Description of its purpose and which open mapping groups it will serve
Why is this new category needed instead of being hosted as part of the existing ones?
Is this a new space or does it already exist on other platforms? Where?
For all three: Replace the Germany user forum.
Current volume of messages on the former platforms, if any (per week/per month)
The German user forum is the main place of discussion in the German community, a lot of topics apply every week.
Integrating talk-de mailing list may be an option in the future. However, there are currently no plans to do so. In comparison to the forum, mailing list traffic is rather low.
Is there a transition plan for the old platform to this new one? (please link or describe)
Active on OSM since 2012, active on the old OSM forum (Germany) since 2018, leading and moderating meetings has been part of my profession for 25 years, a few years of experience as a moderator in a community forum in the early/mid 2000s
The wiki doesn’t seem to offer a German translation for the OSM Etiquette. I’m afraid this will exclude some part of the community, and isn’t really all that useful in its current form. Once a German translation is available, we can always reconsider. For now I would go ahead with the established rules.
Yes, other communities have started the localization efforts, usually making a first pass using deepl.com and then doing a quick human review. I think localizations are expected to come from the communities themselves, I don’t think there is someone leading the localization for every language.
Since we have already three mods that have accepted here, do you want to move forward with the category creation now, or wait in deference another 24hs or so for @Nop to comment since he has been the Germany moderator in the past?
I would simply go ahead. If Nop has some objections to being nominated, we can still remove him from the list later on (which seems rather unlikely, after all).
I guess he’s currently on vacation or otherwise afk. Hence I wouldn’t expect an answer from him within the next 24 hours anyway.
The #communities:de category is now created and the moderators have been added to the group.
Please make sure you request an update to the OSM Community Index to include this new channel for your community and remove any former/inactive ones.
Also, please make sure you edit the “About community category” topic to includes the full guidelines for this category and if you decide so in the future, a link to OSM Etiquette in your language.
I would like to continue using the existing forum rules.
The new subcategory is for discussions in German (i.e. almost all users using the category have a good knowledge of German). The Etiquette Guidelines are not translated into German and translating them is not that easy because the original text is long and difficult. I do not want to apply rules written in difficult English (they could have used simpler English) against someone who is unable to understand the rules due to plain language issues.
As a moderator, I myself do not know how to interprete some prohobitions. But I am used to the old rules for ten years as user and about four years as moderator (Austrian forum, almost identical rules). This does not mean that I am completely against new rules. However, rules need to be adopted to to specific issues of the platform, language and the fact that they are applied to a cultural more homogenous group (of Germans; i.e. local laws and social norms exist to be referred to).
I think the old forum rules may have been somewhat convenient for moderators, but in the end, they didn’t encourage a productive style of discussion.
It’s definitely worthwhile checking the EG’s expected behavior section, and evaluate options to address the real/perceived “bad forum vibe”. This topic is frequently cited as a reason why people stop participating in the forum.
There’s no particular reason why a software change and adopting a new set of forum rules need to happen at the exact same time.
IMO, a community should be able to update or replace their rules at any point in the future. So if the German community decides to adopt a translated and/or tweaked version of the EG as their new forum rules later on, that still ought to be possible.
Personally, I would welcome more proactive moderation that tries to encourage productive discussion, as I believe that the way day-to-day moderation actually happens that makes a much larger difference than the precise wording of the rules. Maybe that’s possible now that we have a larger, more active team of moderators again.
Just for completeness: As confirmed by PM, I would like to continue as moderator, it’ll just take a while until I can be more active again. RealLife ™.
