User:Melaskia/Manifesto

Manifesto

Introduction

I started getting involved in OpenStreetMap in Automn 2008 where I spent most of my time looking at understanding how it worked before finally joining the site in 2009. My initial interest was to find a free source of geographical data to remove the proprietary data that my company (u-blox) was using.

Since I started mapping, I added my hometown in France and did most of the mapping North of Orleans, based on GPS tracks that I did, and mostly on the cadastre (geographical data used for tax purposes) which proved to be a very powerful tool to map France.

I am involved in the English and French communities, and active on many international mailing lists. I have also been involved in the Corine Land Cover import in France, where I wrote most of the SQL code to check for overlapping polygons to make sure that the community wouldn't lose polygons for something that was of lower quality.

In addition, I have been getting involved with the organization of the State Of The Map 2010 in Gerona, Spain.

When I have the time and opportunity, I am also talking about OpenStreetMap (OpenKnowledge Conference 2010, London and SIG La Lettre 2010, Paris) on different topics like data quality and Haiti.

Being involved in the State Of The Map conference really gave me the feeling that I could do more for OpenStreetMap, and it is one reason for standing for election.

Statement

I strongly believe that OpenStreetMap needs to communicate better about the different projects that are currently being developed in the different communities. Some projects are very good, but are unfortunately restricted to one community only due to lack of promotion of the tools being developped. In addition, it is clear that some communities would beneficiate from the help of more mature communities in order to help the mapping effort. While English needs to stay the main language, it is a language that not many people are necessarily speaking fluently and it is important that bridges are built to work around those difficulties.

Goals

If I get elected, I would like to push the following points:

   * Better communication from the Foundation
   * Better support of community projects
   * Better support to non English speaking communities
   * Working towards reducing the barrier of entry to mapping