[diversity-talk] Transferable tactics for increasing gender diversity in OSM

[Kai Krueger]

On 09/05/2013 11:38 AM, Darrell Fuhriman wrote:
> You know that reminds me. One thing that Alyssa mentioned a while back
> was increasing the diversity of ideas, and I think that's really
> important. Trying to engage folks that aren't just tech people, is just
> as important as say increasing the gender diversity.

Increasing the diversity of ideas has always been a core principal of
OpenStreetMap and I believe much of the way OpenStreetMap was set up in
was to ensure that diversity of ideas.

The first line of the Wiki front page states "We started it because most
maps you think of as free actually have legal or technical restrictions
on their use, holding back people from using them in creative,
productive, or unexpected ways". I.e talks about using them in creative
and unexpected ways, which is just another way of saying diversity of ideas.

In order to support this diversity of ideas, free form tagging together
with no restrictions imposed on those tags by the system has always been
a fundamental design decision of OpenStreetMap. All attempts so far to
limit or restrict the ability to use arbitrary tags and be it the
"democratic voting process" on the wiki have always been shot down as
not acceptable as it would limit the diversity of ideas and use cases.

Furthermore, perhaps one of the reasons the OSM foundation was set up to
be as week as it is, was precisely to limit its ability to control the
direction OpenStreetMap was taking and prevent it ever being in the way
of diversity and new ideas.

I believe overall, OpenStreetMap has had quite a lot of success in this
diversity with projects ranging all over the place from biking, to
boating, to humanitarian efforts, to mapping disability access to many
more local interests. Those various projects have also pulled in many
non technical people who are simply just enthusiasts in those hobbies
and have helped make better maps to cover their needs.


Despite diversity of ideas always having been a fundamental principle
of OSM, things however could and should be better. We should therefore
think about why those principles haven't always resulted in the
diversity we are hoping for.

Perhaps one of the reasons is, that core OSM(F) have usually seen it
self as only caring about the raw data and not so much about end users.
(Partly out of resource necessity, partly out of political conviction)
However, only offering a 20GB compressed XML dump of nodes ways and
relations, is likely the least helpful way of trying to recruit non tech
people... So in order to reach non tech people OSM in its current form
is always going to have to rely on "third party projects" to create
appealing products for diverse groups. This limitation does again ensure
that all use cases and interests in principal have equal opportunities
but it does require to explain the complex relation between "OSM core"
and the various "third party projects building upon OSM". This is
something that OSM could and should do much better at.

Another aspect would be to help those diverse groups in obtaining the
necessary technical resources for customizing the tools, maps and other
applications to leverage the inherent diversity of OSM, so that it is
not only in principal a "level playing field" but also in practice.



Kai