[HOT] Launching the hot mailing list in French

Fri Jul 11 11:22:32 UTC 2014

Dear Michael, all,

Typing this quickly as the day is going badly for me...

It's my opinion that the creation of HOT mailing lists require more
community input than was shown in this instance; whilst I know that we need
to be doing more to work in more languages than English, I am not convinced
that the creation of new HOT mailing lists is the way forward.

*"In line with that, our osmf-* lists are only generated after broader
discussion and may involve board sanction.  Should HOT reflect that
distinction in some way?"*

Yes. HOT is a legally defined membership organisation, like the OSMF, and
is not comparable with many of the other mailing lists. Dev lists, for
example, cater for people with shared interests; regional mailing lists
cater for people in the same place: The HOT list is different because it
serves as the primary communication channel for our organisation and its
members.

I think following the OSMF procedures is an excellent idea.

*"So, having a discussion over about some control over who and how folks
can use the word "HOT" or "Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team" is worth
having?"*

Certainly. I'm not sure how the Communications Working Group is getting on,
but they'd seem like a perfect team to be doing this. Otherwise, we have a
Board (to vote on things, please), or an Executive Director. Others may
well disagree with me, but I think it's important to use our "brand" (for
want of a better description) as best we can.

*"OSM lists on https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo
<https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo> are easy. HOT lists have an
extra layer in that they are effectively being hosted by a sister
organisation that HOT has no control over. Should HOT have any ground rules
that I can be guided by?"*

Perhaps HOT should be maintaining our own lists? Otherwise I'd defer again
to the Communications WG as above.

Thanks, Joseph

On 11 July 2014 12:01, Michael Collinson <mike at ayeltd.biz> wrote:

>  As mentioned, I create the OSM lists, so I hope these neutral
> observations help the discussion:
>
> Yes, indeed the OSM list system works in as loose and free-wheeling manner
> as possible along the support-but-not-control mission of the OSMF.  So
> unless I can think of a really strong reason, I just go ahead and create
> whatever list is requested provided that it is in some way OSM-related and
> that it is free for anyone to join and participate subject to etiquette
> guidelines.  I may nudge and suggest a bit, for example a better name or
> pointing out a potential overlap with another list, but that is all. To my
> recollection, I've only sought board guidance once. For OSM Just Do It
> ethos, it works well.
>
> However, I can see a number of reasons why a little time for HOT to
> discuss and have a good collective strategy is a good thing:
>
> 1) We (OpenStreetMap) do draw a firm distinction between OSM and OSMF,
> i.e. a broad community with fuzzy membership and a, well, bureaucratic
> organisation with with specific finite membership. In line with that, our
> osmf-* lists are only generated after broader discussion and may involve
> board sanction.  Should HOT reflect that distinction in some way?
>
> 2) When OpenStreetMap started, we did not explicitly consider branding. So
> it is not always clear what "OpenStreetMap" refers to. That can be a good
> thing, someone starts a weird project, it turns out to be useful and is
> absorbed into the OSM universe. But it can be a bad thing if someone
> represents themselves to governmental or commercial organisations in a way
> that might be damaging to the overall project. So, having a discussion over
> about some control over who and how folks can use the word "HOT" or
> "Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team" is worth having?
>
> 3) OSM lists on https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo are easy. HOT
> lists have an extra layer in that they are effectively being hosted by a
> sister organisation that HOT has no control over. Should HOT have any
> ground rules that I can be guided by?
>
>
> Mike
>
>
>
>
> On 10/07/2014 15:26, Severin Menard wrote:
>
>   Hi Heather,
>
>  I am a bit surprised by your reaction, it seems you do not know well how
> the OSM lists work. Any group can ask OSMF (Mike Collinson is in charge of
> this) to create one, about a specific topic and/or a specific location.
> Here is the whole list of OSM talk lists:
> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/ for you to figure out.
>
>  As you can see, there are very specific lists like eg
> Talk-gb-oxoncotswolds for Oxford, Oxfordshire and the Cotswolds in GB or
> Talk-it-trentino for the Trentino in Italy. These lists have been created
> by locals or people specifically interested in these regions; creating it
> does not require the permission of an "upper list" that would be the
> country one or the general talk list (without suffix). Regarding your
> background, you could eg create an OSM-Ushahidi list to discuss about the
> interactions between OSM and Ushahidi (and this would not be a bad idea at
> all), knowing that many people would join.
>
>  Are you really suggesting setting a public, open OSM list allowing a
> potential +200 million people to raise their voices on humanitarian and
> development topics should have been decided by a board or people outside
> them? Or that we should make a general survey (in English) to state if
> Spanish, French, Portuguese or Swahili speakers will be allowed or not to
> have a list in their language? This does not fit with OSM. This hot list in
> French is actually something that is in the minds and wished for years.
>
>  Otherwise I do take care about communicating about this when it starts,
> this is the aim of my message, so that this larger (I mean larger because
> many could not participate before in hot discussions and now will join)
> community (and not separated communities) can collaborate efficiently.
>
>  Hope these points are more clear for you.
>
>  Sincerely,
>
>  Severin
>
>
> On Thu, Jul 10, 2014 at 1:39 PM, Heather Leson <heather.leson at hotosm.org>
> wrote:
>
>> Sev, it would have been great to talk in person before setting up a
>> separate HOT list and community process.
>>
>> For example, this was already a topic for the upcoming Board meeting and
>> definitely something we want to do right by really consulting with the HOT
>> community.
>>
>> While I appreciate your initiative, collaboration and community means
>> communicating.
>>
>> I'll be following up on this in the coming month.
>>
>> Thank you
>>
>> Heather
>>  On Jul 10, 2014 7:33 AM, "Severin Menard" <severin.menard at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>>     Hi,
>>>
>>>  There is a openstreetmap.org hot list now for French speaking people
>>> who do not have enough English to participate to the hot (English) list,
>>> and they are numerous not only in France (I think well-known to be one of
>>> the worst English speaking countries :) but also in Africa and in the
>>> Caribbeans. This would allow people from various OSM communities especially
>>> in developing countries, to raise their voices and interact more (or
>>> quicker, because basically writing in foreign language takes more time)
>>> with the HOT/OSM community regarding the humanitarian and development
>>> topics. So far, when we wanted to interact on these topics in French, we
>>> had to make emails with a long list of talk-country lists, which is not
>>> really appropriate as it duplicates the same messages in various talk
>>> lists.
>>>
>>>  This already exists for the dev lists: dev is in English by default,
>>> and there is a French and an Italian one. As I guess (I did not check) they
>>> do, there will be interactions between the lists when it seems useful after
>>> a brainstorm, around an action, a methodology or a new "discovery"; the
>>> people that can interact in the two languages can bridge the lists. If
>>> someone has experience on this, please tell.
>>>
>>>  I would suggest the Spanish native speakers from the HOT community to
>>> create also a list as the community of native Spanish speakers in the world
>>> is twice more numerous than French. It would help during crisis like the
>>> ones in Bolivia or in Chile last year.
>>>
>>>  For the suffix, a quick survey showed that a huge majority preferred
>>> hot-francophone rather than hot-fr or hot-francais, basically because it
>>> states clearly it is about the language and not the country of origin, and
>>> this does count, especially for the people from former French colonies.
>>>
>>>  For those interested, you can subscribe here:
>>> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/hot-francophone
>>>
>>>  I translated the description from English, just added a bit at the end
>>> because the English text only talks about crisis response, and does not
>>> mention development, what should be rectified. The translation in English
>>> would be: "Apart from crisis response, the list helps HOT to prepare
>>> resources and improve its response, but also to discuss and set an OSM map
>>> for development. For this as well, stakeholders and population can send
>>> messages on the list (questions, opinions, requests, discussions...)".
>>>
>>>
>>>  Sincerely,
>>>
>>> Severin
>>>
>>>  _______________________________________________
>>> HOT mailing list
>>> HOT at openstreetmap.org
>>> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/hot
>>>
>>>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> HOT mailing listHOT at openstreetmap.orghttps://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/hot
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> HOT mailing list
> HOT at openstreetmap.org
> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/hot
>
>
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