[Osmf-talk] HOT discontent - what can we learn? Lesson learned #1 HOT US Inc and the freedom of speach in the context of the OSMF Election 2015.
Blake Girardot
bgirardot at gmail.com
Thu Dec 3 01:45:34 UTC 2015
On 12/3/2015 12:19 AM, nicolas chavent wrote:
> Hi all,
>
>
> Thanks Frederik for starting this email thread.
>
>
> First apologies for replying lately :
> I am recovering from from 3 intense weeks in Togo building up the
> technical and organizational skills of a collective of 25 mappers from
> Western Africa and fostering technical training on OSM, QGIS, uMap,
> GeOrchestra to over 50 Togolese mappers over 10 days (blog posts on
> projeteof.org <http://projeteof.org> and rich tweets at #projeteof)
> I have therefore to cope with exhaustion and a heavy workload which
> prevents me from dedicating the time I deem necessary to this Election.
>
>
> I agree with your call to keep the HOT US Inc discussion related to the
> 2015 OSMF Board Election with the aim to
> - inform the on-going vote.
> - inform OSMF Boardees and members about the HOT US Inc experience in
> the long run.
> Your email thread and derived thematic email threads (like this one) can
> help us doing.
> The first lesson we are collectively learning from HOT US Inc during
> this OSMF election is about freedom of speech.
No one is affecting anyone's freedom of speech. I can't affect your
freedom of speech in any way because I can't jail you for expressing
your opinions.
I do not think it was right for you to drag your objections about HOT
into the OSMF elections because a few people running for the OSMF board
happen to also be HOT members.
In addition suggesting that HOT was "represented" on the OSMF board was
just factually incorrect. Suggesting that people elected to the OSMF
board will do any thing but what they feel is in the best interests of
the OSMF is a rather cynical view.
> The fact that the email thread "Balancing the presence of the
> Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT US Inc) in the OpenStreetMap
> Foundation" generated so much traffic is indicative of some oddities at
> play.
>
> As a member of both HOT US Inc and OSMF, in the context of the 2015 OSMF
> Board election, following OSMF encouragements to participate to the
> public campaign and doing my duty as a member of OSMF, I did use one of
> my basic right (freedom of speech) and did express a simple expression
> shared by many on this list and off list.
>
> /It's not healthy to see one organization (e.g. a perspective around
> OpenStreetMap) over-represented at the OSMF Board. This no matter how
> well/bad this organization works. Over-representation of one OSM
> viewpoint will come with under-representation of other OSM viewpoints.
> - OSM is rich of its diversity and therefore diversity in OSM and at the
> OSMF Board has to be actively promoted
> - If (or When) it comes to power, influence and the like plus their
> associated risks for the OSM project, diversity at the OSMF Board will
> be work as a safeguard
>
> /
> The reaction of HOT US Inc has been the following:
>
> In osmf and talk mailing lists:
> 1. Objecting. This is fine in a debate of ideas in the context of an
> Election.
> 2. Expressing apologies to OSMF members on the behalf of HOT US Inc
> because of the expression of an opinion which was not the one of HOT US
> Inc, which has not been formulated by the way.
Factually incorrect. I expressed my apologies that you and a few other
voting members of HOT have taken your issues with HOT and made them the
focus of lists that have nothing to do with HOT. I am sorry the OSMF
list and the OSM-talk lists have been derailed to debate about HOT.
(although I know at least a few people enjoy the HOT bashing :)
> 3. Calling for demission myself as well as any of the "hotties"
> expressing this simple opinion ; this involves HOT US Inc Vice-President
> (Blake Girardot) and members.
Factually incorrect. I have not called for anyone to be removed or
dismissed from the HOT organization.
I have asked that if you and others feel HOT is dangerous to OSM,
corrupt, and infringes your freedom of expression, among many other
things that you and others have expressed, that you resign from the HOT
organization. I do not understand why that is controversial. If I was
moved to write the things you have written about HOT about any
organization I was voluntarily a member and supporter of, I would resign
on principle.
Further, if I did not like the code of conduct, a code of conduct and
policies that I voluntarily agreed to follow and continued to agree to
by being a member, was infringing on my freedom of expression, I would
also be compelled to resign from that organization if I could not
continue to agree to abide by and support that code of conduct.
Again, I do not understand why this is controversial at all
> In HOT US Inc via bilateral emails, or the membership list - considered
> as a public list by the HOT US Inc Board:
> 1. Objecting. This is fine in a debate of ideas within an organization.
> 2. Warning.
Nico, I apologize, I do not know what you are talking about here, what
you are trying to say or list here, if you could please restate it if
you think it is important, then maybe I can reply.
> 3. Calling for demission ; this involves HOT US Inc Vice-President
> (Blake Girardot) and members.
Factually incorrect. I have not asked for anyone to be removed, or
dismissed from the HOT Organization.
> 4. Examining the HOT US Inc Code of Conduct to determine the adequate
> disciplinary action ; this involves HOT US Inc President (Heather
> Lesson) and the Chairpersonn (Russel Deffner).
Ya, we have a code of conduct and a set of policies for HOT US Inc. You
have agreed to them and obviously feel they are fair, reasonable and
valid or you would stop agreeing to them by resigning.
And I personally think we should take a look at your spamming your
incorrect, non factual, intentionally harmful to HOT and individuals in
HOT, emails to see if they fall a foul of the HOT policies you have
agreed to by remaining a voting member. Others in HOT feel the same way.
Again, I do not see this as controversial at all. It is why we have HOT
Policies for voting members.
If you do not want anyone to consider if your emails and conduct violate
the HOT policies and code of conduct you have agreed to abide by, there
is a really simple way to avoid that, just making yourself not subject
to them :)
> By working this way HOT US Inc
> - does not favor Freedom of speech and diversity of opinions
I favor respectful expression of any opinion and doing so in the
appropriate forum preferably.
> - reacts violently at the simple use of freedom of speech and expression
> of opinions alternative to the majority
I do not react violently to anything.
I do react to factually incorrect statements and your general HOT
bashing by saying HOT members being on the OSMF board are dangerous and
dangerous to OSM.
Again, you intentionally make provocative statements across 4 forums and
then are surprised when people react. I am not sure what you expect,
except that maybe you should be able to express anything you want and no
one should be able to reply. Or it is just a tactic on your part to now
play the "violently attacked victim"
> please note that none official
> HOT US Inc opinion has been officially expressed to the members, members
> have to figure it out by themseleves...
I have no idea what you are talking about here. What official HOT
opinion would you want anyone to express?
I for sure expect HOT voting members to think for themselves and decide
what the standards are for our own community of voting members.
> - this violence in reaction intimidates HOT US Inc members and makes the
> expression of one's opinion a tough task to achieve when it does not fit
> the official views.
Again, no official view, no idea what you are talking about.
Again, you do not seem to understand what violence means. Disagreement
is not violence.
> This violence is nothing new in HOT US Inc since late 2013:
Third base..... I mean 2013! Of course no conversation about the OSMF
elections (or any conversation) is complete without reference to 2013
and a demand we debate whatever issues you were on about then.
> - In the last two Board Elections (2014, 2015)
> - This can happen in normal times as well.
> I got intimidated/insulted by the HOT US Inc President (Mikel Maron) in
> the course of an Activation Working Group meeting Spring 2015; Mikel
> Maron received an official warning for this by the HOT US Inc Board and
> Chairman.
I will guess this is just a typo, but none of that happened in 2015, nor
was Mikel President in spring of 2015. I think you mean 2014.
But are you are telling me HOT even holds its President to the Code of
Conduct and takes action when they violate it? Wow. Congrats to HOT.
>
> This is surely a HOT US Inc practice of internal and public debates,
> OSMF Boardees and folks might not want to take for OSMF and any OSM
> chapter or collectives.
Yes, HOT's practice as I understand it is to ask for respectful
discussion of any topic in the right forum.
We also ask people respect the decisions of the board and the voting
members and abide by the code of conduct everyone agrees to be remaining
voting members.
And after something has been decided, after a good long fair debate, we
ask that decision be respected and we be allowed to move on and not
insist on bringing things up from 3 or 4 years ago constantly to disrupt.
>
> Respect of diversity of OSM viewpoints at OSMF Board and defense of
> freedom of speech and of opinion within OSMF shall be at the core of
> this 2015 OSMF Board election and I trust OSMF members to vote accordingly.
The only person I see not respecting diversity of opinion is you Nico.
Your opinion on how HOT should be organized and run was rejected by the
voting membership at least twice, yet you refuse to respect that opinion
and instead say that HOT is dangerous because of it.
I will also point out, HOT is probably more protective of freedom of
opinion than most organizations. Once you are a voting member, it is
essentially impossible to remove you, it is basically a lifetime
appointment. You can keep voicing your opinion all day long and the most
we can do is ask you to resign if you are so unhappy.
You are also free to propose any bylaws changes you want, run for the
board, call a meeting, etc and just get the membership to vote it in.
Regards,
Blake
(I guess I need to spell it out: Nothing I say is "official" HOT opinion
(there is no such thing), it is my opinion only and I only include my
title in the interests of full disclosure: VP of the Board, HOT US Inc.)
>
>
> Best,
> Nicolas
>
>
> On Wed, Dec 2, 2015 at 5:35 PM, Rod Bera <rod at goarem.org
> <mailto:rod at goarem.org>> wrote:
>
> Hi Frederik,
>
> Sorry for replying lately, I've been off-line for the last 48 hours.
>
> Indeed in HOT we have a number skeletons in our cupboards, and no
> clean-up so far.
> Maybe this is a first reason to be cautious about letting too many
> hotties into the OSMF board, at least until things get settled.
>
> I also expressed concern about these candidacies of HOT members, as they
> don't reflect the diversity of views existing within HOT, but only that
> of a party, which appears to steer HOT without caring for minorities'
> objections or proposals.
>
> The way HOT runs as an organisation seem incompatible with the ethos of
> OSM as I stated in earlier e-mails.
>
> The danger is, would these HOT members get it onto the board of OSMF is
> to see their practices percolate into OSM.
>
> Below are the kind practices and habits I believe would be detrimental
> to OSMF, would the same gang get a majority at (or just get sufficient
> influence on) OSMF's board.
>
> 1.
> despising minorities of thought: expressing views which are different
> from the majority's, even being constructive, not a frontal opposition,
> always result in disdain to start with, and aggression when opponents
> don't back down.
> Personally the kind of objections I made so far were about more
> transparency, more collegiality, more respect towards communities,
> accountability. With an explicit argument: we pride ourselves to be part
> of the OSM odyssey, so at least we should live by OSM's standards. And
> if we believe we are "better" because of our commitment to humanitarian
> issues, then rise these standards accordingly, especially on the humane
> side.
> This kind of objection is enough to get marginalised. I am not alone in
> this case, and relatively preserved from retaliation so far when
> compared to some.
>
> Why would this be bad for OSM?
> OSM is made of diversity, and every idea expressed to push OSM forward
> is welcome. Not certain having people who simply can't hear a different
> sound would be an asset for OSM.
>
> 2.
> Despising/ignoring local communities, in Africa and elsewhere "not in
> the North". Many actions (training, mapping, crisis response,
> innovation) have been successful in Haiti or Africa, despite no support
> from HOT US inc.
> Training and mapping in Haiti, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Mali, Togo, Cote
> d'ivoire, etc. Long lasting activations (esp. Ebola, with invaluable
> insight from African collectives, with a lot of work mapping as well as
> reviewing what context-ignorant westerners could infer and put into the
> DB.), innovation with the use of drone imagery in Haiti or SDIs to
> disseminate OSM data.
> All these actions were built to have a long-lasting effect on-field
> (capacity building, skill reinforcement and propagation) with young and
> thriving OSM communities now operating and spreading across West Africa,
> with next to not a single penny.
> At the same time the policy of HOT's board majority was to seek big
> funding and put the money mostly on one-off projects with no follow-up
> or resilient capacity building, implementing a de facto "projectorate"
> (Rodriguez-Carmona 2009:
> http://www.academia.edu/6410031/Rompiendo_con_el_Proyectorado_El_gobierno_del_MAS_en_Bolivia_Plural_Itaca_2009_
> ; Lerch, 2014: https://archive-ouverte.unige.ch/unige:40573) approach as
> is unfortunately too frequent in the humanitarian and development
> fields.
> Where efficient (and low cost by necessity) initiatives could not be
> ignored, attempts were made to take control of them, or merge them into
> other initiatives led by people who had the support of the Board's
> majority... Or concurrent initiative were set-up, without properly
> including the local communities.
>
> Why would this be a problem for OSM?
> OSM is mostly made of people volunteering time to increase commons (db
> and soft), dialogue, community, in an inclusive way. And needless to say
> most of it is not funded by big NGOs, companies, or governments. It
> works well this way. This result in less money to implement all the good
> ideas we have, but this said OSM is independent from external
> influences.
> Will people who think in terms of "million-dollar-plus NGO" exclusively
> bring a constructive insight into the board of OSMF?
> Also OSM as a global community is horizontal. OSMF is not here to lead
> the local chapters, but rather facilitate their work and the
> availability of commons. My experience of HOT is a completely different
> story.
>
> 3.transparency, accountability
> I, with a number of other hotties have always asked that the board
> includes and informs the members in HOT's matters, as I believe
> transparency is important. It is a prerequisite for the accountability
> the board is putting forward, without concrete effects. It is also
> important for us members to know how things are run if we are to make
> informed decisions, at least once a year as who to vote for board
> elections. Even this is considered too much. There's no accountability.
> For instance (this is the most recent) there are rumours of near
> bankruptcy, some basic members hear in places the financial situation is
> bad/quite bad/very bad. But no information is given by the board on how
> bad and why.
>
> Now why should the people in OSM care?
> Well suppose these practices are transposed to OSMF board, would we be
> happy having the pilot not bother telling the passengers where we're
> heading to (and if there's a crash to expect)?
> More seriously, this is undemocratic as we members don't have the
> necessary elements to make informed decision.
>
>
> 4.independence
> There I have only a limited insight. There were several instances I
> asked for clarifications, getting no clear answers.
> Some HOT board members/former members have a history of involvement with
> some NGOs or governmental agencies (e.g. ARC, US state department,
> etc.). This raises questions on conflict of interest and subsequently on
> the independence of HOT, since these NGOs and agencies can run actions
> on the same fields.
> However subjective the perception of CoI can be in some cases, I got no
> real justification there was nothing to fear from this.
> Though this is debatable, I believe when there is a perception
> (justified or not) of CoI, there is a moral obligation to speak about it
> as openly as possible, and if a doubt subsists act for the good of the
> organisation and take action accordingly (e.g. withdraw a board election
> candidacy. If we believe we work for the best of the collectivity this
> is not such a great deal: There are others way to contribute than being
> on the board...).
> This said, I also heard of HOT projects led "in coordination" with ARC
> (not discussing the pertinence of the project), but this gives fuel to
> the worries I expressed above.
> So the independence of HOT is questionable. And since I got no clear and
> clean answer there, I genuinely feel I should worry.
>
> Now, do we have good reasons to believe things would be different with
> OSMF, would Hotties be "well represented" on its board? Again on this
> point I personally have no proof, just worries. Should we take the risk?
> I leave you sole judge.
>
> 4. mutual respect
> Equality of treatment (or the lack thereof) is one more issue which has
> to do with basic respect between human beings, as individuals, project
> stake-holders, communities. In election times it went to the point of
> defamation and threatening. Beside this is the lack of basic human
> respect in human resources. With behaviours you could expect from
> totalitarian regimes.
> I never had the privilege to be a target of such extensive defamation
> (which go beyond the scope of HOT, with all the potential devastating
> effect on an individual's professional and/or personal life) or threats,
> but I witnessed the violence of these attacks directed to experienced
> and effective members who happened to repeatedly put the board out of
> it's comfort zone (i.e. no critical questions must be asked).
> Violent, vicious, defaming. Though to the best of my knowledge these
> acts were done by a small minority of members, the fact that subsequent
> attempts to "settle things" putting the victims at the same level of
> responsibility as the aggressor (and then no sanction against the
> aggressor) is at least surprising. And shocks me.
> And mutual respect has also something to do with point 1 and 2
> (despising those advocating different orientations, and considering
> local communities as peanuts when they happen not to come from the
> wealthiest world).
>
> Needless to say this is in complete opposition with basic humanism as
> well as with the basic values shared in OSM. Do we need such behaviours
> also happening in OSM?
>
>
> Now, where do I speak from?
>
> I am a basic HOT member. Though I'm not a founding one I came in the
> year after. And before this, during 2 years or so I had several
> discussions on how HOT was being set up, prior HOT US coming to
> existence.
> I never ran for HOT's board, and have no ambition to do so.
> I came into HOT with the idea it was a humanitarian declination of OSM,
> combining OSM values with the idealism and principles at the source of
> humanitarian action.
> I am not naive. I know NGOs "sometimes" tend to work with a shift from
> their principles. But I also thought in HOT we could avoid such a shift.
> I am still convinced by this.
>
> This said, some on the HOT membership list reproached me I'm not
> defending HOT's interests.
> I disagree.
> I believe it's in HOT's own interest to evolve and improve on a number
> of issues, somme being listed above.
> And also, as I believe it's in HOT's interest not to take
> disproportionate influence in the OSM ecosystem some reproached me not
> to put HOT first.
> This is true.
> I believe general interest has to prevail over more specific ones.
> OSM is of general interest, HOT is more specific.
> I said before: without OSM no HOT.
> This makes priorities obvious.
>
>
>
> So what should OSMF (not) learn from HOT?
> well...
>
> Best regards,
>
> Rod
>
>
>
>
> On 30/11/15 19:41, Frederik Ramm wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > I must admit (as a non-Hottie) that the recent messages here
> were a
> > bit too detailed for me to digest. I am pretty sure HOT have
> their fair
> > number of skeletons in the cupboard, as will any organisation of
> a given
> > age and size, and I can't be bothered to retrace years of
> discussions in
> > the organisation. I also know that wherever people do something
> > together, there will be discontent, and the fact that there is
> > discontent doesn't necessarily mean that something has been done
> wrong.
> >
> > (I do sense a rather authoritarian attempt at getting rid of critical
> > voices. Sometimes it is not the presence of discontent, but how it is
> > handled that tells you something about an organisation. But then
> again
> > some critical voices can be so unreasonable that kicking them out
> is the
> > only feasible option. I simply lack the HOT insight to judge.)
> >
> > This is not a list to debate the shortcomings of HOT (unless they
> were
> > so grave that we must stop them from using our name and
> database). This
> > is a list about the OSM Foundation.
> >
> > What I can clearly see and what is relevant for us on this list:
> >
> > * Some people are very unhappy with how HOT is being run;
> > * some people with a HOT background are standing for OSMF board.
> >
> > So I would like to know from those who are unhappy with how HOT
> is being
> > run: What are dangers do you see for OSMF? In your eyes, what are the
> > strategic steps that the HOT organisation has taken and that you feel
> > OSMF should not take because it would be detrimental?
> >
> > I'm trying to get away from "do not vote for X because they are with
> > HOT" here. Skeletons in the closet or not, it is always
> interesting to
> > learn from others how they solved certain issues in another
> > organisation. It'd like to hear from those who are dissatisfied
> with HOT
> > (or disenfranchised?) - what should OSMF *not* learn from HOT?
> >
> > Bye
> > Frederik
> >
>
>
>
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>
>
> --
> Nicolas Chavent
> Projet OpenStreetMap (OSM)
> Projet Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT)
> Projet Espace OSM Francophone (EOF)
> Mobile (FRA): +33 (0)6 52 40 78 20
> Mobile (CIV): +225 78 12 76 99
> <mailto:nicolas.chavent at hotosm.org>
> Email: nicolas.chavent at gmail.com <mailto:nicolas.chavent at gmail.com>
> Skype: c_nicolas
> Twitter: nicolas_chavent
>
>
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