[diversity-talk] Fwd: [Talk-us] Chapter Board Elections

[Serge Wroclawski]

On Tue, Aug 20, 2013 at 7:13 PM, alyssa wright <alyssapwright at gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks Serge for the experienced perspective. It's great to know we have precedent as well as growing representation on the OSM US board. How do you suggest we continue to continue such trends?

According to your talk last year, the proportion of women in OSM is
quite a bit lower than their proportion on the US board, so a goal of
"proportion" might not be the right model. Really this is two
questions:

1. How to increase diversity in OSM

2. What the constitution of the OSM US board should be

Increasing diversity in OSM as a whole is important, and I think we
should be striving to do so. My experience is that we have a fairly
healthy percentage of women involved in the project when compared to
similar projects (other collaborative projects- such as Wikipedia) as
measured by attendance at local OSM events. At the local events I've
run recently, between 20-40% of attendees are women. It's not 50%
(which would be the optimal number) but it's closer to that number. I
think that these things are generally self-feeding- so the more women
we have attend OSM events, the more comfortable another woman will be
at an OSM event, just as a man might feel out of place at an event
that was entirely women.

My experience shows that what we don't have is an abundance of people
of non-European or non-Asian descent in attendance. I'm basing that on
events I've run, and also on both the SOTM US events, and the SOTM
international events. But to clarify, I'm only talking about the US
right now.

Frankly, I'm not sure how to address this issue of ethnic diversity. I
think some (not all!) of it is due to Socio-Economic Status. I suspect
(and have no evidence to support this supposition) that compared to
the US population as a whole, the OSM community skews towards better
educated and generally more affluent. Unfortunately, it's still the
case in the US that being white white people correlated with these
categories as well (more educated, more affluent). And if we accept
that this is true, then it would make sense that people who have more
education and money have more free time, and more money to spend on
hobbies. That said, this is neither a complete explanation of our
situation, nor an excuse not to do our best to help encourage others
in the project.

My biggest suggestion for increasing the number of ethnic minorities
involved in OSM is to suggest outreach programs to neighborhood
associations and other organizations involved in "having a sense of
place". These are the kinds of passionate people who would have the
local knowledge and or the passion to map their neighborhood in OSM,
and more importantly, to keep it mapped.

What I don't know is a good way to do this kind of outreach in a way
that doesn't come off like "selling", that's welcoming but is also
respectful of the fact that OSM has an identity and culture of its
own.

I'm still trying to figure that one out....


Regarding the constitution of the US board, I always just look for who
I think the best candidate is. I don't care whether they fit into
categories. I care about how good a job I think they'd do at the tasks
the board has to tackle. I also look at someone's involvement in the
project. how long they've been a mapper, how often they map, whether
or not they have a professional association that may steer their
judgments, etc. Everyone is free to choose the candidates in the way
they best see fit- but that's how I choose.

- Serge