# Local Chapters websites - and lessons learned from them

With the [Local Chapters & Communities Working group](https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Local_Chapters_and_Communities_Working_Group) (part of the [OSMF](https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Main_Page)), [we did a quick review of the websites of all the official Local Chapters](https://gitlab.com/osmfoundation/lccwg/-/issues/1). This is quite interesting, as these sites all have basically the same mission - and still are hugely diverse.


All of these website focus on helping mappers find the community and/or to help outsiders understand what OSM is all about. Maybe surprisingly, none of these websites are map-centered. On some of them, it's hard or even impossible to find an interactive map. There's several creative attempts to build the content around a map - especially [the Czech website](https://openstreetmap.cz/) is quite succesful at that.


When it comes to communications, some focus on questions from outsiders with topical or single-point-of-contact style e-mail addresses. Others orient people towards one or many internal community channels. And a few do both.

The wide diversity shows that there are many ways to tell the OSM story. But in all, there is a striking difference to the very "technical" looking OSMF website and the very "mappy" website at OpenStreetMap.org. In fact, the [Welcome Mat](https://welcome.openstreetmap.org/) looks more similar to the Local Chapter's websites then either landing page.

The Local Chapters websites offer several ideas that could be used to make a more inviting OpenStreetMap.org. Switching OSM.org to a logic like these pages, can be technically straightforward if we simply put the current website at www.osm.org/map. The OSM.org page could then become the glue that binds "core" infrastructure, even if it doesn't belong to OSMF. The OSM.org subdomains could more prominently show some tools and projects, which are ever so hard for newbies to find. For example, it could have a query.osm.org subdomain where you can use Overpass-turbo. This could look like the current welcome.osm.org or the current wiki.osm.org.

The LCCWG survey of local groups, shows that many local groups expect the global OSM community to do more to direct people to them. Two thirds of all groups surveyed wanted the global site to show their existence more prominently.

All the while, we should be working on the technical backlog of osm.org as well! Andy has been doing a tremendous job on that. But we need so much more work done. The LCCWG is incredibly appreciative of individual volunteers, however we feel that there is a need to move towards getting paid help where appropriate. This includes working on the technical debt to make it easier to start contributing, and delevoping new community focused functionality. A new drive in the CWG could also be instrumental in rethinking our landing pages.

---

Most of this text was used for the [LCCWG presentation](https://2020.stateofthemap.org/sessions/DVR7ME/) at the 2020 State of the Map, where we talked about several of our projects. The [LCCWG](https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Local_Chapters_and_Communities_Working_Group) is always looking for more help - join our chat, our mailing list or our next meeting. The text was written for the LCCWG by Joost, Rob and the rest of the LCCWG.

For more details about our websites review and the rest of our to-do, check out our [Gitlab issues](https://gitlab.com/osmfoundation/lccwg/-/issues/1).

*message ends*

*below just working notes*

# Background

## Rob's notes

13 (65%) groups stated that the OSMF could better support them by having a Local Chapter signup link on the OpenStreetMap website.

Freemap Slovakia - Stated that the OSMF could help with welcome messages to new mappers and links to their local website.

OpenStreetMap Belgium - just show the community (local groups, meetups, fora; local chapters,...) more prominently on the osm.org website.

OpenStreetMap United Kingdom - OSMF could help by directing new OSM contributors to our local community.

Membership of the local groups is low with only 3 organisations having more than 100 members and 11 groups having less than 50 members. Although bigger does not always mean better if groups can not enageg enough members in meetings to be quorate (easily solved by having company members and newsletter/social members).

## Speach version

Thank you Clifford!

I'm Joost. I'm a cofounder of the Belgian OSM chapter, a volunteer in this working group and the MWG, and a Board member of the OSMF.

The working group is there to learn from the various local groups, and try to apply those lessons on a global level. One such exercise we did, was a review of the websites of all the official Local Chapters. This is quite interesting, as they all have basically the same mission - and still they offer hugely diverse solutions.

All of these website focus on helping mappers find the community, or to help outsiders understand what OSM is all about. Maybe surprisingly, none of these websites are map-centered. On some of them, it's hard to impossible to find an interactive map. There's several creative attempts to build the content around a map - especially the Czech website is quite succesful at that.

When it comes to communications, some focus on questions from outsiders with topical or single-point-of-contact style e-mail addresses. Others focus on a listing of community channels. And a few do both.

The wide diversity shows that there are many ways to tell the OSM story. But most of them offer a striking difference to the very "technical" looking OSMF website and the very "mappy" website at OpenStreetMap.org. In fact, the [Welcome Mat](https://welcome.openstreetmap.org/) looks more similar to most of the Local Chapter's websites then either of those landing page.

The Local Chapters websites offer several ideas that could be used to make a better OpenStreetMap.org. Switching OSM.org to a logic like these pages, can be technically straightforward if we simply put the current website at www.osm.org/map. The OSM.org page could become the glue that binds "core" infrastructure, even if it doesn't belong to OSMF. This could look like the current welcome.osm.org or the current wiki.osm.org landing pages.
The OSM.org subdomains could then more prominently show some tools and projects, which are ever so hard for newbies to find. For example, it could have a query.osm.org subdomain where you can use Overpass-turbo. And it could more prominently show local groups. The survey Clifford just talked about shows that many local groups expect the global OSM community to do more. Two thirds of all groups surveyed wanted the global site to show their existence more prominently.

As a working group, we intend to help build momentum for these kinds of changes by talking to the community, coding volunteers and the Board.