CWG meeting 2012-01-23

Communication Working Group meeting which took place Monday 23rd January 2012

Attendees

• Henk Hoff
• Harry Wood
• Jonathan Bennett

Apologies

• Richard Fairhurst
• Richard Weait

Topics

• Switch2OSM

IRC Log

[21:07] harry-wood1 So what's to talk about today?
[21:07] harry-wood1 switch2osm
[21:08] toffehoff Let's focus on that one if we want to keep this a shorter meeting.
[21:08] harry-wood1 Did you guys get yourself set up with accounts on there?
[21:08] harry-wood1 yes
[21:08] toffehoff on where?
[21:08] harry-wood1 on switch2osm.org
[21:09] toffehoff nope.
[21:09] harry-wood1 Richard emailed around a link at one point
[21:09] toffehoff hmmm.
[21:09] harry-wood1 I haven't had time to contribute anything
[21:09] harry-wood1 but I did get an account
[21:09] toffehoff ok
[21:10] toffehoff btw: would it be nice to know who has accounts to what websites?
[21:10] JonathanB Sorry -- still having unix->windows problems here
[21:10] JonathanB I can talk a bit about switch2osm
[21:10] toffehoff please
[21:11] JonathanB Some of this may be my intepretation of things, but the idea was when the hashtag started gaining in use on Twitter, RichardF saw an opportunity
[21:12] JonathanB He registered the domain, and get an instance of WordPress up against it, and gave myself, harry-wood1 and a few others accounts on it
[21:12] harry-wood1 osmfoundation.org is the main other website… it has two different sets of accounts of course wiki and wordpress. Possibly need to get more people set up with accounts on those
[21:12] JonathanB At present, RichardF, harry-wood1 and JonathanB are admins
[21:13] JonathanB with apmon, iandees and simonpoole all having editor access
[21:13] JonathanB So it's not just CWG contributing to this, but the main admins are all CWG members
[21:14] toffehoff awesome
[21:14] JonathanB I think the plan is to keep the site relatively simple, reflecting how simple it is to #switch2osm
[21:15] harry-wood1 Yes. I think it's good as a glossy compact site full of info and links. No need to build it into anything more than that really.
[21:15] JonathanB No heavy sell -- we're assuming that people visiting the site are already interested enough
[21:15] JonathanB we just present a concise version of the info they need to switch and let them do the rest, hopefully
[21:16] toffehoff I really like the idea and the site. Although I'm kinda missing something ...
[21:16] toffehoff it is rather technical
[21:16] toffehoff Could we spend a page on people who use the gmaps api and replace that with another api, like the mapquest open.
[21:17] harry-wood1 well it's targeted at those people yes. Web developers
[21:18] toffehoff There are a lot of people who have a gmaps map on their website, b/c it so extremely easy.
[21:19] JonathanB They're encouraged to try Leaflet, which is very simple to set up, but sure, a page on MQ Open wouldn't be bad
[21:19] JonathanB It just needs someone familiar with the MQ API to write it.
[21:19] toffehoff There is a really, really, really easy step to #switch2osm (use mapquest/cloudmade/ ???) or, if you're a bit more technical and want something fancy ....
[21:19] toffehoff ok
[21:19] harry-wood1 They're listed on 'proviers' http://switch2osm.org/providers/
[21:20] toffehoff I've seen the on the providers. yes.
[21:20] harry-wood1 The site should maybe have a section on how to specify different tile providers within google maps API
[21:20] toffehoff Making it look easy, it may be good to have also something like step-by-step MQ implementation.
[21:21] toffehoff #switch2osm is easy, or really easy, or really really easy.
[21:22] harry-wood1 need to chat with RichardF about what his plans are. I presume there's some areas he wants to work on slightly before the launch tomorrow
[21:22] harry-wood1 I notice that "getting started with leaflet" has some javascript examples: http://switch2osm.org/using-tiles/getting-started-with-leaflet/ ….but the OpenLayers page doesn't
[21:22] toffehoff ok. I'm happy to look into a MQ guide.
[21:23] toffehoff Or maybe just a link to the API specs on the MQ site.
[21:23] toffehoff ... or the Cloudmade site ....
[21:24] harry-wood1 Yeah. there's a balance between explaining on the site itself, and linking to the examples elsewhere
[21:24] harry-wood1 Carrying the most basic example in leaflet seems like a good idea. Should do the same for OpenLayers
[21:24] JonathanB The other thing to bear in mind with the MQ Open stuff is that it ties you into MQ's tiles, whereas the rest of the site is encouraging people to be as independent as possible.
[21:24] toffehoff Sure.
[21:25] toffehoff We can also make that clear.
[21:25] toffehoff that's the difference between really really easy and really easy.
[21:25] toffehoff the first you don't need to think about the tiles.
[21:26] harry-wood1 D'you think the basic leaflet example should be showing mapquest open tile URLs?
[21:27] JonathanB I think we're overthinking things.
[21:27] harry-wood1 It's a tricky choice, because it's clearer and less confusing to have the tile.openstreetmap.org URLs in there
[21:27] harry-wood1 RichardF has put tile.openstreetmap.org in there… I guess he's thought about it
[21:28] toffehoff It's better to have tile.openstreetmap.org in the example. So we're not promoting one particular company.
[21:28] toffehoff But also having a link to the tile-usage policy would be good.
[21:29] JonathanB There's one on http://switch2osm.org/the-basics/
[21:30] harry-wood1 Yes I think the content is mostly there. I wonder if RichardF regards it as finished already.
[21:30] harry-wood1 or what he'd like us to help with
[21:31] JonathanB I think the only details he was worried about were technical ones.
[21:31] toffehoff Is there something planned to promote this?
[21:31] harry-wood1 well that's the main thing we need to discuss
[21:31] JonathanB Lots of Twittering for starters
[21:32] harry-wood1 OSMF blog post? or openGeoData.org?
[21:32] harry-wood1 make reference to the previous google nonsense?
[21:32] toffehoff could we write articles about #switch2osm to be published in geo- / web-related magazines?
[21:34] harry-wood1 yes
[21:36] toffehoff I'm talking to a reporter from a geo-magazine soon.... Looking up which one it is....
[21:36] toffehoff Got it: http://www.directionsmag.com/
[21:36] toffehoff no...
[21:37] toffehoff this one. http://www.geoinformatics.com/
[21:37] toffehoff the first was a faulty cut-n-paste....
[21:37] harry-wood1 cool. Don't forget to mention the all new switch2osm.org!
[21:37] toffehoff Is on the top of my list.
[21:38] toffehoff Actually very happy with the timing of the launch
[21:39] toffehoff Will also check with them if they are interested in a bit more technical article about how to #switch2osm.
[21:40] toffehoff But, if we could post an article in magazine dedicated to .NET developers, or Java developers, etc etc would be an interesting thing.
[21:41] toffehoff So they won't automaticly use gMaps, but may consider the alternative.
[21:41] toffehoff I'll try to find some addresses / contracts of the magazines.
[21:41] harry-wood1 Lots of tech press who could potentially be interested. This is also suite to all those tutorials websites
[21:42] harry-wood1 not sure which are the best ones to target
[21:42] toffehoff yup
[21:43] harry-wood1 about.com o'reilly devshed and such like
[21:43] toffehoff them too, yes.....
[21:43] harry-wood1 I dont have much time to work on this, but I'm going to look at the site tonight and maybe add something
[21:43] harry-wood1 and tomorrow get ready to retweet!
[21:43] toffehoff Will do!
[21:43] harry-wood1 and re+1 it
[21:44] harry-wood1 that's my only plan in the short term
[21:44] harry-wood1 JonathanB anything to add to that masterful short term plan?
[21:45] JonathanB Plugging the site to existing OSMers here on IRC
[21:46] toffehoff Short term: ping the major sites who picked up the google-vandalism thing. Wired etc.
[21:46] toffehoff they might be interested in this too.
[21:46] harry-wood1 I sometimes think we need a way to get more organised about going out and commenting on blog posts / news articles more
[21:47] JonathanB We need to be careful with the Google thing -- they've taken care of the problem, so us continuing to make capital out of it could seem a little spiteful
[21:47] JonathanB The two things aren't really related anyway
[21:48] toffehoff Sure, be there are now some reporters a bit more interested in what OSM does.
[21:49] toffehoff Just launching this, w/o mentioning the incident might work.
[21:49] JonathanB Yes, exactly
[21:50] JonathanB People still have OSM in their mind, so that should be enough
[21:50] toffehoff exactly
[21:50] toffehoff Thinking of it. We should add the reporters on our press list. ....
[21:51] harry-wood1 yes but it's easy to find fresh news articles at the moment where you can place an osm-related comment
[21:51] harry-wood1 I've done it a couple of times already
[21:51] harry-wood1 mostly mentioning that google Map Maker is a better example of google evilness
[21:52] harry-wood1 but in general I wonder if there's a way of "crowd-sourcing" the task of commenting on blog posts and news articles
[21:53] harry-wood1 creating a log-in on these sites so you can get as far as making a comment is most the annoying bit
[21:53] JonathanB Just remember that the reason people are wanting to #switch2osm is the cost, not any moral reasons...
[21:53] harry-wood1 well… that's the reason it's in the news at the moment
[21:53] JonathanB That we get them to realise that open data is better as well as free is just a pleasant side effect
[21:54] toffehoff or maybe the possibility to color their own version of the map
[21:54] toffehoff ... is an incentive for people to switch
[21:54] harry-wood1 Only really heavy users are out there looking to avoid the google costs.
[21:55] harry-wood1 Those people we need to persuade not just to switch, but to switch in a way which is considerate to osm servers
[21:55] toffehoff Just thinking. There is a Dutch newsstation which also has an "what happened on internet" item. Will try to contact them ....
[21:56] harry-wood1 anyway… my main plan is just to re-tweet a bit. Since that's all I really have time for at the moment. Sorry I haven't carrying forward many other actions lately
[21:57] toffehoff OK. let's make this week the #switch2osm week.
[21:57] harry-wood1 yes
[21:57] toffehoff next week ...
[21:57] harry-wood1 Can we wrap this up? See you on IRC / twitter tomorrow for some #switch2osm action!
[21:58] JonathanB Everyone still here?
[21:58] JonathanB http://www.osmfoundation.org/wiki/CWG_meeting_2012-01-16
[21:58] toffehoff yes.
[21:58] harry-wood1 JonathanB You did all the text replacement tricks!
[21:59] harry-wood1 wanna do them again for today?
[21:59] JonathanB I've also changed my IRC settings should my log be needed again
[21:59] toffehoff Will we go through them next week?
[21:59] JonathanB OK
[22:00] harry-wood1 see you guys
[22:00] toffehoff See you all next week!