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

[Alex Barth]

I am getting late to this thread. I do want to follow Kathleen's call to
speak up. Too often we let each other hanging out there on mailing lists
quietly consenting.

The fact that women (and other groups) are starkly underrepresented in
OpenStreetMap can't be denied. We don't need proof of active discrimination
to realize there's a problem, we just need to look at attendees at
conferences. It's on all of us to change that. We should be asking
ourselves what each one of us can do to bring "other" people into
OpenStreetMap. These can be big deeds or small ones. I loved for instance
how Andrew Wiseman and others in the DC community spent a ton of their
spare time this summer to work with M.O.M.I.E.S TLC [1] on a mapping
project in Washington DC - pretty much in every aspect the opposite of
their demographics.

And here's a concrete suggestion: if you're looking for a place to help
grow OpenStreetMap and bring more diversity into the space, run for the
OpenStreetMap US board [2]. Particularly if you're a woman. Elections are
coming up fast, so get your name on the list.

[1] http://tasks.hotosm.org/project/579
[2] http://openstreetmap.us/2014/08/elections-2014/

On Mon, Sep 22, 2014 at 6:23 AM, Derick Rethans <osm at derickrethans.nl>
wrote:

> 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
>
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