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

[Robert Soden]

Simon,

> Kathleen has explicitly asked for us to force US based behavioural norms
> on other societies, and I have to take that at face value.

I think that is an inaccurate reading of Kathleen's email.  In fact,
her ideas were very clearly posed as suggestions.  You've asked for
concrete actions on how to address the issues raised on this thread,
which it seems everyone agrees are important and worth working on.  To
that end I'll post part of Kathleen's note here again because so far
these are the best we've heard:

"* I would like to see widespread adoption of codes of conduct across
the community. As Mele mentioned [1], the Puppet community has a very
robust list of Community Guidelines for a wide array of forums and
interactions [2]. I would love to see us do something like this.
* Explicit, easy to find, enforceable guidelines for conversation
happening on any mailing list hosted by OSM.
* Clear expectations given to moderators in enforcing said guidelines,
and adequate support for moderators, who are often too drained to step
in.
* Required Anti-harassment policies for any event billing itself as a
"State of the Map" conference. This would obviously have to be
tailored to each locality for legal reasons, but having a minimum
requirement for the type of expectations as well as the type of
recourse that should be available to all attendees, would be a great
start.
* More scholarships for marginalized groups to attend SOTM
conferences. (Some conferences have started doing this, but we still
need to do better.)
* People doing a better job of holding each other accountable
publicly. There are a lot of really good people in this community, but
a lot of times you stay silent when someone misbehaves. That tells me
that that behavior is tolerated. You can call people out in a gentle,
but clear way. Try that.
* Prioritizing outreach to marginalized groups to join the community
and to speak at conferences.
* Programming and initiatives originating from places of leadership
within the community to provide safe, welcoming places to talk about
these issues and work on ways to improve them."

You may take issue with some or all of these ideas on their merit but
to dismiss them all solely based on the nationality of the person that
suggested them is quite obviously unproductive.

What I hear the people on this thread requesting is for the OSM
Foundation to show some real leadership towards addressing the lack of
diversity in OSM, something that you, along with many others here,
agree is important.  Personally, I'm skeptical that we will be able to
get very far through the OSMF-Talk list.  The OSM mailing lists are,
too often, where reason and good will go to die.  But there are a
number of people on this thread alone who have expressed interest in
tackling this issue and there are many others in the community who
would surely step forward if there was some practical way for them to
contribute.  It seems like this is an opportunity for the Board of the
OSM Foundation to take a leadership role, show that it is a relevant
institution, and develop a process whereby the ranges of opinions at
play here can be heard and some way forward can be found.

Robert