[Osmf-talk] Membership Fee Waiver Program

Dan Stowell danstowell at gmail.com
Sat Sep 23 16:32:57 UTC 2017


2017-09-23 11:33 GMT+01:00 Christoph Hormann <chris_hormann at gmx.de>:
> On Saturday 23 September 2017, michael spreng wrote:
>>
>> The Membership Working Group started with the implementation of the
>> fee waiver program. It is based on the board resolution from
>> Oct. 14th 2014 [1].
>>
>> [...]
>
> I know this is kind of outside the scope here when you implement the
> board/AGM decision but wouldn't it make more sense to generally make
> the membership fee an optional payment for long term OSM contributors -
> you would specify your user account when signing up as member and if
> you have been actively contributing for at least a year with at least x
> changeset and y changes you get a checkbox (checked by default but
> which you can uncheck) to pay a membership fee or not?
>
> This would reduce the barrier for signing up, especially for people for
> whom the payment is a problem.  Having to ask for being exempt from the
> membership fee is a significant psychological hurdle and destigmatizing
> that by turning it around and making the membership fee voluntary and
> automatizing the process would significantly improve on that aspect.

Personally I'm really against this idea, because it would contribute
to an "in-group" "closed-shop" characteristic, rather than helping to
reach out to new people. I know that the suggestion doesn't exclude
other waivers for non-established people, but it would send a signal.
It would be curious to have an organisation paid for the peripheral
and new members, while the committed core get a free-ride option.

Dan



More information about the osmf-talk mailing list