[Osmf-talk] Paying Board/WG was: Standing for board election

[Heather Leson]

Dear Colleagues, I answered this question on the wiki.

Paying staff for core needs of OSMF is a priority over a paid board. First,
we need the research and structures to support that pathway. It will take
time, but the risk of not investigating is the current state. If I had my
dithers, I would beg for us to invest in community managers but without
fundraisers or product leads, we would need to plan first. We are not the
first OS community to ask these questions. Thus, I recommend that we do our
homework, write a plan, hire someone who can consult and work with the
global community to negotiate and implement the next steps.

heather

Heather Leson
heatherleson at gmail.com
Twitter/skype: HeatherLeson
Blog: textontechs.com

On Sun, Nov 26, 2017 at 4:10 PM, Christoph Hormann <chris_hormann at gmx.de>
wrote:

> On Sunday 26 November 2017, Simon Poole wrote:
> >
> > I don't think that it is a particular mystery, essentially the
> > mainstay of OSM are people that actually like improving the map
> > (likely around 60'000-70'000 these days) plus some developers that
> > like working on OSM-associated projects (very small number maximum in
> > the low 100s, mostly a subset of the first group).
> >
> > Given that most people don't have unlimited time budgets for their
> > hobbies, volunteering for the working groups or any other
> > non-mapping/non-software related activities simply  takes time away
> > from activities which were the reason you got involved in the first
> > place. Not to forget that lots of the active contributors are already
> > doing similar things at the national/local level.
>
> Sure - and another important reason is probably that a lot of people
> volunteer for mapping and development in OSM because they consider it
> useful and rewarding work they can do in an independent and self
> dependent way - which for many presents a healthy contrast to their day
> job.  OSMF work likely for many appears much more like a normal job
> which is exactly what they do not want to do in their spare time.
>
> Maybe a way to acknowledge that and get more volunteer help under these
> circumstances is to recruit volunteers more often for smaller
> individual tasks independently rather than for general participation in
> a working group.  I could imagine this for multiple items on the
> current and past agenda of the board.  Even for things like DWG work
> (think of a pool of independent mediators the DWG could hand over
> issues to investigate and to attemt mediating them).
>
> You might think: Where is the difference? - That is how we work anyway
> but this is also to a significant extent about perception.  The
> perception of OSMF work for the average mapper is not generally that
> inviting in that regard.  Showing people they can contribute on their
> own terms without having to spend hours on comittee meetings to get
> involved would probably go a long way.
>
> --
> Christoph Hormann
> http://www.imagico.de/
>
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