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

Sat Sep 27 15:57:34 UTC 2014

Greetings from Berlin.

I've been following this thread from afar and am finally chiming in. It
took me this long because in order to do so I had to finally join OSMF. I'd
like you to note how ridiculous it is that anyone has decided to join the
organization to combat a lack of, or lack of interest in, diversity.

Since my comments on Twitter yesterday I have seen and heard a lot of
people stepping up to voice their support for this issue. Thank you.

As others have mentioned, gender diversity is not the only type of
diversity we struggle with, but it's more or less become the focus of this
thread. Since it is the one that affects me most, and it would be
presumptuous to pretend I know the experience of other marginalized groups,
that's what I will focus on.

As Kate said, it is not her job, nor is it mine, nor any other woman or
member of a marginalized community to explain to you how you are further
promoting your own privilege at the expense of ours. If you notice that
your community lacks diversity (and a simple scan of the names of people
engaging in this, or any of the OSM mailing lists should tell you that), it
is incumbent upon you to ask yourself why. It is incumbent upon you to
educate yourself about issues of diversity in tech [1]. It is incumbent
upon you to work to create a more inclusive community. By not doing that
you are making your priorities extremely clear. Believe me, OpenStreetMap
as a whole has made its priorities clear time and again.

The request for more "proof" is an exhausting, and as already pointed out,
troubling one, for various reasons. The reality is that OpenStreetMap is a
community under the umbrella of tech. It is naive to think that we are
somehow immune to the problems that plague literally every other large
scale tech community in existence. If you don't believe that tech has a
gender problem, and FOSS even moreso [2], I'm not sure that I can help you.
Worse still, OSM is dramatically behind the curve. The conversations we
have about diversity are ones that other communities were having years ago.
No one has ever said that OSM is blazing the trail for gender diversity in
tech. You know who is? Groups like the Python Software Foundation[3]. The
European JavaScript community[4]. Even WMF is taking a greater interest in
this than we do [5]. Many others are taking proactive, bold, exciting steps
in this direction, while we're still trying to convince you that a problem
exists in the first place. This is incredibly aggravating and defeating.
This simple fact is enough to keep women out of OSM. It's enough to get
women to leave OSM.

You want examples of sexism in OSM?

When I get private, harassing messages from prominent men telling me that
people in the community don't respect me, that is sexism in OSM. When there
are men who no women in OSM will engage with because we all feel
uncomfortable interacting with him, and we're told "he's just like that"
and to not take it personally, that is sexism in OSM. When women at SOTM
conferences are asked or simply assumed to be attending because they are
the girlfriend/wife/partner of a *real* community member, that is sexism in
OSM. When women are unable to attend conferences because to my knowledge no
SOTM has ever provided childcare, that is sexism in OSM. When the mere idea
of concerns about how childcare or brothels are tagged becomes a community
joke, that is sexism in OSM. When implementing an anti-harassment policy
for a conference is considered controversial, or simply relegated to the
back of a program book or bottom of a webpage, because of concerns that it
might seem "scary" or like we're getting ready to "lawyer up", that is
sexism in OSM.

These are just a few examples that I can think of within 10 minutes that
won't be *too* risky for me to mention. (Also, the fact that naming names
or specific incidents would make me unsafe? That's sexism in OSM.)

You think this is simply a marketing issue? You think that OSM doesn't have
a gender problem? Think again.

[1] http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Feminism_101
[2] http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline_of_incidents
[3] https://twitter.com/jessicamckellar/status/413009020522221568
[4] http://2014.jsconf.eu/news/2014/08/15/diversity-tickets.html
[5] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Diversity_Conference

On Sat, Sep 27, 2014 at 1:34 PM, Simon Poole <simon at poole.ch> wrote:

>
> IMHO we have two intertwined subjects and some are making unwarranted
> conclusions, if not to say large leaps of faith in the arguments.
>
> 1) harassment of minorities and other groups, in particular females, and
> specifically female OSM participants that are publicly known.
>
> It would be naive to assume that this doesn't happen, participating in
> OSM doesn't automatically make us better human beings and given that we
> have reports by victims, we can safely assume that this is an issue. And
> while an overwhelming part of the OSM community chooses to remain
> anonymous, we have all the interest in the world for it to be safe for
> contributors that choose to come forward publicly.
>
> We need to make clear that such behaviour is not acceptable and stop it
> when it happens and I believe at least in current times we have done a
> reasonably good job of that. What is potentially missing is an OSM wide
> place to report such incidents and get help, and maybe providing
> something like that should be taken up by the board.
>
> 2) low participation of females in OSM. This is what the discussion
> started out with. At some point it was implied that (1) was the main
> reason for this, aka: larger numbers of females join OSM, are harassed,
> and then leave.
>
> However this isn't supported by any of the available studies, statistics
> nor by logic. Only a very very very small number of contributors
> regardless of gender ever interact with other mappers, mailing lists
> etc, nearly all remain essentially completely anonymous both in name and
> gender, the opportunity for large scale misbehaviour simply isn't there.
>
> In a way it would be far simpler if the statement was true, because it
> would be relatively easy to address. Everything we currently know
> however points to that we simply have a very low influx of female new
> contributors to start with (this is naturally true for other minorities
> too, and the similar arguments likely apply).
>
> As I said right at the beginning of the discussion: I'm convinced that
> this is due to that OSM is perceived as a typical male hobby with a
> slightly nerdy angle to it, to the point of implying that other genders
> might not be welcome and that (1) might be a problem.
>
> Or to put it differently: fixing the issue is mainly an image marketing
> activity, unluckily a very difficult one and likely slow to show
> success. And undoing the damage (I'm not blaming anybody for this,
> getting an article to come out right is an art, it is just a wonderful
> example of the image we convey to the outside) an in principle harmless
> article like:
>
>
> http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/09/18/uk-foundation-ebola-maps-idUKKBN0HD0ER20140918
>
> does is extremely difficult.
>
> All good things start off with our personal behaviour and I believe we
> should start off by reviewing which image of OSM we are personally
> conveying to the outside.
>
>
> Simon
>
> Am 27.09.2014 11:35, schrieb Jaak Laineste (Nutiteq):
> >
> > On 27 Sep 2014, at 02:16, Steve Doerr <doerr.stephen at gmail.com
> > <mailto:doerr.stephen at gmail.com>> wrote:
> >
> >> On 26/09/2014 23:33, Emilie Laffray wrote:
> >>
> >>> First of all, I want to say I agree with you and I could probably
> >>> cite a few occasions where some comments or behaviors have been
> >>> inappropriate. I am going to refrain from naming and shaming because
> >>> it won't help and it will only stir more conversations.
> >>
> >> It *will* help, and stirring more conversations is precisely what we
> >> need, if there is indeed a problem. You don't actually need to 'name
> >> and shame': at least in the first instance you can present anonymized
> >> anecdotes.
> >
> > I honestly have the same problem. I try to read this thread and I still
> > have little idea what it is talking about. Probably I’m naive, stupid,
> > having different cultural background from the soviet chauvinist
> > education, do not read posts carefully enough, blind to something. I’m
> > afraid that I can be even accidental sexist, with nobody mentioning.
> > There might be others like me. I tried to skim through some articles
> > pointed before, but could not really link them to OSM as I know it. I
> > understand that some of us are too tired of it, are afraid of it etc,
> > but maybe some others who also do know well the issue would please add a
> > few specific examples of diversity issues in OSM? These could be be even
> > made up, just realistic enough in OSM context.
> >
> > Jaak
> >
> >
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> > https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/osmf-talk
> >
>
>
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