[NOMINATION] Marena Smith

[marenab]

I have looked at the list of tasks admins do.

• The person I am nominating would be able to support one or more of the items in the listed admin tasks.

The Spatial Community User You Are Nominating

Marena

Nominating for

Self

Your Spatial Community Username

Marena

Why are you nominating this person?

I have experience supporting and building community with spatial professionals and beginners alike. I support people to build with Mapbox tools (and related tools in the geo ecosystem, like QGIS and open source tools) every day - both in my day job at Mapbox, and outside of work because I genuinely enjoy seeing all the sorts of projects that people build. I have experience supporting chat communities like slack as well as forum communities.

What do you currently like about the community?

I have always loved the Spatial Community because of how diverse it is, and product/tool agnostic. I remember when I was just getting started in the world of geo tools, this was an incredible resource for discovering various tools and ways of working - and it continues to be a very valuable resource (though I wish I had more time to work on my own geo projects these days!). What members share is inspiring, and makes me feel like I am part of a global community of geo-nerds, which is all the more important to me now as a remote worker. I also value this Community as a place where I can stay connected with former colleagues across the geo-sphere.

I would like to support the Community to continue to be diverse, vibrant with active engagement, supportive and encouraging, and product/tool agnostic.

What would you consider changing about the community, if anything?

I like the idea of bringing back 'events' like AMAs or show-and-tells. Live events can be tricky across global time zones, but it could rotate.

I would like to brainstorm ways to 'showcase' different active channels in the Slack community to help people discover them and encourage participation. There are so many channels, and I often forget to go browse the full list.

Which of the listed admin tasks would you be most able to support?

I'm pretty flexible on how I could support, depending on the other admins

• Send account invites to join the community
• Maintain our various bots (depending on the level of technical complexity...)
• Remove spam, enforce code of conduct
• Guide updates to code of conduct when necessary
• Maintain an active presence in the community to welcome new people
• Website updates, document updates
• Domain registration and renewal
• Plan additional fun community events (such as AMAs)
• Prune the channel list when it gets large, help identify and consolidate subcommunities to reach critical mass

(Open to other ideas with other admins too)

Any other special skills or relevant experience?

Building with Mapbox, QGIS
Participatory mapping and geo data collection
Teaching how to get started building web maps and supporting datasets
Community moderation
Event organizing and hosting
Maintaining websites
Writing copy for social posts, emails etc.

What channels do you currently spend time in - or, what are your areas of experience?

Mostly in #mapbox these days but I also watch #countermapping #humanitarian #events and #showcase

Where in the world are you located, and what timezone are you in?

Hawaii - but I operate in US Pacific Time (PT/PST)