No OSM awards have been seemingly distributed since the advent of the pandemic in 2020 (OpenStreetMap Awards - OpenStreetMap Wiki). Is their sufficient interest from the general osm community for their continuance? Should they be revamped with the inclusion of new categories? Are there any existing categories you think should be removed? Please share your critiques.
@Zverik probably has some insights why OSM awards didn’t happen in 2021 and 2022. Maybe that’s a good starting point for the discussion.
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It’s simple. I felt the last awards (2019) were met with less enthusiasm from the community, to the point we didn’t have enough submissions at the first stage, and I had to collect them myself. It takes a very, very long time to browse through a year-worth of OSM news and prepare short introductions for each nominee. So I just decided that would be the last time I did the awards by myself.
And then COVID happened. Awards have been ties with the SotM, so that the revealing happens in-person. We skipped two years due to covid, and this year I’m very burnt out from my work to even start thinking of these. And the next year, SotM is cancelled. So… I don’t know. I think they would stay dead for another year, and then I’ll think again.
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Thank you for providing insight.
And Thank You to @Zverik for efforts to “publish” these awards.
I hear loudly and clearly that it can be involved to sift through and decide what it takes to make these happen. At the same time (being a recipient of OSM accolades myself), I heartily confirm that both the unexpected (and delightful) receipt of one of these is not only inspirational for the single person to whom the award is granted, but that our community as a whole benefits from the positivity and encouragement that highlighting another’s efforts brings to the betterment of our map (data). We learn of the specifics of “creative and unexpected” ways that OSM touches people’s lives. This is a sort of “rocket fuel” for others to see how “blue sky” and amazingly beneficial our project can be, helping us to grow and thrive.
Whether OSM Awards, @woodpeck 's “BestOfOSM” awards, Mapper of the Month… (there are quite a number of these accolades), these DO generate enthusiasm and inspiration in our community. I hope that (during pandemic difficulties and beyond) we can find the continuing energy it takes to offer these.
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Is there a chance for this event to return? If there is no one willing to run this event can I take over the organization of these awards? I’m interested in running them.
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Hmm. I guess we can try. I’d start with finding 3-5 people to run it (me included). The responsibilities would be:
- Confirming this year’s categories. Will the seven past ones do, or something new/different is needed?
- Deciding what to do with people and projects from years 2020-2022.
- Designing and publishing a form for the long list nominations. Of course we can use my 8-year old website, but maybe there are simpler options.
- Populating the list ourselves, or finding help. Ideally we need 30-50 nominations for each category there, and from experience, OSM members add like 3-5.
- Deciding on the process to build the short list. Previously I asked members of relevant working groups, the Board, and past winners to vote. Maybe there’s a better criteria to select voters.
- Annotating each short list nominee, ideally with a few sentences and a picture.
- Designing and publishing the main voting page. Old one worked fine though.
To summarize, the main issue I had was with collecting long list nominees and with annotating the short list. I need help with that. Maybe we could make a working group of 3-5 people, idk. Everybody on the group should work though, it’s less about decisions and more about lists.
And given the next SotM is in September, the first stage (publishing categories and calling for long list nominees) should happen around April.
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