Community-owned vs. privately-owned collaboratives

From this point forward, we wish to introduce some collaboratives that are community-owned, where ‘admin’ is listed as the owner and will appoint a user (or users) to serve as the territory’s coordinator(s).

A coordinator for a community-owned collaborative:

• must develop the territory for the benefit of the community, working as a team with other active mappers there;
• cannot make the territory private, closed, etc;
• should find ways to include any well-qualified mappers who wish to participate;
• will consult with admin before any major changes (decisions can be vetoed by admin); and
• may be replaced by admin if necessary.

Official vs. unofficial collaboratives

In addition to distinguishing between community-owned and privately-owned collaboratives, we will also distinguish between official and unofficial collaboratives.

In a community of limited size, there's only a limited amount of collaborative 'energy' available. So if there are too many projects advertised as collaborative, then that energy may be dispersed to such an extent that most such countries are simply inactive, and true collaborative experiences (multiple active users working closely together) can become hard to find.

Therefore, although anyone may unilaterally declare their country to be ‘collaborative’ and invite others to map there; only a limited number of collaboratives will be recognized as official, i.e. marked purple on the overview map and territory list, and included in the collaboration directory.

Official collaborations must:

• have a basic wiki article that describes the country for collaborators to understand;
• have a wiki talk page for collaboration;
• have an owner or coordinator who is actively engaged in the project; and
• receive approval from the admin team.

Official collaborations are not meant for:

• inactive users trying to get help from active users;
• users trying to get help when they’ve chosen a country too big to handle;
• other overwhelmed users trying to get help;
• lazy users trying to maintain control of a country without having to map very much;
• absent users putting a country ‘on hold’ while they take a break; or
• users trying to avoid responsibility for a country when they don’t want to map it anymore.

All community-owned collaborations will be official. Privately-owned collaborations may or may not be officially recognized, depending on their merits.

Look for these changes coming soon. Any questions, feel free to ask below.