[Incubator] The need for mantra

[Jody Garnett]

 Thanks, that is an interesting experiment for sure!

I like discourse mechaisms for slowly/automatically building trust and
establishing a person is ... well a person.

As for the onboarding process, we started this conversation about OSGeo ID
and "mantra", so we are looking very technical intimidating list of
questions (weblate etc...).

I think if we look at this from a "Introduce yourself" / "why do you want
to join OSGeo" perspective then the initial questions could be smaller,
easier to respond to, and less intimidating.

But we can work on the template as we go, thus far I think this shows a lot
of promise.

Do you need an OSGeo Account?
>

> Requested OSGeo Account service permissions: (remove any that do not
> apply):


>    - Website: Create a member profile to join OSGeo Foundation
>    - Wiki: Edit wiki pages
>    - QGIS Plugin: Publish your own QGIS plugin (Note: Installing a plugin
>    is available to everyone and does not require an OSGeo account)
>    - Code: Create a repository or contribute to a repository on
>    git.osgeo.org
>    - Google Summer of Code: Join as a participant
>
>
>    - Website: Add a project to the OSGeo project directory
>    - Translate: Translate a project on weblate
>    - GeoForAll: Participate in GeoForAll initiative
>
>
Reading the above list, some things like GeoForAll and Add a project could
be better handled by their respective discourse forums?
- -
Jody Garnett


On Jan 14, 2026 at 10:34:44 AM, Regina Obe via Incubator <
incubator at lists.osgeo.org> wrote:

> As discussed in this email and in the incubation committee meeting today.
> The need for mantra is burdensome.  It is burdensome for users asking for
> one and also for those who have to address them and 80% of the time there
> is
> no point to the ask.
>
> Main issues are:
>
> 1) People ask for an osgeo id simply to introduce themselves to the
> community and their interests and for some reason think they need an osgeo
> id to do so.
> 2) People ask for mantras cause they want to download QGIS software and
> think they need one.
>
>
> Then there are some people that really need OSGeo ids cause they need to
> publish a QGIS plugin.
>
>
> Jody thought maybe using discourse in some way to field these might help.
>
> I created a Introduction category with a template to just test this idea
> out.
>
> https://discourse.osgeo.org/c/introductions
>
>
> If you notice if you create a new topic in this category, it will prefill
> with a template.
>
> Anyone else that asks me to give them a mantra without sufficient
> information to do so, I'm going to force them to fill this out to prove
> their need and if they do, I'll just private message them on discourse with
> the mantra.
>
> This is of course an experiment, but I figure is frictionless way for
> people
> to introduce themselves to us and if it doesn't work for mantra, at the
> very
> least, it will be easier to filter out from those folk who use the
> "General"
> category to introduce themselves.  I'm going to move all the intro messages
> out of general and into this category.
>
> Discourse Admins - please fill free to edit the category template - which
> is
> located here -
> https://discourse.osgeo.org/c/introductions/edit/topic-template
>
> Thanks,
> Regina
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Incubator mailing list
> Incubator at lists.osgeo.org
> https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/incubator
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/incubator/attachments/20260114/56f30a68/attachment-0001.htm>