki) |
Harry Wood (talk | contribs) (more about mailing mailing lists) |
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==== talk / dev / license etc ====
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Mailing_lists We have lots of them. 95 different lists shown [http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo on the system].
An often cited problem is that announcements made this way can easily get lost in the noise, and indeed the noise prevents many people attempting to keep up with the talk and dev main mailing lists (Harry sympathises with this viewpoint, and has ''never'' attempted to follow any mailing lists, with the result that he misses out on some announcements) Many of the other communication channels are attempts to tackle this problem.
==== announce list ====▼
A small minority of users have been known to post far too often, in breach of normal mailing list etiquette. This can be see within user posting stats (''Question: user stats link?'') These users contributes significantly to the noise factor, although all conversational postings add up to a net-squared effect of ever increasing chatter as more new joiners sign up to the mailing list.
The mailing list is also blighted by '''argumentative postings''' which is perhaps inevitable. Sadly it puts out a negative impression to any newcomers. Newbies were encouraged to move to the newbies mailing list, partly to decrease noise, but partly to attempt to present a more friendly face to these people. Sadly the newbies list is not without its arguments either.
The label of "trolling" is bandied around very easily, but in some cases there are accusations of deliberate and '''malicious''' attempts to undermine the effectiveness of the mailing list. It may be in some people's nature to needlessly start arguments, but clear-cut cases of malicious mailing list use could be tackled with this use of blocking privileges. So far this has never been necessary, but sadly the project may be growing towards that point. Steve's "poisonous people" post describes these problems.
▲==== announce list ====
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/announce/ A mailing list just for announcements. Clearly for this to be effective, it should not involve any discussion, and postings should be important project announcements, for some definition of "important". This means that unimportant things should no appear there, but also important things MUST appear there. So far people seem to be using it fairly sensibly. Maybe a little too many merkaartor point release announcements, but important announcements don't always make it onto there. ''Question: Is public posting allowed?''
==== osmf-talk ====
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/osmf-talk/ Chit chat about the foundation. This may be particularly relevant to the Communications Working Group.
==== Other ====
===Wiki===
Documentation and help information. Publicly editable. Harry has been active (a bit less these days) and trying to manage things like changes to the Main Page, and steering "cleanup" activities. He has admin status on there along with 14 other people [http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Special:ListUsers/sysop Special:ListUsers/sysop]. We can block people. So far nobody has misbehaved to that extent apart from spammers. However some people have come close, through pushing their own point of view or overriding attempts to follow a process. These difficulties are mostly around disputed tagging documentation.
==== 'Community Updates' page ====
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