The OSM Foundation Board of Directors needs your feedback on actions it took in 2020 plus your sentiments regarding controversial questions, and asks for some demographic data (optional) so we can understand better both the survey data and the structure of the community. Coincidentally, the survey is divided into “Feedback”, “Community Sentiment”, and “Demographic Data (optional)”.

After seven days, the OSMF 2021 Survey of the OSMverse has received 1,918 responses in total, of which 1,424 are “full” responses (that is, they include the optional demographic data).

A sum of 1,918 total responses means the survey features a 2.24% confidence interval at the 95% confidence level, and a 2.95% confidence interval at the 99% confidence level. The survey features a confidence interval under 3%! This is good validation of the sample, though I suspect it still suffers from a European and North American bias. Male respondents also dominate the sample quite heavily. Therefore: please spread the word, especially to colleagues in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, and to women and non-binary mappers! And data users! And software developers! And systems folks! Everyone in the OSM community!

We are shooting for a 2% confidence interval at the 95% confidence level, for which we need a minimum sample of 2,401 “full” respondents, and preferably they will be distributed geographically. Since about a quarter of respondents so far have declined to provide demographic data, this implies we need to hit 3,201 “total” responses or thereabouts.

So please encourage your mapping friends and colleagues, data users, anyone involved in OSM you can think of, to take the survey! It only takes about 5 to 10 minutes to answer 18 questions, and so far is available in 16 languages (English, Chinese (Traditional; Taiwan), French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Persian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazilian), Russian, Spanish, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese). https://osmf.limequery.org/281662