<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=windows-1252"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;"><br><div><div>On 28 Sep 2014, at 06:15, Paul Norman <<a href="mailto:penorman@mac.com">penorman@mac.com</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><br>On 9/27/2014 4:45 AM, Jaak Laineste (Nutiteq) wrote:<br><blockquote type="cite">I think it is even well below 5%. After hearing inspiring talk by Alyssa Wright in last year SOTM I totally agree than this is an issue by itself. Map is reflection of the world of mapmakers, so if only men do it, then you end up with underrepresented kindergartens and overrepresented brothel amenities, to give a trivial example. If OSM wants to be “objective model of the world” then it cannot be so much white-western-rich-male-geek centric.<br></blockquote><br>I have in the past tried to keep my mapping diverse by periodically mapping what I wouldn't normally map or encounter. I particularly noticed this when I was working on mapping industrial areas, something outside of many mappers experience. While you can find reams of documentation on mapping education*, there was almost nothing on industrial areas at the time.<br><br>This being said, the oft-quoted example of underrepresented kindergartens is a bad one, since it's not supported by the evidence, and using an unsupported argument takes away from where it is an issue. Kindergartens outnumber brothels by about 100:1 and stripclubs by 200:1. A significant number of brothels were mapped by one mapper, while there is a broad base of mappers adding kindergartens. Brothels show a much more localized distribution, probably associated with where they're legal.<br></blockquote><br></div><div>My mistake, I was inaccurate - the original observation was not really about having more brothels on map, but having more attention to male entertainment-related tags: there are stripclubs, swingers something, brothels etc, but only one kindergarten tag. Thinking about OSM as a map, then this seems to be actually one of very few examples where gender diversity question comes to the picture. Roads and addresses are seen more or less the same by anyone. I’ve seen more acute examples of uneven mapping just because some active mapper likes certain topic - e.g. Estonia is “over-mapped” with all kind of power lines, just because one mapper fancied it, I have over-mapped some regions where I’ve been myself during travels etc.</div><div><br></div><div>When I think of the almost wholly female traditional mapping company where I worked for long time, then I don’t see that their maps were/are any different than e.g. OSM maps. Well, if I was a sexist and not a father of three then I might label their special children’s atlas product line as somewhat not that masculine product. It is my favorite really - take a look [1]. So I tend to think that OSM database as such is not affected very much on gender diversity.</div><div><br></div><div>But OSM is not a map database, it is first and foremost a global community, and from this point of view diversity, inclusion etc are certainly important issues. Maybe we need Working Group for the community development? Or perhaps this is more up to the Local Chapters, as it is quite culture-specific?</div><div><br></div><div>[1] - <a href="http://www.regio.ee/lotteatlas2014/issuu.htm">http://www.regio.ee/lotteatlas2014/issuu.htm</a></div><div><br></div><div>Jaak</div></body></html>