[WMF-outreach-staff] Documenting the OSM activities during the Hackathon

[Asheesh Laroia]

Hi all,

People seem to *really* be excited about the OpenStreetMap activities! In 
our survey of prospective attendees, the two OSM-related things are the 
two most popular things people say they'd attend.

It looks like (from 
http://wikimania2012.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=OpenStreetMap&action=history 
) that Kolossus is the main person involved in documenting what OSM stuff 
there will be. Hi! I've CC:d you, Kolossus -- welcome! I'd love if you'd 
join the mailing list at 
http://lists.openhatch.org/mailman/listinfo/wmf-outreach-staff .

I'd love to know more about the activities you (you meaning WMF+OSM people 
generally) hope for, during the Hackathon, and get them on a schedule. I'd 
also like to help you make them as awesome and newcomer-friendly as 
possible.

Some questions:

* What specific tutorials do you want to do? (I can help come up with 
ideas if needed.)

* Do you have a written set of things you want to teach, within each 
tutorial?

* What hands-on activities can be provided for people to do? (Do you need 
helpers to help people get past stumbling blocks?)

* Is there a list of discrete tasks you can assign to newcomers, once they 
understand the tool, that they can work on by themselves, periodically 
asking questions as they have them? I find that assigning tasks to people, 
and then having them work mostly independently, getting help as required, 
is a good way for people to feel like they are contributing something, and 
also to maximize the amount of work that gets done by newcomers and the 
usefulness of the helpers.

* What are the pre-requisite tools for people to install on their own 
computers? I'd love to make high-quality guides for getting people running 
with that so that we waste as little time as possible on the setup, and 
people have as much fun as possible, and are as productive as possible.

Okay -- that's what I have for you, for now!

I think this is going to be a lot of fun, and I'm looking forward to doing 
everything I can to help!

-- Asheesh.