[OSGeo-Discuss] FOSS4GNA - Someone is watching you :-o
David Bianco
me at davidbianco.net
Thu Dec 17 22:54:03 PST 2015
If you've attended one FOSS4G, I think you should absolutely be on a interested-in-
foss4g list for next year. Unsubscribe if you are no longer interested.
If you've attended one FOSS4G-NA, I think you should absolutely be on a
interested-in-foss4gna list for next year. Unsubscribe if you are no
longer interested.
If you've never been to FOSS4G-NA, and you're not interested because of
the NA focus, seems fair that someone shouldn't get unsolicited email
marketing.
I'm quite indifferent about OSgeo v. LT, I would love to see them
holding hands walking off into the sunset. I'll be at both conferences
next year, and am looking forward to it. I don't think this topic is
about their differences at all.
** Seems to me if we can find an authoritative answer to Maxi's initial
question "How did they get his email address?", all of this would be put
to rest. **
To Paul's point about being a pro-spammer, I don't see how that is
relevant today. I spam myself everyday with twitter, discuss lists,
local events, facebook, slack, .... there is no shortage of ways to
communicate. I learn about non-NA geo conferences all the time from
these media outlets, and I like it. I would love to attend one some
day. But as far as I can remember, none of them ever sent me a direct
unsolicited email.
On Thu, Dec 17, 2015, at 09:26, Daniel Kastl wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I wanted to share some thoughts, because I don't want that Maxi's
concerns are buried under lots +1's, that "we are just doing our
best for a successful FOSS4G". Maybe Maxi's initial email was a bit
strong and contained the "LocationTech" keyword ;-)
> I don't think anyone (and for sure not Maxi) wants FOSS4G or OSGeo
not to be successful, and nobody is against marketing.
>
> However doing something with good intent doesn't mean, that it's
right, right?
> If there is a privacy policy, we need to respect it and handle
personal data (like email addresses) accordingly. If there is no
privacy policy, we probably should have one, because there are at
least a few countries I know, where not being able to opt-out or
receiving unwanted emails can become a legal issue quickly (and
cost money).
>
> I remember a few months ago the discussion about Code of Conduct,
where some people thought, we don't need that, because we're well-
educated and friendly people, respecting each other, etc.. A code
of conduct wasn't something I cared about that time, because maybe
it's not common in countries where I live. But I learned, that it's
an important document for North American countries. And I think the
privacy topic is a widely discussed issue in European countries,
and we have some lessons learned about services/organizations
trying to track us.
> So that's maybe the reason, why some are not so happy to click an
encrypted link with tracking ID (and whatever else). While I think
you already get tracked, when you open the email and the transparent
image gets loaded.
> Speaking as a Japanese citizen, it's even seen as bad practice here
to sent HTML emails, so almost every commercial email is text only
with beautiful ASCII art and is really hard to look at.
>
> While reading this thread I had the following questions actually:
> - Is the collected database of email addresses available on request
for every local chapter?
> - If a local chapter passes it to some third party organization (in
this case LocationTech, but replace it with any other name),
what happens with these addresses later? Are they now merged
with the "LocationTech Tour" database or the whole Eclipse
address pool, etc.?
> - If I didn't open my email, because I'm not from North America,
will I be removed from the database and future announcements?
>
> I think most email addresses collected from further events were for
registration purpose. There is no way to register without giving
OSGeo an email address.
> And even if we won't harm anyone, we didn't ask those people, if
they would like to opt-in for a newsletter-like service.
> So I find it somehow OK (gray-zone) to use the existing address
collection for marketing future global FOSS4G events (it's only once
a year), but you need to understand that FOSS4G NA is a regional
event, and that the emails probably haven't been filtered by region.
If we continue this practice, will then every local FOSS4G be able
to spread the word in the name of OSGeo using a collected address
list of the past 10 years?
>
> Personally I think, that as a community we can do much better
marketing than using MailChimp.
> Maybe it's a good idea to add an opt-in form to FOSS4G
registrations, where people can sign up for event announcements,
even with regional preferences eventually?
>
> Best regards, Daniel
>
>
>
> On 18/12/15 01:09, Steven Feldman
wrote:
>> +1,000,000 to what Paul has said
>>
>> I also passed the FOSS4G 2013 list (which included
names for 2011 and previous FOSSS4Gs) to the 2014 team in the
spirit of fraternal support to future FOSS4Gs, I believe that
was the right thing to do even though we neglected to have
specific opt in/out option. No doubt they passed the extended
list to 2015 and they have in turn shared with 2016. This is
good not bad.
>>
>> We need to separate the animus towards LT from the
apparent horror at the use of a ‘commercial’ service like
MailChimp. Those of us who earn our living from Open Source Geo
need to promote Open Source Geo and that means outreach to
people who may not be followers of our mailing lists, so we need
other channels. e-mail marketing is an established way of
reaching potential FOSS4G participants, it is not evil, it
probably isn’t spam (even if you haven’t opted in) as long as
you provide an immediate opt out from further mail (which
MailChimp does really well).
>>
>> If LT are willing to allow us access to their large
contact list, surely that is something we should say thank you
for not complain about? We might want to ask ourselves why their
list is so much larger than ours? We have a list of several
thousand accumulated from previous FOSS4Gs, using MailChimp
enables us to clean that list down to interested participants
very efficiently by providing a simple opt out.
>>
>> There is no reason why we should not continue to
maintain a growing list of people who have attended, sponsored
or expressed interest in OSGeo/FOSS4G. The norm should be that
you are opted in by default as a result of past interest but
every mail provides the option to opt out.
>>
>> Evangelising Open Source Geo is IMHO immensely
worthwhile. To do that you need to be a bit pushy while finding
the right balance.
>>
>> Let’s applaud our advocates, conference organisers
and marketeers, not moan at them
>>
>> Apologies if this is a bit ranty (the first draft
was way more ranty)
>>
>> Peace and goodwill to everyone for the holiday
season whatever your faith
>> ______
>>
Steven
>>
>>> On 16 Dec 2015, at 20:00, board-request at lists.osgeo.org
wrote:
>>>
>>> *From:*Paul Ramsey
<pramsey at cleverelephant.ca>
>>> *Subject:**Re:
[OSGeo-Discuss] FOSS4GNA - Someone is watching you
:-o*
>>> *Date:*16 December
2015 at 17:16:15 GMT
>>> *To:*Daniel
Morissette <dmorissette at mapgears.com>
>>> *Cc:*OSGeo
Discussions <discuss at lists.osgeo.org>
>>>
>>>
>>> Agree w/ Daniel in all ways. We
want our events to succeed, no? So we
>>> use marketing techniques to do so.
Emails and so on. And we track who
>>> opens them so we can get better at
marketing. Like any other business
>>> trying to succeed. Mail chimp is
currently convenient, in the past
>>> other technologies were convenient
(I spammed people in 2007 using a
>>> custom perl script, because I am a
God Among Men), in the future
>>> different technologies will be
convenient. But they are all going
>>> towards making a good event.
>>>
>>> Naturally the first targets of
marketing the event will be people who
>>> have attended past events under
the same/similar umbrella. I provided
>>> the 2007 attendance list to foss4g
events for a number of years until
>>> it had grown entirely stale. I
felt good about it. I revelled in the
>>> goodness of it.
>>>
>>> I have spammed. I will spam again,
in the service of a good cause.
>>> That is my weakness. That is my
strength.
>>>
>>> P.
>>
>>
>>
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>
> --
Georepublic UG & Georepublic Japan eMail: daniel.kastl at georepublic.de
Web: https://georepublic.info
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