1. Reflect your ambition together
Discuss the core of your project again and again. Everybody involved should always feel in resonance with the direction in which it's heading.
2. Make your community thrive
For the project to be successful, a reliable community is more important than anything else. Care for those who might support you when you need them most.
3. Separate commons and commerce
Mapping for the commons is different from producing services or products to compete on the map-market. Make sure you don't feed power-imbalances or profit-driven agendas and learn how to systematically separate commons from commerce.
4. Design for interoperability
Think of your map as a node in a network of many maps. Talk with other contributors to the Data Commons to find out if you can use the same data model, licence and approach to mapping.
5. Care for a living vocabulary
Vocabularies as entry points to complex social worlds are always incomplete. Learn from other mappers' vocabularies. Make sure your vocabulary can be adjusted. Make it explicit and publish it openly, so that others can learn from it too.
6. Document transparently
Sharing your working process, learnings and failures allow others to replicate, join and contribute. Don't leave documentation for after. Do it often and make it understandable. Use technologies designed for open cooperation.
7. Crowdsource what you can
Sustain your project wheneverpossible withmoney, time, knowledge, storing space, hardware or monitoring from your community or public support. Stay independent!
8. Use FLOSS tools
It gives you the freedom to further develop your own project and software according to your needs. And it enables you to contribute to the development of these tools.
9. Build upon the open web platform Open web standards ensure your map, its data and associated applications cannot be enclosed and are prepared for later remixing and integration with other sources.
10. Own your data
In the short run, it seems to be a nightmare to refrain from importing or copying what you are not legally entitled to. In the long run, it is the only way to prevent you from being sued or your data being enclosed. Ban Google.
11. Protect your data
To own your data is important, but not enough. Make sure nobody dumps your data back into the world of marketization and enclosures. Use appropriate licenses to protect your collective work!
12. Archive your project
When it doesn’t work anymore for you, others still might want to build on it in the future.