OSMCha has this great feature of watching edits around your neighborhood using the bounding box (bbox) filter. Today, I reviewed several edits using the combination of bbox and the new mapper flag.

</br>New mappers in the Philippines in the last couple of days

Note: Being a new mapper does not mean making bad edits per se, but by being new, we can commit errors because of unfamiliarity with the best practices of editing. Admit it old mappers, we made mistakes before. ;)

As I review each changeset, I often fix common errors based on my familiarity with the area. After fixing, I usually add a comment to the user’s changeset explaining my edits and encouraging them to continue contributing to the project.

</br>My changeset comments

While re-reading my comments, I realized I’m doing something wrong! My comments were peppered with OSM technical jargon new mappers may not even know of. I’m imagining this new user’s reaction 🤔 to my comment.

• What is a changeset?
• What do you mean by tags? Amenity, shop, building; what’s the difference?
• How can I go back to my edits and correct them?

Next time, I’ll try to simplify my comments and avoid hard to understand terminologies. It is challenging to simplify without losing the substance of the comment, but, it is equally important to engage new users as first step in engaging in a conversation.

How do you welcome new users in your neighborhood?