[Osmf-talk] Next OSMF board meeting this Thursday, 16th of August, at 21:00 London time

[Christoph Hormann]

On Monday 20 August 2018, Frederik Ramm wrote:
>
> Yes, my last sentence was intended to be funny, please don't ignore
> the previous sentences just because you didn't approve of the joke in
> the last sentence. I've quoted them in full for your convenience.

Oh, i didn't mind the joke at all - and i would be categorically against 
video meetings if you'd had to show video to listen in to them for the 
same reason as well as others.

What i did not like is the implication that audio recordings are bad 
because people might also ask for a video in addition to the audio.  
Those two things IMO have no connection.  I completely repect the other 
reasons why you think publicly available recordings are not a good 
idea.

> > Wouldn't you like a different option to listen in to the
> > meetings than standing up in the middle of the night?
>
> I think that the ability to listen to a discussion that has happened
> in the past and where you can't contribute is, while not totally
> worthless, not valuable enough to justify the downsides that I see.
> What "people would like" has to be judged against the cost, and I
> fear that the cost of a permanent and public recording would be a
> reduction in the willingness to speak freely.

Yes, i agree this is ultimately about balancing advantages and 
disadvantages but i also think you have a different appreciation of 
this than people who have been involved with OSM for a much shorter 
time than you, who have usually not met anyone in person from OSM 
outside thir local community.

As said i am personally undecided on this but i would probably be more 
in favor of having recordings if we had a more widespread routine 
participating in the meetings (like on average at least 10-15 people 
from the daytime time zones).  With a level of interest like this i 
think you could make a much stronger case for public recordings than at 
the moment (when essentially the only local community that manages to 
have a more or less regular non-board-member presence at the meetings 
is the German one).

As an observation by the way - i don't have the impression that at board 
meetings with a larger number of guests listening in the board members 
are less willing to speak freely.  It could even be that with more 
people present and some contributing input through the chat during the 
meeting the atmosphere is more relaxed.  I obviously don't have the 
comparison to meetings with no guests.

> A bridge that we'll cross when we come to it. Any form of time zone
> "awkwardness" of course reduces the effectiveness of the meeting, and
> should be avoided if at all possible. I hope that if we should at one
> point have members from America AND Europe AND Asia, we'll at least
> have a suitable combination of early risers or night owls that lets
> us find a time that works for all, rather than having to have board
> meetings that are always shit for at least one board member but at
> least shittyness is evenly distributed ;)

I suspect though that not addressing this proactively in some form (and 
as i said i am not only speaking about the board here but also about 
the working groups) contributes to perpetualizing the European/North 
American dominance in the OSMF.

-- 
Christoph Hormann
http://www.imagico.de/