Mapping the earth is a massive project; especially in the less developed parts of the world where people are less likely to have the tools and training to do the job and where the perceived need for maps is less than it is in the developed world. People create maps not because they are obsessive-compulsive nerds who want to make sure that they've tagged every letterbox in Mannheim but because they see maps as a useful tool for getting on with their lives.

When it comes to OSM, marketing the map is important. By marketing, I don't mean advertising or promoting, but by showing off. The slippy map that appears on OSM home page should be a showplace for OSM data and what can be done with it. I hope I'm not offending anyone by asserting that the current effort leaves much to be desired. That homepage should be a showplace, not a portal. (Move all the contributor items, like Edit, History, etc., to a separate page.)

Get rid of the Plus Sign menu icon and move all of the map options to a visible menu on the left hand sidebar. (Why is "Map Key" there, but not the overlays options?) Open the data layer by default, but don't list all the data objects; only list the one that is under the mouse pointer or that has been clicked. Make listing all of the data objects an option.

Make that homepage so easy to understand that even an old fart like me gets it on the first try. Remember, we want to attract people with easy-to-use simplicity, not scare them away with needless complexity.