There is a prevalent need to establish effective and lasting relationships between members of the OpenStreetMap community. More reliable and complete data is an accomplishable goal for OSM, if communication and standards for mapping are thoroughly established. Editors will be less likely to conflict with each other and more likely to effectively progress in the modification and addition of data, if these relationships are established. As we know, OSM is open source, which means that it couldn’t exist without the members that contribute. Steps must be taken to promote collaboration amongst active editors, local and remote.

In this talk, I will provide firsthand examples that highlight the difficulties and solutions that KAART has encountered while building community between remote and local editors. These methods directly relate to the emphasis that must be placed on communicating and working within the the community that OSM has to offer.