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

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

On 09/29/2014 05:45 AM, Randy Meech wrote:
> However, I do believe that it's important for leadership to
> be more careful on topics like this, and more welcoming to people,
> particularly around topics of diversity and inclusiveness.

This is, by the way, quite possibly another cultural thing. Being a
post-war generation German, I have been conditioned to flinch whenever
someone responds to a perceived problem with calls for "leadership".

I, for one, read Simon's message as just one voice of many in the
discussion, and not the voice of a leader who would have to be held to
higher standards than everyone else. And I found his message much less
combative than others.

Frankly there have been a couple messages in this thread that have hurt
my feelings as (a) a member of most of the privileged groups you can
think of (on whom you can trample at will because they're so f*cking
privileged) and (b) a member of the OSM mailing list community (on whom
you can trample at will because they're used to suffering). And it's ok;
your free speech is more important to me than my hurt feelings, at least
to a certain degree. I won't have you publicly tarred and feathered for
it. I seldom even call out such occurrences because
I don't think that it furthers the discussion, and have only chosen to
mention it now to make the point that crusading for the good cause
doesn't mean you should drop respect for your peers.

We are, after all, in this project together and our actions should be
guided by what we have in common. When we talk of diversity it is always
under the umbrella of that common goal; we're not interested in
we-could-also-use-Google-maps diversity - only in
hey-I-am-different-but-I-also-love-OSM diversity. The bit that unites us
is more imporant than what's different about us.

Bye
Frederik

-- 
Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"