Humanitarian OSM Team/Chat July 27 2011

The first of the Humanitarian OSM Team/HOT Chats July 27th 2011.

Topics:

• Website Update
• Membership
• In Person Board Meeting at SotM
• Updates about Indonesia and Haiti work

IRC log:

<seb_> Hello all

<harry-wood> Hello HOTties

<wonderchook> hi all, I'm going to start logging. so that those who couldn't make this time can see things later

<wonderchook> so the topics for today so far is: website update, membership and the in person board meeting at SotM

<wonderchook> does anyone have anything else to add?

<harry-wood> How's things in Indonesia?

<wonderchook> 6am

<wonderchook> so sleepy

<wonderchook> but was that also a topic?

<harry-wood> hehe yup

<wonderchook> cool we can talk about that

<wonderchook> also Haiti probably makes sense

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<ndoiron> I'd be interested in hearing about Haiti - possibility I will be there in a couple of months

<wonderchook> okay

<wonderchook> can do

<wonderchook> so lets just go in order starting with the website

<wonderchook> this is sort of a simple thing. That as an organization we need a website

<wonderchook> well for those outside of OSM looking in

<wonderchook> this is the design http://robert.devseed.com/hot

<wonderchook> so, I'm writing most of the text in my freetime. Hoping as we have something up it will be easier to add minor new things

<wonderchook> the goal is to have a base set of information in english and then translate it into at least the languages of the countries we are working in at the moment, but German and Spanish would of course be good as well

<wonderchook> the main goal is that those outside funders/press/etc can find out about what we are doing in an easy way

<wonderchook> anyone have any thoughts/questions about the website?

<harry-wood> This is to go on hot.openstreetmap.org I presume. So the wordpress theme will need to be modded to match this design?

<FredB> contact on the website is hotosm@gmail.com : who is reading e-mails on this account ? board members ?

<wonderchook> harry-wood: we have hotosm.org as well. it is a drupal theme so we would just be running drupal

<seb_> how is the hosting of this website? Could we use it as a repository for our internal materials?

<ndoiron> On the homepage, are you putting up a photo, static map, or interactive map of the featured project?

<wonderchook> FredB: yes hotosm@gmail.com at the moment goes to nicolas, mikel, dane and I

<tim999> i am a newbie - and so just wanted to understand this would be a second website on top of the hot pages on main osm site?

<wonderchook> ndoiron: photos/static maps

<wonderchook> tim999: so the pages on the main osm site are designed for people in OpenStreetMap. It is also for content that would change often

<wonderchook> this is more aimed at the idea of "someone from the UN wants to learn about HOT, where should I send them?"

<tim999> okay

<Schuyler> wonderchook: I am willing to help edit or expand content for the site

<harry-wood> ooh ok. wasn't aware of http://hotosm.org/

<Schuyler> I agree with the necessity of having an outward facing site; I think the design and content should be no more complicated than Robert's mockup

<wonderchook> Schuyler: great I think the biggest thing is the About page: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Humanitarian_OSM_Team/Website/About

<Schuyler> seb_: can we just continue to use the OSM wiki for that?

<Schuyler> about the email: does hot@openstreetmap.org go anywhere

<seb_> Schuyler, not for what I'm after

<wonderchook> yeah, right now we are using the wiki and google docs for the internal materials. I think that is okay

<wonderchook> there are other things in github as well

<wonderchook> seb_: materials for sharing i.e. manuals

<wonderchook> ?

<Schuyler> ok, I would be curious to know what seb_ means

<seb_> Schuyler, I'm in Haiti supporting the COSMHA guys, we need a solution to synchronize files such as shapefiles, dumps of osm...

<seb_> wonderchook, manuals and guidelines too yes

<wonderchook> seb_: yeah we have those same needs in Indo we use a separate server in Indo

<Schuyler> would WebDAV do the trick?

<wonderchook> so we don't really have any infrastructure money for that sort of things at the moment. we really just are depending on the goodwill of people at the moment

<Schuyler> that's easy enough to setup.

<ndoiron> seb_ and wonderchook: are your shapefiles in ArcGIS? If so, are you using the OSM plugin?

<seb_> I see. Well, I've just started brainstorming how we could do that.

<wonderchook> ndoiron: nope, hot doesn't really use ArcGIS

<wonderchook> I mean some of the people we help do, but that is about it

<seb_> ndoiron, I don't use ArcGIS, but some guys here do

<ndoiron> wonderchook: didn't think so (writing from ESRI office now). They do want their users contributing to OSM though

<harry-wood> I wish someone with some ArcGIS knowledge would do a bit of a tidy up of this general OSM wiki page: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/ArcGIS

<Schuyler> seb_: Have a look at WebDAV and see if it would meet your needs for file exchange. If so, we can probably find a place to host a few hundred megs of WebDAV space.

<Schuyler> if it *doesn't* ... well, there's always Dropbox!

<seb_> Schuyler, thanks

<wonderchook> yeah, so seb_: let us know on the mailing list if you need more help with that. and we can go from there

<seb_> we're currently using dropbox

<seb_> wonderchook, sure

<wonderchook> any other website related questions? also if anyone has pictures they think would be good for the website please point me at them

<ndoiron> I wrote to my contact who does mapping in Bangladesh, he will send you photos

<wonderchook> also if you've worked on any of the remote responses and what to do a write-up that would be good as well

<wonderchook> I'm going to do Ivory Coast, but we should have at least a couple others

<harry-wood> I'm not so sure the website should be seperate hot.openstreetmap.org and hotosm.org, but untimately these things can be re-arranged fairly easily. The hard work is writing the content

<wonderchook> harry-wood: yeah I don't know if it should be separate could go to the same place

<wonderchook> hotosm.org was mostly to have email addresses that aren't our gmail ones

<harry-wood> We set up http://blog.osmfoundation.org/ with a translations plugin (shows the language drop down to visitors) That works reasonably well for wordpress

<wonderchook> so the main reason for going with drupal was just the design is done:) I am not tied to it our wordpress

<tim999> trivial point: I would like to be able to donate / buy a HOTtie T-shirt - do you envision any fund-raising opportunities like this from the web site? Maybe further down the road....

<wonderchook> tim999: yes I was thinking about shirts for SotM

<wonderchook> but haven't gotten further than thinking

<wonderchook> and if we did that then we would probably make it so they could be purchased not physically at SotM

<wonderchook> and probably fundraising for specific projects. i.e. buying hardware, buying imagery come to mind

<harry-wood> OpenStreetMap in general could do with contacts with cheap T-shirt printers + other merchandise makers

<harry-wood> If you do with spreadshirt.com or that ilk, they're fairly pricey with little margin for us

<wonderchook> harry-wood: yeah, I'm not fully sure of all the options. I hadn't gotten much further than the idea of getting some shirts:)

<wonderchook> and everywhere I've used before was kinda of expensive

<wonderchook> or local to DC and then I'd be shipping shirts all over;)

<harry-wood> yeah. the shipping thing is a bit of a challenge, although with OSM hi vis jackets it worked out alright I think

<harry-wood> various OSMers buy in bulk and sell them on

<wonderchook> cool, well if someone wants to look into options that would be great. Otherwise I will do something simple for SotM. i.e. get a box of shirts to bring

<IknowJoseph> there's always the option of local printing / distribution too, if someone makes a design available

<wonderchook> IknowJoseph: true, so I guess if someone makes a design that would work:)

<Schuyler> I bet we can get them printed in Denver

<harry-wood> http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Humanitarian_OSM_Team_Logo The version with the text on a while T-Shirt would be cool

<IknowJoseph> harry-wood: sure, the logo is the important bit, and that looks good already :)

<harry-wood> looks good. And I think it would look good on it's own. Leave it at that. ...or am I being unimaginative?

<wonderchook> anyone want to volunteer to put a couple mock-up t-shirt designs up?

<wonderchook> harry-wood: I was thinking just the logo in the center of the shirt :)

<IknowJoseph> +1

<Schuyler> I would like to essay a t-shirt design

<tim999> if t-shirts are too much to deal with maybe just the pin/button/badge...

<wonderchook> nah nothing is more work than the other really:)

<Schuyler> well, pins would be good too.

<seb_> I'm in favour of adding a line of text to the logo, maybe in the back?

<Schuyler> AND STICKERS.

<IknowJoseph> need stickers...

<harry-wood> small things are easier for me to fly back with from SOTM :-)

<tim999> and lower cost?

<wonderchook> HOT branded elephant?;)

<Schuyler> ELEPHANT APPROVED

<tim999> I'll take three! OK sorry about this whole diversion...

<wonderchook> anyway lets move on to membership

<Schuyler> let's collect some designs and then debate on the mailing list.

<wonderchook> + 1 schuyler

<harry-wood> was just going to also point out... we have this page : http://hot.openstreetmap.org/weblog/donate/

<harry-wood> which needs updating at least a bit

<harry-wood> but are the HOT kits still happening?

<wonderchook> yes, it does need some love. I made it a year ago and never touched it since

<wonderchook> harry-wood: yes they are

<harry-wood> OK. well I can have a stab at updating some obviously out of date bits of that

<wonderchook> great! :)

<harry-wood> ok moving on to membership

<wonderchook> so membership is all defined in these boring documents at the bottom of the main HOT page: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Humanitarian_OSM_Team

<wonderchook> (Bylaws and Incorporation documents)

<wonderchook> basically official members of HOT can vote in the board elections and run for the board

<wonderchook> the goal was it to be the people who are willing/able also to go physically into the field as well

<wonderchook> to become a member you need to be nominated by an existing member

<wonderchook> this has been done in cycles around elections and also the initial membership done to form the organization

<wonderchook> the original membership was mikel, dane, myself, robert and nicolas

<wonderchook> and we then nominated people originally

<wonderchook> personally I am interested in how we can better engage people to become members and feel ownership to participate. Though membership isn't required to do activities to help HOT

<harry-wood> Maybe we should have a different word for it.

<harry-wood> These are the "deployable HOTties" or something

<wonderchook> yes, there is probably a better word describing what it means

<harry-wood> The "core team" perhaps

<wonderchook> yeah, the one thing I'm not sure about is I don't want to put a wall between people who are "core" and people who aren't. Since remote work is also important and is something that can be jumped immediately into

<seb_> hot squad

<wonderchook> maybe my real issue is I think since I wrote the process that nobody else really knows what the heck it is;)

<seb_> so, if I understood correctly I have the power to nominate someone. How do I do that?

<wonderchook> seb_: it isn't rolling. so I send out an email asking for nominations

<seb_> ?

<wonderchook> the other question was how often should we do this? It can't be rolling because it creates admin work for me;)

<wonderchook> meaning how often should we nominate people, once a year is too long

<wonderchook> seb_: meaning since we were having an election we had a round of nominations a couple months ago, hence when you were nominated

<seb_> okay

<harry-wood> and that's how you come to be on this list: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Humanitarian_OSM_Team/Members

<seb_> ok ok, I just didn't know it was a one-shot

<harry-wood> There's some mention of "members" in all the bylaws blurb, so calling them something else would be more hassle than it's worth actually

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<harry-wood> but we should be clear that there's members and then theres a much wider community of people helping mapping

<Schuyler> OSGeo had this problem fwiw. I think the distinction was "members" and "charter members"

<wonderchook> harry-wood: well that is because to incorporate you have to list if you have members or not

<wonderchook> but yeah, we could have a term we use internally but as far as the legal structure it is going to be "members"

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<wonderchook> no problem seb_ sometimes I think the membership process is something in my head nobody knows about that was why I put it on the agenda

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<harry-wood> yeah I'm a bit clearer about it now... mainly because I'd not bothered following all the earlier discussions

<wonderchook> lets move on and if someone thinks of more questions they can be moved to the mailing list:)

<wonderchook> so the next one is just that there is an in person HOT board meeting at SotM. We will also have some sort of meet-up as we did last year

<wonderchook> this is the first in person board meeting since the one last year

<wonderchook> at SotM

<harry-wood> difficult to do them more often

<harry-wood> well all the U.S. hotties could maybe meet more often somewhere

<wonderchook> harry-wood: I like that you assume we are all in the US at the same time

<wonderchook> but yeah, I think once a year is fine. we do a lot of virtual communication

<tim999> can anyone can attend the board meeting?

<harry-wood> all we call meet in Indonesia!

<harry-wood> tim999: good question. Also how often are they again?

<wonderchook> tim999: no we were just going to meet the 5 of us

<wonderchook> we will have a larger meeting as well though

<wonderchook> harry-wood: oh the virtual board meetings

<wonderchook> well, they haven't been open in the past, and we actually don't have them that often

<wonderchook> official ones that is

<wonderchook> most of the communication is asynchronously in OpenAtrium

<tim999> how many of the board are in the room now?

<wonderchook> tim999: just me

<wonderchook> timezones didn't work out great for everyone this particular time

<harry-wood> How many people in the room can make it to SOTM

<harry-wood> I'll be there

<seb_> I won't attend SotM this year

<tim999> very close to buying that ticket

<harry-wood> tim999: Do it! Do it!

<tim999> I have never been to one before - can anyone give me a quick sketch?

<Schuyler> *raises hand*

<tim999> it's two days of gathering and then sunday and then a HOT workshop on monday morning?

<seb_> tim999, it's the best conference ever

<wonderchook> tim999: 3 days of gathering

<wonderchook> the HOT workshop is actually part of FOSS4G

<tim999> so there is structured stuff on sunday also?

<wonderchook> yes structured Friday-Sunday

<tim999> ok super. very close.

<wonderchook> I believe on Friday is the intro to HOT workshop

<wonderchook> and then Sunday I have a panel on disaster risk reduction and OpenStreetMap

<harry-wood> Wont be around for the HOT workshop :-( but the HOT face-to-face meeting will be during SOTM right

<wonderchook> which will mostly be about the work in Indonesia

<wonderchook> harry-wood: yes that is right

<wonderchook> the actual board meeting is schedule all day on the 8th the day before

<wonderchook> one of the reasons for it is we need to work out general policy things to make our lives easier

<wonderchook> mostly around "HR" type issues

<seb_> like deploying volunteers?

<ndoiron> I'll be there on the weekend, so good to know there is a panel on Sunday

<Schuyler> I gotta run

<Schuyler> (I *will* be on hand for the HOT workshop tho)

<harry-wood> I will only be arriving in Denver late Thursday

<wonderchook> seb_: yeah exactly.

<harry-wood> everyone should stick their flight times on here by the way: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/State_Of_The_Map_2011/Transport

<wonderchook> basically by "HR" i mean HOT sends people places. both paid and unpaid, we have a certain responsibility for those people

<wonderchook> and also just to be clear on who gets picked to do what

<wonderchook> what parameters do we need for projects, etc

<harry-wood> responsibility for people going to disaster zones is a scary prospect

<harry-wood> How much responsibility do we have?

<tim999> is there any chat between HOT and MapAction about this kinda stuff?

<harry-wood> ...or should we leave that for the board meeting discussions?

<wonderchook> tim999: yes we use the same insurance MapAction does for example

<wonderchook> the non-disaster stuff too, when we hire people to work on projects

<wonderchook> what is the most fair way to do that

<harry-wood> Well I'm glad I dont have to figure out all the awkward stuff. ...oh wait I'm in the board elections :-)

<f_mohr> is insurance enougth? depending on the area people also need some kind of training

<wonderchook> f_mohr: exactly

<wonderchook> so we've done internship programs before in Haiti for example

<wonderchook> Haiti is really the only specific example of post disaster work we've done. So there needs to be some guidelines for the future

<wonderchook> we basically there just sent 2 people all the times and made sure one of them was experienced

<harry-wood> so

<harry-wood> we talked about website update, membership and the in person board meeting at SotM

<wonderchook> yeah, so I suppose left is Indonesia and Haiti

<harry-wood> How's it going out there?

<wonderchook> indonesia is good, we've done some blogging

<wonderchook> I'm in Padang today

<wonderchook> doing a 2 workshop with Mercy Corp

<wonderchook> our university contest ends on August 6th

<wonderchook> those going to SotM will get to meet the winners

<wonderchook> next week Jeff and I are off working in specific villages to work with them to map all the houses

<wonderchook> this will serve as examples of what could be done

<wonderchook> in September we are set to deliver a report on the feasibility of using OSM to map the whole country and what we would need to do that

<wonderchook> also as of today Bahasa Indonesia is a language you can select in JOSM, wooo:)

<ndoiron> awesome

<harry-wood> I need to update my slide deck with some recent HOT stuff. I'm doing a presentation in London: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Article25_HOT_presentation_August_2011

<wonderchook> our interns' interships end tomorrow, they have been great. They will also be at SotM

<tim999> you mean you have interns in Indonesia with you?

<wonderchook> tim999: we have indonesian interns

<wonderchook> from the University of Indonesia

<tim999> nice

<wonderchook> 2 of them that have been doing translations, teaching, this website http://kompetisiosm.org/

<wonderchook> they've been great

<wonderchook> harry-wood: I can send you some info this weekend. We have building animation videos, pictures, flyers, etc

<wonderchook> I can also give you some stats, more info as well

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<harry-wood> would be cool. It's only a quick talk though. So I just need one new slide on indonesia, and one about Japan

<wonderchook> harry-wood: ah okay. well I can send you some bullets then:)

<harry-wood> great

<wonderchook> I can also do a brief update on Haiti (look for more info on indonesia in the coming weeks in general. I leave here on August 12th and will do a trip wrap-up at the very least)

<wonderchook> and if there are question now or they can occur on the mailing list as well

<wonderchook> In Haiti HOT is primarily supporting COSMHA (Community OpenStreetMap Haiti) they are the Haiti OpenStreetMap Chapter

<wonderchook> there are a bunch of possible projects for COSMHA which we would provide technical assistance to

<wonderchook> seb_: is down there right now and will be for the next 3 months (3 months right?)

<seb_> until beginning of October

<wonderchook> nicolas is not in this meeting because he is working on some documents for a trip he would take down in the next couple weeks if everything goes according to plan

<harry-wood> All good stuff

<harry-wood> I have some questions actually, but I'll save them for next time.

<wonderchook> I guess unrelated Nicolas and I are probably going to Togo in Jan

<wonderchook> which we'll put up more info when we have it

<wonderchook> and actually on that note I have to take a shower now if I want to eat before work

<harry-wood> Time for bed here

<tim999> nice chatting. thanks.

<IknowJoseph> thanks all

<seb_> thanks

<harry-wood> yup. Good talking with everyone. Thanks for all the updates wonderchook!

<seb_> have a good night/day!

<IknowJoseph> harry-wood: could we talk about the possibilities of a UK HOT meet at some point?

<harry-wood> IknowJoseph: Sure thing!

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<harry-wood> gotta go now though

<IknowJoseph> harry-wood: great, I'll ping you about it at a more reasonable time of day

<harry-wood> yes. Also did we say HOT chats every 2 weeks?

<harry-wood> oh 2x a month

<harry-wood> http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Humanitarian_OSM_Team/HOT_Chats

<harry-wood> guess details will be posted on there

<harry-wood> ...so until next time

<harry-wood> bye

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<IknowJoseph> cheers all

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See Humanitarian OSM Team/HOT Chats for details of when the next one will be