[Osmf-talk] Candidacy: OSMF Board

Thu Nov 23 13:59:07 UTC 2017

Some of us are bound by ethics rules due to our membership of various
groups / organisations (i.e. will speak up in situations where respect of
others is not happening).

While the specifics can and should be questioned (i.e. how does the
candidate's past impact with mapping, events and other boards align with
the members' views on requirements to be an effective board member for
OSMF?), the tone of the email message was not acceptable in my opinion.

I want to recognise that English is not the first language for everyone and
some cultures prefer bluntness over using lots of words.

However, I still expect respectful conversation between participants. I
strongly believe in the vision of the OSMF and do not want to be forced to
end my membership of the organisation and/or mailing list as a result of
behaviour that may be perceived as bullying (there is already too much of
that in the world).

Kind regards

Donal

On 23 Nov 2017 13:22, "Simon Poole" <simon at poole.ch> wrote:

> I just wanted to second Rob on this.
>
> Once you stand for a, more or less, public office, you can expect the
> questions and the criticisms to be polite, but as long as they are relevant
> to the position (clearly private information would not be),  all questions
> and information are fair game.
>
> And you can't try to make them go way, by referring to a CoC or other
> rules just because they are not favourable to you. Naturally you can
> counter them by providing information or testimonials telling  your side of
> the story, which I would suggest would be a good thing to do in this case.
>
> Simon
>
>
>
> Am 23.11.2017 um 13:42 schrieb Rob Nickerson:
>
> It's a difficult one because if you stand for one of these two vacancies
> then you open your self up to challenge - essential for a functioning
> democracy. On the other hand challenging via the written medium is hard to
> get right.
>
> Thinking about TV interviews of politicians I can imagine presenters
> putting these same challenges to the candidate. I.e. they seem like
> reasonable challenges to have.
>
> I'm looking forward to Heather's response (be that written, audio or
> video!).
>
> :-)
> Rob
>
>
>
>
> On 22 Nov 2017 11:44 p.m., "Pete Masters" <pedrito1414 at googlemail.com>
> wrote:
>
> Sev, whatever you think about Heather, please try and show respect in the
> way you talk to people. Maybe you think you speak with passion and
> principle here, but you just sound to me like a bully.
>
> Pete
>
>
> On 22 Nov 2017 23:10, "Severin Menard" <severin.menard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Heather,
>
> As of today, since you created your OSM account in July 11th, 2011, you
> have been active as a mapper over 11 days, adding a total of 1 new highway,
> 2 names, and 302 buildings[1]. No activity at all during two years during
> which you were a HOT US Inc board director then its President. With 331
> changesets, I guess you are one of the very rarest mappers to have produced
> more changesets than buildings, actually because you have the totally
> newbie habit to upload every single building you trace with your very
> favourite editor iD[2], some of them being not even squared[3]... Seeking
> to join the board of the OSM Foundation with such a high OSM profile is
> really shameless.
>
> Of course you do not emphasize this and you prefer argue in the Election
> wiki talk page that you have been an intense promoter of OSM and “hosted
> mapathons”. But actually no, you have not. In any event you are part of,
> you manage to have someone else having the required skills to run the
> mapathon or deliver the . It was myself in 2013 International Conference of
> Crisis Mappers in Nairobi, Pierre Béland and Samuel Paul Alcé in 2014 IEEE
> Canada International Humanitarian Technology Conference in Toronto and
> apparently on November 15th it was this lady[4] during the 35 people
> mapathon you mention in the Election wiki talk page.
>
> The goals you present in your Manifesto about community building and
> governance mix platitudes (thank you for teaching the OSM community that
> « Community-building is an essential ingredient in building good governance
> and expanding support », I am sure that it had never come in mind to any
> member of this list before) and issues that have been discussing for years
> like diversity, though it is strange that you did not figure out so far
> that the OSM ecosystem, including the one involved in the Foundation, is
> not reduced only to “editing and building technology” people but has a
> large diversity of skills. The diversity issue is much more related to
> gender, language and economical context balances.
>
> Anyway, you might compensate by a huge involvement in board related
> activities. But not even this. For HOT US Inc, then totally unknown both
> from OSM and the humanitarian field, you managed to directly join the board
> in 2013, especially to make the NGO benefit of your high capacity in
> fund-raising. For years, you did not disclose anything about it, pretending
> confidentiality, but emphasized this supposed activity for being
> re-elected, even if you did not collect a dime during this period. I was
> also member of the HOT US Inc board when the NGO faced financial issues mid
> 2015 due to jeopardized management and, having to make the fund-raising
> becomes a reality, we discovered that you had not even produced a basic
> strategic document so far, and other board members had to do it. And during
> these hard weeks, you even complained once that you had to dedicate 5 hours
> a week to HOT US Inc. I do not know if you realize how many hours many here
> dedicate to OSM every week.
>
> So, why are you willing so much to join the board of a community of doers
> without being a doer yourself within this community? Just to pin the OSMF
> board in your collection of voluntary based and open projects you “led” the
> same way, and therefore continue to boost your CV: according to your HOT US
> Inc profile[5], OSMF would at least join the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap
> Team, Crisis Mappers Network, Open Knowledge Foundation, Ushahidi, Random
> Hacks of Kindness, Mozilla.
>
> But if ever someone in this list thinks it might somehow be interesting to
> have among the OSMF board members a totally inactive contributor with a
> very limited knowledge about what OSM is, but with links with other open
> source based communities, please keep in mind that Heather is not an
> inoffensive collector of open source projects board medals.
>
> Electing Heather at the OSMF Board membership would reconstitute the
> former trio who in the past turned the originally open, horizontal, and
> community rooted project into the very classic NGO HOT US Inc become,
> highly tight with many organizations from the USA soft power (American Red
> Cross, USAID, Peace Corps, US State Department...[6]), with quite an opaque
> governance even for its voting members and internal repressive mechanisms
> for any member defending other vision and practices for the NGO or
> complaining about what is going on. I am not surprised at all to learn that
> Heather is currently focus on reviewing the HOT US Inc Code of Conduct (for
> everyone to understand: this means turning it more severe for members).
>
> I really encourage the OSMF voting members not to make this happen.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Severin (sev_osm)
>
> [1] http://hdyc.neis-one.org/?Heather%20Leson
> [2] https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Heather%20Leson/history#m
> ap=15/18.9953/-72.4767
> [3] https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/53780169
> [4] https://twitter.com/HeatherLeson/status/930800399451410433
> [5] https://www.hotosm.org/users/heather
> [6] https://www.hotosm.org/partnerships
>
>
> 2017-11-13 20:02 GMT+01:00 Heather Leson <heatherleson at gmail.com>:
>
>> Dear colleagues,
>>
>> I seek your support for the position of OSMF Board Member. Over the
>> years, I have been so happy to meet and connect with OSMers. Please find my
>> candidate statement:
>>
>> http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Heather%20Leson/diary/42706
>>
>>
>> Thanks in advance for your consideration.  Looking forward to our
>> conversations.
>>
>> Heather
>>
>> Heather Leson
>> heatherleson at gmail.com
>> Twitter/skype: HeatherLeson
>> Blog: textontechs.com
>>
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>> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/osmf-talk
>>
>>
>
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