[Osmf-talk] Candidacy: OSMF Board

John Crowley bostoncello at gmail.com
Thu Nov 23 15:56:06 UTC 2017


Severin’s post should make us pause as a community. 

Heather’s contribution to OSM and HOT cannot be measured in edits; it can be measured in new relationships, trust, and donor goodwill—all fragile things that public, toxic diatribes can diminish quickly. I have relied on Heather to organize mapathons, recruit potential donors and champions of mapping, and to create systems and processes to integrate OSM with the larger humanitarian system. I have watched her inspire both kids and hardened bureaucrats to learn to map. She is a deeply valued member of my team at IFRC.

As we scale OSM, we need Heather’s skills as much as edits. In fact, we should create a roadmap of other non-mapping skills necessary to run OSMF. 

As a community, we must choose: do we grow into a mature organization where dialogue between viewpoints builds a culture worthy of the trust that major institutions place in us when they use or map? or do we choose retain the politics of personal attack such as what sometimes happen on this list, albeit rarely as starkly as Sev’s shameful post.

We *can* have a culture that welcomes different perspectives and builds on the collective intelligence of diverse pool of contributors, some of whom do things to support mapping rather than just mapping itself. But we must actively choose it.

John

PS: my own contributions have been around building the imagery workflows around MapGive and codifying OSM practices for the World Bank, rather than editing the map. I spent my time coordinating a small team that got these pixels out to tens of thousands of mappers and writing a field guide for OpenDRI to convince ministers and technocrats to trust the map, rather than tracing that imagery. I should map more, but policy work is just as meaningful.

PPS: to Simon’s point: do years of consistently toxic delivery point to a need to improve rhetoric, or to an underlying problem within the heart of the writer?


> On Nov 23, 2017, at 10:41 AM, Dale Kunce <dale.kunce at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> We have chosen to talk about the delivery because it's something that can and should be considered out of bounds and bad for this community. His underlying message is often devoid of actual fact, so we ignore it. Proving a false is almost impossible and is especially impossible on these forums. 
> 
> I get that Heather doesn't have that many edits in OSM. I can perceive how that would be an issue for some members of the community. However,  I strongly disagree that the most frequent mappers make the best board members. Heather through her work on the HOT board and working with communities is responsible for many more edits and OSM growth than a simple changeset count. The OSMF board needs broader skill sets than the ability to correctly create a relation or write a bit of code.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Nov 23, 2017 7:17 AM, "Simon Poole" <simon at poole.ch> wrote:
> 
> 
>> Am 23.11.2017 um 16:01 schrieb Joseph Reeves:
>> Simon,
>> 
>> With all respect:
>> 
>> Actually this seems to be the time honoured deflection tactic that we've seem so often on this list: focus on the form (undoubtedly some of the adjectives used could have been chosen better), minor details and then start mincing words around that to move focus from the actual issue at hand,
>> 
>> This is not an OK thing to say.
> Serverin has been intensely critical of HOT Inc for a long time, Pete as a HOT board member, Ben and you as voting members, are all very aware of that. 
> 
> Every time, really every time Severin has spoken out about HOT in public, people have jumped on his imperfect delivery of the message. Its a shame that he doesn't improve on it, because it always ends the same way, the delivery is discussed, not the message. 
> 
> Simon  
> 
>> 
>> If people post on a mailing list on the topic of their feelings, regarding the conduct of another member or otherwise, you have no reason to either say that their feelings are invalid, or a "deflection tactic".
>> 
>> You may consider that you have a critical input on wide ranging areas of the OSM ecosystem, but you certainly can't tell people how they feel, or claim that they're lying about their feelings for some sort of listmail gain.
>> 
>> Yours is a worrying response,
>> 
>> Joseph
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On 23 November 2017 at 14:16, Simon Poole <simon at poole.ch> wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>>> Am 23.11.2017 um 14:26 schrieb Pete Masters:
>>>> I agree with you, Simon. My viewpoint isn't opposed to Rob's!
>>>> 
>>>> Anyone should be able to publicly challenge and question candidates - as equally we are able to challenge the premise of those same questions. If Sev truly believes that our leaders should have one or ten or a hundred thousand changesets to their name, that's fine. I don't have to agree and I can respond as such.
>>> Actually this seems to be the time honoured deflection tactic that we've seem so often on this list: focus on the form (undoubtedly some of the adjectives used could have been chosen better), minor details and then start mincing words around that to move focus from the actual issue at hand,
>>> 
>>> It should, IMHO, be left to the reader to gauge what is relevant to the discussion, and have confidence that they will ignore any irrelevant and superficial information. I don't think you'll find many that consider the editor used to contribute to OSM a particularly important piece of information.
>>>> 
>>>> My point is that the language Sev uses is disrespectful, personal and hurtful. That's not ok in my book.... Firstly, for Heather - no-one should have to read that. And secondly, because this hostility discourages debate and divides community.
>>> 
>>> I don't think we can expect everybody to put their criticism in a sandwich (https://dmh.mo.gov/dd/docs/tieredsupportsummarythesandwichmethod.pdf) just to make it more palatable to the recipient, and, as has already been said, its an election, the nature of the thing is that it is about personal qualifications.
>>> 
>>> Simon
>>>  
>>>> 
>>>> Cheers,
>>>> 
>>>> Pete
>>>> 
>>>> On Thu, Nov 23, 2017 at 1:25 PM, joost schouppe <joost.schouppe at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> 2017-11-23 13:42 GMT+01:00 Rob Nickerson <rob.j.nickerson at gmail.com>:
>>>>>> 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.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Well, I haven't seen TV interviews where a journalist says something like "you seem to know nothing about health care, isn't it shameless to offer to be minister of health". (but maybe I don't watch TV enough?). 
>>>>> 
>>>>> This really sets the tone:
>>>>> 
>>>>> > Seeking to join the board of the OSM Foundation with such a high OSM profile is really shameless
>>>>> 
>>>>> I am all for challenging candidates, but shaming them goes a bit further than that. I'd hate to think that the best candidates for this election are not participating because they prefer not to be publicly shamed in this way. Sure, you have the right to say things like this here, but I doubt very strongly that this kind of tone is good for the project. Just stating the facts as you see them, might have led to a discussion about facts. Now we're just going to discuss wether or not this kind of talk is OK or not.
>>>>> 
>>>>> -- 
>>>>> Joost Schouppe
>>>>> OpenStreetMap | Twitter | LinkedIn | Meetup
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> -- 
>>>> Pete Masters
>>>> 
>>>> @pedrito1414
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
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