[Osmf-talk] Reaching out and diversity (Was: Re: AGM and board elections)

[Derick Rethans]

On Thu, 18 Sep 2014, Clifford Snow wrote:

> On Thu, Sep 18, 2014 at 3:34 PM, Oleksiy Muzalyev <
> oleksiy.muzalyev at bluewin.ch> wrote:
> 
> > Perhaps it's time to begin to think about a rule that the board 
> > shall include at least two women? And in future 4/3?
> 
> +1 - Even if the Board doesn't think that rule is appropriate, we 
> should reach out to encourage more gender diversity on the Board. I 
> don't know the make up of men vs women in OSM, but I suspect we could 
> do much more to promote more to encourage more women to be involved.

Diversity does not stop with just gender. Certainly important, and 
perhaps a first thing to focus on, but certainly not enough. I think in 
general most tech projects tend to be "white men", and that does a great 
unjustice to the amount of views we *could* have.

I think we could benefit from:

- Promoting OSM membership with all of our mappers. I would be totally
  for sending out a quarterly email, to mappers that have made say 10-25 
  edits. This way you are not spamming everybody, but still at least 
  know they have more than a tiny bit of interest.
- I think in general we suck at engaging new mappers, and I think it's 
  really important to reach out to people that newly started. Best done 
  by other local mappers in the area
- Invite people from other diversities specifically to stand for the 
  board. I am sure we can find people from "non white male" groups that 
  we know have done a lot for OpenStreetMap (think HOT and their 
  participation in Africa). We *must* be proactive here if we want to 
  change that. And if that means doing "positive discrimination", then I 
  am certainly for.

cheers,
Derick