[diversity-talk] wikipedia parallels

[Mikel Maron]

I don't think OSMF has decided to stay small, but rather has stayed small due to the inability to make decisions. There's been plenty of folks who wanted it do more, and still do. Sometimes there are different ideas. There's no way to choose, so often the default happens, which is nothing. I do support anyone willing to try to instigate things to happen.

As for the SWG, yea it's dead, please kill it. Even getting a "tile layer policy" together took dental surgery like effort and pain; I'm not sure we can claim credit for refreshing the logo. We never set out to tell anyone what to do, that's just the same FUD as any time the SWG faced. Rather the question has always been how to structure processes so that things the community do want to happen, actually happen. Perhaps it was just the word "Strategy" that gave people allergic reactions. If the Future group can do better, I think it's just a different name and different faces, for the same general idea. Good luck!

Paid staff, that day will definitely come. Grant himself has said he'd be happy to be paid to do Ops. Andy Allan was paid to finish the redaction bot. I've talked about it for years, the Board has talked about it for years. There's just no way we can continue to forever rely on the kind of volunteer system administration that we are so so fortunate to have from the Ops team. And it wouldn't take any change to the AoA, there's nothing in the governance about paid employees. but would require that OSMF have a proper accounting and HR system.

I've come around to the idea that OSMF should stay small, but should do its the things in its limited responsibility and governance view really really well. And OSMF should give space for other organizations, which are interested in acting strategically, to do things within the OSM community. That's the crucial point of having a Local Chapters agreement, and its why that's the only thing I'm going to possibly volunteer my time on substantially within the OSMF in the foreseeable future.

Finally, while Wikipedia will always be one our key guideposts, both attractive and repulsive, we should take a clear eyed view at what they do. They are hardly top down, and the way the put together their last strategic plan was very experimental and outrageously consultative. http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

-Mikel


* Mikel Maron * +14152835207 @mikel s:mikelmaron



>________________________________
> From: Serge Wroclawski <emacsen at gmail.com>
>To: alyssa wright <alyssapwright at gmail.com> 
>Cc: Kate Chapman <k8chapman at gmail.com>; diversity-talk <diversity-talk at openstreetmap.org> 
>Sent: Tuesday, September 10, 2013 3:38 PM
>Subject: Re: [diversity-talk] wikipedia parallels
> 
>
>The difference between the Wikimedia Foundation and OSM is quite large.
>
>Wikipedia is a large organization, with millions of dollars and paid
>employees. It sets the direction it goes in from the top down, via
>funding.
>
>OSMF has decided to stay small over the years. It has made that
>position clear through years of not voting for candidates which have
>talked about the issue of money or paid employees, until this year.
>Such candidates include Kate, and myself. Both of who have run for the
>OSMF, and both of which have lost in the past, on this platform.
>
>Despite Kate getting into the OSMF (and maybe being able to change
>this), it would be a major sea change for the OSMF to radically change
>positions regarding something as fundamental as paid employees, and
>probably would require a new amendment to the Articles of Association-
>which as you saw this year, is not easy to get through.
>
>The problem with the Strategic Working Group, and the now, "Future
>Working Group" is that they tend to be proscriptive. "We should be",
>which is actually "You should be"- and no one likes to be told what to
>do with their spare time.
>
>Instead, when possible, the energy one might otherwise expend trying
>to change everyone's opinion about how they should spend their free
>time would be better spent doing the work that needs doing, and then
>getting people to agree to it afterwards.
>
>I didn't always hold this view- I still don't think it's optimal for
>all things, but after years of tilting at windmills, I've learned to
>become more practical in expectations of how the OSMF operates.
>
>
>- Serge
>
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