It is the monthly London Missing Maps / HOT mapping party tonight.

For a while now, we have had a table or two at each mapathon where people can sit if they want to learn to validate. And, with much thanks to the HOT / OSM stalwarts who have sat with them each month, we now have a gang of new validators.

We identified validation early on as something we would have to address with the mapping parties in London. We are bringing a lot of new mappers to the table and they aren’t necessarily coming via HOT or OSM. They are, essentially, humanitarians, who have a desire to do something, rather than just donate something. HOT and Missing Maps is a perfect fit, but they are mapping novices.

Our community of validators are now doing great stuff helping guide the newbies and ensure some quality control.

What we’d like to start doing now is connecting our London validators up with the wider community of HOT validators. So, tonight we’d like to invite any validators out there to join us. We will introduce our validators that don’t know to mumble and hope to have an ongoing chat between those in the room and those joining remotely.

Our hope is that they will enrich the validator community within HOT and also provide our new validators with some contacts who can help them as they learn.

The event details are here and you can sign up as a remote validator

Mapping starts at 1830, but we might be a bit late getting the validators set up on mumble as we usually prioritise onboarding the new people.

Let me know if you have any comments or questions.