[Local-chapters] community building + local chapters?

[Christoph Hormann]

On Wednesday 22 August 2018, joost schouppe wrote:
>
> > I would also like to point out that one important reason for local
> > chapters and informal local organizations working together is to
> > create a counterweight and corrective to the centralized OSMF and
> > its working groups.  Forming a working group does not necessarily
> > preclude this but the mentioned function is something that
> > ultimately requires cooperation also outside the constraints of a
> > working group.
>
> Unless of course this is a somewhat more liberal working group than
> the usual ones.

Don't want to press this particular point here but i disagree - the way 
the OSMF handles the working groups is pretty laisser-faire in general 
but they are still part of the OSMF which as a UK corporation is 
inherently a centralized organization.  The OSMF board or the AGM could 
in principle tell any working group what to do and what not to do or 
dissolve it.

The particular value of the counterweight and corrective the local 
chapters and informal local organizations could provide comes from 
being fully outside the control of the OSMF.

> > Frankly i am fairly strongly against using github for general
> > discussion on topics that should be open for the whole community. 
> > I think it would be best to keep general discussion on ideas and
> > cooperations on the mailing list (or on a forum channel if that is
> > preferred) and use the wiki for documentation needs and only use
> > external platforms when there are substantial needs for that
> > (although i would - as said before - prefer it if we work towards
> > having a project management and issue tracking platform within OSM
> > for this kind of thing).
>
> There is a clear majority in favor of working with Github, and there
> is the precedent of the SotM working group organizing themselves
> there. I support working towards a better alternative, but I do not
> support exclusively sticking to mailing lists.

As you can see i have not suggested to exclusively stick to mailing 
lists.

Apart from the mentioned FOSS policy for WG work (which does not become 
invalid because some WGs ignore it) everyone is of course free to use 
whatever communication means they prefer.

> Only Telegram is proprietary among those AFAIK, and that's only
> linked. Are you proposing not to make it possible for people who
> prefer Telegram to connect to the Matrix room?

Having never used any of these except IRC i don't really have a 
qualified opinion on this.  The most important thing about 
interconnecting different platforms is that everyone is aware what 
features cannot be used because they are not available on all 
platforms.

> > In general real time synchronous conversation (both text and voice)
> > disadvantages people with limited English abilities so doing as
> > much as possible in asynchroneous conversation is advisable in
> > multilingual groups.
>
> I do not agree here. Mailing lists (the asynchronous) have exactly
> the same issue. Apart from that, since any message has a more
> permanent feel to it, people with lesser English skills might find it
> a higher barrier to post there.

Ok, this is probably outside the scope of this discussion here - what i 
said is based on my experience both as a non-native English speaker 
communicating in English and when interacting with others with limited 
language skills in either English or German.

Asynchronous communication allows people with limited language skills to 
compensate significantly for that by investing additional time which is 
impossible in synchronous communication.

> In conclusion, I will continue the course outlined above. If that is
> too far removed from what a working group can and should do, then the
> work being done will just be from an informal group. I'm not
> convinced that is necesary. I'd also like to avoid the proposed
> meeting to be too much about this possible issue. It should be about
> actual stuff we can do, lest we scare enthousiastic people away with
> this procedural talk. If we need some sort of official meeting to
> conclude the topic of "extended LCWG or not", let's schedule that
> separately.

If you do have things you want to work on then by all means use whatever 
means you see fit.  My remarks were mostly long term considerations how 
to organize communication in general to ensure being inclusive and 
respecting the values of the OSM community (regarding FOSS use for 
example).

-- 
Christoph Hormann
http://www.imagico.de/