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Le 23/11/2017 à 14:52, Christoph Hormann a écrit :<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:201711231452.39286.chris_hormann@gmx.de">
<pre wrap="">On Thursday 23 November 2017, Pete Masters wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">My point is that the language Sev uses is disrespectful, personal and
hurtful. That's not ok in my book.... Firstly, for Heather - no-one
should have to read that. And secondly, because this hostility
*discourages* debate and divides community.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap="">Just to be clear on that - the writing of Severin would almost certainly
be considered to be covered by free speech laws - even in Germany for
example which is much more restrictive in that matter than for example
the US.
I am actually grateful for this statement of opinion by Severin - not
because i agree with it or because i find it particularly balanced or
informative but because it gives me an insight into viewpoints and
positions that are rarely communicated in this venue. Having opinions
that evidently exist not present in discourse is what truly divides a
community in the end.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
[To give a bit of context of when this email was written, i wrote
the first part last Sunday, November 26. As i have just started
working on a new job that takes most of my time and energy, i could
not finish it then, after having read the accumulated backlog of
messages on the week-end. So i am trying to wrap it up now.]<br>
<br>
<br>
…“<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">an
underlying problem within the heart of the writer?”<br>
<br>
In a thread that was mostly about “respect”, “correct tone”, and
against “bullying” or “ad hominem”, how come all those who wrote
to criticize Séverin didn’t say a word against this?<br>
<br>
That is a serious question, and i invite each of you to think
about it.<br>
<br>
From my point of view, there is much more </span><span
style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span
style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">ad hominem </span>symbolic
violence in that phrase, than in anything Séverin may have
written. <br>
<br>
Remembering, for example, how I met Séverin when I arrived in
Haiti in 2012 as a volunteer to help him teach young Haitians how
to map their city of Saint Marc in OSM, I can join Rafael and
testify that there is no problem within his heart. <br>
<br>
Rather, i invite John, who is the writer of that, to examine his
own heart.<br>
<br>
<br>
Christoph, i agree with you that viewpoints should be allowed to
exist in discourse. I even think that they are necessary for
voters to make a well informed and well thought choice.<br>
<br>
So i’ll share with this group of OSMF members a few facts of what
i experienced within HOT US Inc. while Heather Leson was a member
of its board. This could be relevant here, in this thread about
her candidacy to OSMF board, and as “HOT is a part of OSM”,
according to her own words.<br>
<br>
I am quite aware that as a foreign non native speaker of English,
my expression here is going to be judged quite imperfect. As has
been said by others, that’s the price for a diverse community.
Also that what happened affected me deeply, and, however hard i
try to be as objective as possible, it is only my point of view.
So I request all those who are not ready to stand my writing to
stop reading here.<br>
<br>
Stop. reading. here.<br>
<br>
<br>
</span><br>
<br>
<br>
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span
style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">————————————————————————<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
</span><br>
If you continue to read beyond this point, it shall be considered
that you have committed yourself contractually to tolerate what i
am going to write, as an expression of free speech, however
unacceptable it might be considered in your culture.<br>
<br>
Or in your favorite “Code of conduct”.<br>
<br>
You also agree not to cut this message into pieces, and to
preserve its integrity.<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
————————————————————————<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
Christoph, if you are the only reader left at this point, that’s
fine with me.<br>
<br>
Unfortunately, it is unlikely that some people have any more
respect for contract law than for others, as they have shown
before. So it is quite possible that i end up being thrown out
from the HOT voting members for what i am going to write here, as
the recent changes to their CoC were likely intended to keep their
misdeeds hidden.<br>
<br>
Anyway, it would be an honour for me, to join the “membership
alumni”, as I see quite honourable people there. And also even
more honourable whistle-blowers.<br>
<br>
<br>
You have probably heard about the worldwide outcry against sexual
harassment of women. This morning, I heard on the radio a woman
alluding to the story about “the finger pointing at the moon”. She
meant that it was not right for a man to criticize the possibly
not-quite-appropriate way women complained, when the real problem
was the thousands or millions of women who had been harassed,
silently so far.<br>
<br>
This resonates with Simon describing the “deflection tactic”, of
focusing on form, rather than the actual issue at hand. For those
who don’t understand this, a suggestion that could maybe help
would be to look at the men who reject the women’s complaints
(hopefully from the outside) and how they use the same tactic.<br>
<br>
<br>
When seen within the perspective of previous exchanges that
happened within HOT US Inc, John’s phrase is one more act of moral
harassment.<br>
<br>
And when Mrs Heather Leson complains that “No one should ever be
submitted to comments about her mapping contribution like she
has”, she had better remember the much much worse treatment
inflicted against others, that she has actively supported as
member of HOT US Inc. board. <br>
(— and, secondarily, practice mapping, and learn that OSM mappers
have to accept criticism from fellow mappers, even when they might
consider themselves as having some experience, as that is the way
this global collaborative work keeps improving. And all the more
so, of course, when you stand for the board.<br>
That doesn’t mean — as some pretend to understand was meant — that
only mapping contributions matter. But some can argue that they
think that OSM knowledge does matter. As Frederik nicely puts it:
have you ever seen an atheist archbishop?) <br>
<br>
Séverin was among those who were taken as scapegoats and morally
harassed (in case this might help those who feels “he doesn’t like
Heather” understand). #Me too. And I am going to tell you about
this here.<br>
<br>
I already explained this at length to the HOT US membership last
year. The majority didn’t care. I don’t know if they would care
any more now, after the large outcry against sexual harassment,
and the rise in consciousness, given that there are common points
with moral harassment. You can understand why I don’t care so much
about being thrown out from such a membership.<br>
And of course the main harassers have written the “laws” based on
which members will be “judged”. <br>
(A bit as if Harvey Weinstein and men supportive of his behavior
had written a “Code of Conduct” and process for the American Film
Association…)<br>
<br>
Being shown in video claiming to “grab women by the p…” didn’t
prevent Donald Trump from being elected president of the US. (By
the way, Kate, at least the voters had the legitimacy of being US
citizens. What would you have thought if most of them had been
selected by Trump and his cronies?)<br>
<br>
What I do here is probably useless. But I do it anyway, because I
think that’s the right thing to do.<br>
<br>
So what happened to me to make me think of </span><span
style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">comparisons </span><span
style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">that may look as
far-fetched ?<br>
<br>
<br>
[Resuming this email message on the evening of Sunday December
3rd, after having read the messages sent to the list this week.<br>
<br>
By the way, i’d like to tell a big THANK YOU to the members of the
OSMF who wrote these last days to tell that for them it was not ok
to use a CoC to silence criticism. You have no idea how much this
makes it less difficult to express oneself in this space]<br>
<br>
<br>
</span>When Hurricane Patricia, the most intense tropical cyclone on
record in the western hemisphere, was threatening the western coast
of Mexico, in October 2015, I was invited by Humberto Yances, one of
the two co-coordinators of HOT activation to join the Skype room
where coordination was taking place, because there was a need
related to accessing large amounts of imagery, that would be useful
to support the preventive mapping effort. A few minutes after
joining the room, i was thrown out of it, before having said
anything, and without any explanation. Still, i could understand
what the need was: to facilitate access for OSM mappers to a global
coverage of Mexico offered by the Mexican Government as a WMS of
SPOT satellite imagery. And get the relevant URL. So i quickly set
up a TMS proxy-cache on OpenStreetMap France server, to make imagery
access more efficient for OSM mappers in general, and possible at
all for users of iD editor. I was later thanked for this by the
representative of the Mexican Government.<br>
<br>
It turns out that DigitalGlobe offered access to its imagery of the
area shortly afterward the TMS SPOT coverage had been made
available. The other co-coordinator who threw me out of the Skype
room is a US national according to his profile on hotosm.org. (And,
for those who don’t know, SPOT is a series of mostly French
satellites, developed in collaboration with Belgium and Sweden). I
explain this for those who say that speaking of US soft power could
be a form of “racism” (pretty strange, as has already been
explained).<br>
<br>
I was deeply shocked to have been thrown out like that of a global
effort to help a third country, by someone who was not even from the
threatened country. When i asked him and the HOT US Inc Board how
they could justify this from an ethics point of view, i didn’t get
any valid answer. Of course, as there can’t be. So i posted a tweet
suggesting that HOT US Inc introduce some basic notions of ethics in
the training curriculum that they require their “coordinators” to
take. (Among the tens of thousands of tweets that are on my
time-line)<br>
<br>
(By the way, it would be interesting to know, someday, publicly, why
Humberto left HOT US Inc., to which he had contributed so much, and
in which he had invested so much…)<br>
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">
<style type="text/css">p { margin-bottom: 0.25cm; line-height: 120%; }a:link { }</style><br>
The seriousness of that abuse left me unable to sleep for weeks. <br>
<br>
</span> At that time was published a book, by Anthony Loewenstein,
titled “Disaster Capitalism – Making a Killing out of Catastrophe”
([1], [2], [3], [4]). It was also around that time that Mikel Maron
was hired by Mapbox. Shortly afterward he run for the Board of the
OSMF. It appeared to me that the title of that book could be
applicable to what the business model of HOT US Inc. appeared to
have become. So i posted another tweet ironically congratulating
Mapbox for hiring such a “killer”, and including a copy of the book
cover, that made it clear (in case it could have been needed) that
the word was to be taken in its figurative meaning.<br>
<br>
I later discovered that formal complaints had been filed against me.
About the tweets mentioned above, and also a third one that i don’t
remember precisely (if anyone is interested, just let me know. All
this is archived somewhere, and i can look it up later. It is taking
me a lot of time to write and type in English. And this message is
already too long anyway.)<br>
<br>
To try to make the story short, i was going to be “judged” by the
Board of HOT US Inc. As i was stressed by that perspective, and the
possibility of public humiliation, i tried to talk with Blake, who
had been refusing for a long while. He offered me to withdraw all of
his complaints if i withdrew one of the tweets, whichever one, i
could chose. I was against the idea of obeying to blackmail, and to
give up my freedom of speech. But the psychological pressure was
such that i yielded, and accepted to remove a tweet.<br>
<br>
He then changed the terms of the deal he had himself proposed. I was
shocked by his disloyalty, but gave in again, as i really needed to
get out of that pressure. And i was relieved, on a Monday morning,
to receive a copy of his email to the other members of the Board,
and to Russel, who was then Chairman of the Voting Members, whereby
he withdrew all of his complaints against me. I removed all three of
the tweets he objected to. The Board was to meet 2 days later. That
was the meeting when they were to “judge” Nicolas.<br>
<br>
On the day after the meeting of the Board, I understood how the
“American Indians” must have felt when they were betrayed by the
conquering “White men” with whom they had thought they had signed
treaties, to escape full extermination, and found out that the
treaties were not respected. The complaints had been “reinstated”,
and i had been judged without knowing it – against all principles of
human rights and of laws –, and even having been lied to and told
that i wouldn’t be. <br>
<br>
Had i been duly informed, and of course also given the fundamental
universally recognised right to have a defender, or at least to
defend myself, that would have been easy. The complaint against the
“killer” tweet was a lie in itself. Blake had written that i had
publicly accused Mikel of being a murderer, and he had cut off the
book cover – that prevented any ambiguity – from his screen copy of
the tweet!<br>
<br>
It is such a “honest fellow” who has been President of HOT US Inc.,
and one of his active accomplices who is now a candidate to the
Board of the OSMF… (Heather Leson was President of HOT US Inc. Board
when this happened.)<br>
<br>
Note that as soon as i had known about some of the complaints
against me, i had informed the Board that their actions violated at
least 3 French laws (for duty to assist, and against moral
harassment, and blackmail) that likely have equivalent laws where
they live. They knowingly went on.<br>
<br>
And, in spite of the British law (quoted by Simon), that stipulates
that “A director of a company must avoid a situation in which he
has, or can have, a direct or indirect interest that conflicts, or
possibly may conflict, with the interests of the company”, Mikel
Maron, of Mapbox – a company that makes heavy use of OSM data – is
on the Board of the OSMF… <br>
<br>
<br>
And Heather Leson is asking for your votes, without having told you
that she works for IFRC… I learned that reading Séverin’s report,
where he also gives an example of possible conflict of interest with
the Red Cross, with one that happened, and quotes the false claim
made by ARC to get a grant. I know, independently, that the first
Pléiades images of Guinea that made it possible to map Guéckédou,
Macenta and Kissidougou very quickly at the beginning of the
outbreak were acquired by MSF, as I set them up on OSM France
server. <br>
<br>
(If you are impressed by the reputation of the Red Cross, as i used
to be, you might be interested in reading [5] or [6]).<br>
<br>
More Pléiades and SPOT 6 satellite images were then made available
for free by their supplier, and setup for OSM mappers by me, as soon
as MSF was informing about the spread of the outbreak to other
areas. That was until Mr Maron decided that this process, that was
running smoothly, couldn’t continue out of the control of himself
and of the “militaro-industrial-humanitarian” complex of his
country, and abruptly interrupted it.<br>
<br>
This resulted in at least one case where an area, that MSF had
requested be mapped because of new cases appearing, didn’t get
covered by imagery before a delay of more than one month, and thus
couldn’t be well mapped. (Previous delays were at most of a few
days). If you consider that this was a time when the number of cases
was doubling every 3 weeks, and if you consider that mapping is
useful in helping to save lives, and if you try to estimate how many
lives were not saved because of the extra delay in imagery and thus
mapping, you’ll find that it is very likely that at least one human
life was not saved as a consequence of his action…<br>
<br>
This is the first time that i state this on a public list.<br>
<br>
I hope that you are now more aware of the potential risks for
OpenStreetMap if you vote for Heather Leson, and strengthen even
more the group of the “HOT US Inc. pals” on the Board of the OSMF,
instead of balancing the influence of those who are already present.<br>
<br>
Best wishes,<br>
<br>
Jean-Guilhem <br>
<br>
<br>
[1]
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/nov/27/disaster-capitalism-antony-loewenstein-review">https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/nov/27/disaster-capitalism-antony-loewenstein-review</a><br>
[2]
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.alternet.org/world/disaster-capitalism-antony-loewenstein-ben-norton-review-discussion">https://www.alternet.org/world/disaster-capitalism-antony-loewenstein-ben-norton-review-discussion</a><br>
[3]
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.democracynow.org/2015/10/9/making_money_from_misery_disaster_capitalism">https://www.democracynow.org/2015/10/9/making_money_from_misery_disaster_capitalism</a><br>
[4] <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.versobooks.com/books/2254-disaster-capitalism">https://www.versobooks.com/books/2254-disaster-capitalism</a><br>
<br>
[5]
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.npr.org/2015/06/03/411524156/in-search-of-the-red-cross-500-million-in-haiti-relief">https://www.npr.org/2015/06/03/411524156/in-search-of-the-red-cross-500-million-in-haiti-relief</a><br>
[6] <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-41861552">http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-41861552</a><br>
<br>
<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
<style type="text/css">p { margin-bottom: 0.25cm; line-height: 120%; }a:link { }</style>“Corruption
is the
abuse of entrusted power for private gain.” Transparency
International<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.transparency.org/whatwedo/publication/preventing_corruption_in_humanitarian_operations">https://www.transparency.org/whatwedo/publication/preventing_corruption_in_humanitarian_operations</a><br>
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