[Osmf-talk] Membership fee waiver
Violaine_Do
violaine_osm at avoscartes.fr
Thu Nov 15 20:10:38 UTC 2018
Hello,
I was wondering if you thought about registration fees as open donation
: a minimum amount would be asked while suggesting a standard donation
depending on different context (we would keep 15L for european context,
but as Nicolas mentionned it would be great to think about low income
people). Speaking of what would be my experience in case I was in
situation such africans live, I would feel more confident if I had a
seenable option to give less, else I would feel not legitimous or equal
to others asking for a waiver. From my point of view, options should 1
be seenable, and 2 do not look like a favor made to people.
Hope this discussion will move forward, happy to continue working on it,
Thanks,
Violaine
On 15/11/2018 09:54, Rihards wrote:
> On 15.11.18 18:45, nicolas chavent wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> Thanks Mikel for the clarification.
>>
>> Thanks Christoph also for your email: I agree with you but feel that I
>> the short run, this fee waiver system, is yet a progress for a good deal
>> of mappers I know in Haiti and Africa. Further discussion and work is
>> surely needed to better address geographical of the overall OSM
>> community at the OSMF and a talk item for this Board meeting as well as
>> one of the election talk/action topic
>>
>> For Board consideration,
>> with the fee waiver mechanism as laid out by Mikel, extra
>> registration/application days would be likely to allow for more active
>> Haitian/African members to join the membership
> Postponing an election so that a sizable number of individuals could
> join last minute only to vote on that election sounds about as
> suspicious as large number of employees from some company joining just
> before the election.
> What's going on?
>
>> Best,
>> Nicolas
>>
>> Le jeu. 15 nov. 2018 à 17:35, Mikel Maron <mikel.maron at gmail.com
>> <mailto:mikel.maron at gmail.com>> a écrit :
>>
>> Essentially that's my understanding, yes. Since we don't have a form
>> link ready, email with the same information is still fine. Not sure
>> if requests will be directly decided on by the Membership Working
>> Group or the Board yet.
>>
>> * Mikel Maron * +14152835207 @mikel s:mikelmaron
>>
>>
>> On Thursday, November 15, 2018, 11:29:37 AM EST, nicolas chavent
>> <nicolas.chavent at gmail.com <mailto:nicolas.chavent at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>>
>> Thanks Mikel. So to be 100% clear, by filling a form (URL yet to be
>> retrieved or emailing the OSMF) a mapper is asking not pay any of
>> the whole 15£ yearly OSMF registration fees and shall an OSMF
>> committee of some sort assess afterwards this demand as relevant,
>> he/she becomes an OSMF member eligible to vote, is this correct ?
>>
>> Le jeu. 15 nov. 2018 à 17:08, Mikel Maron <mikel.maron at gmail.com
>> <mailto:mikel.maron at gmail.com>> a écrit :
>>
>> The fee waiver is not structured as a reimbursement, but rather
>> as a submitted request to have an exemption to paying the fee.
>>
>>
>> * Mikel Maron * +14152835207 @mikel s:mikelmaron
>>
>>
>> On Thursday, November 15, 2018, 11:02:44 AM EST, nicolas chavent
>> <nicolas.chavent at gmail.com <mailto:nicolas.chavent at gmail.com>>
>> wrote:
>>
>>
>> Thanks Mikel and Steve,
>>
>> It's good to hear that there's a process in place for fee waiver
>> and that mappers submitting a request can be re-imbursed shall
>> their claim has some ground and it's equally good to hear that
>> time extension for registration will be discussed.
>> Aside of fee waiver for cost additional to Paypal, we may
>> consider to base the yearly 15£ OSMF membership to the cost of
>> living for those of us living in "Developing" or "Least
>> Developed" countries where this amount weight is way more than
>> in the "Developed" world.
>> Similarly a "social" rate for not rich folks from "Developed"
>> countries could be also discussed.
>>
>> Outside of a couple of days extension of the deadline for
>> registration as an OSMF member in the position of being eligible
>> for vote at our next Board election, I fear given low internet
>> access and web presence, that this will have a very limited
>> effect for mappers of the "South". Unfortunately, the same goes
>> for non Paypal extra fees only reimbursement mechanism.
>>
>> Best,
>> Nicolas
>>
>>
>>
>> Le jeu. 15 nov. 2018 à 16:31, Mikel Maron <mikel.maron at gmail.com
>> <mailto:mikel.maron at gmail.com>> a écrit :
>>
>> I think what Simon pointed out is that the OSMF as an
>> organization has legally decided in 2014 that we must accept
>> requests for fee waivers in situations where the fee is an
>> unreasonable burden.
>>
>> The MWG was charged with coming up with a fee waiver process
>> for this and also for situations where money transfer was
>> impossible. The latter is done, and the former is still ongoing.
>>
>> My understanding is that a lack of a process doesn't change
>> the situation that the OSMF must act on these requests when
>> we receive them.
>>
>> * Mikel Maron * +14152835207 @mikel s:mikelmaron
>>
>>
>> On Thursday, November 15, 2018, 10:26:51 AM EST, Steve
>> Friedl <steve at unixwiz.net <mailto:steve at unixwiz.net>> wrote:
>>
>>
>> Unless I misremember all the meetings, the fee waiver, at
>> least in its introductory form, is intended to address money
>> transfer issues only (where there’s no reasonable money
>> transfer facility), not to address needs-based waivers of
>> the type you suggest. In places that don’t have Paypal, or
>> the wire transfer fees would overwhelm the transaction
>> costs: those were the things I believe we had in mind.
>>
>>
>>
>> My understanding is that sticking with objective tests,
>> rather than subjective assessments, was a safer way to start.
>>
>>
>>
>> If somebody else on the MWG remembers it differently, I’m
>> happy to be corrected.
>>
>>
>>
>> Steve
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* nicolas chavent <nicolas.chavent at gmail.com
>> <mailto:nicolas.chavent at gmail.com>>
>> *Sent:* Thursday, November 15, 2018 7:05 AM
>> *To:* Mikel Maron <mikel.maron at gmail.com
>> <mailto:mikel.maron at gmail.com>>
>> *Cc:* OSMF Talk <osmf-talk at openstreetmap.org
>> <mailto:osmf-talk at openstreetmap.org>>
>> *Subject:* Re: [Osmf-talk] Membership fee waiver
>>
>>
>>
>> Hi all,
>>
>>
>>
>> Quickly, if this possibility for active mappers in
>> developing and least developed countries to be eligible for
>> fee waiver and be reimbursed be known up-stream of the
>> election process, a significant amount of mappers (at least
>> from Haiti and Africa) would have joined.
>>
>> The 15£ yearly contribution being way too much for their
>> level of resources.
>>
>>
>>
>> Reflecting upon diversity of OSMF membership, now that this
>> info is known when it's no longer possible to sign for
>> membership, can we pause and assess teh
>> relevance/feasibility of shifting teh election process of a
>> week and give time for this information to spread and OSMF
>> to have a more diverse and geographically more widespread
>> membership ? Can this be put as a talk item for the OSMF
>> board meeting ?
>>
>>
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Nicolas
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Le jeu. 15 nov. 2018 à 15:36, Mikel Maron
>> <mikel.maron at gmail.com <mailto:mikel.maron at gmail.com>> a écrit :
>>
>> Very good to note that people can simply apply for a
>> waiver now. The resolution states
>>
>>
>>
>> > In order to be eligible for the membership fee waiver,
>> the applicant may be required to contribute something
>> else of value (e.g: time, …) to the Foundation, for
>> example write a paragraph on mapping in their region
>>
>>
>>
>> So if this holds, an interested potential member emails
>> the board (board at osmfoundation.org
>> <mailto:board at osmfoundation.org>) and MWG
>> (mwg at osmfoundation.org <mailto:mwg at osmfoundation.org>),
>> with the details required for associate membership
>> (name, OSM id, country) and a paragraph describing their
>> need and some details on their contribution to OSM,
>> we'll need to vote on it.
>>
>>
>>
>> We'll be discussing this in the OSMF Board meeting later
>> today.
>>
>>
>>
>> On a more systematic solution. I joined the Board a year
>> after the 2014 resolution, and have not seen any
>> requests for a fee waiver in that time (well before this
>> thread started yesterday). I've been a strong proponent
>> of addressing the fee waiver, and Joost's telling is
>> accurate -- there's simply been too little volunteer
>> help available. The Foundation welcomes more -- I think
>> this could be sorted out with a short amount of
>> determined work by just a couple people. Please consider it.
>>
>>
>>
>> -Mikel
>>
>>
>>
>> * Mikel Maron * +14152835207 @mikel s:mikelmaron
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thursday, November 15, 2018, 1:53:12 AM EST, Simon
>> Poole <simon at poole.ch <mailto:simon at poole.ch>> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Only the board would know (and I don't remember seeing
>> anything in the minutes).
>>
>> Simon
>>
>> Am 14.11.2018 um 23:53 schrieb Rob Nickerson:
>>
>> Any idea if that has happened yet Simon?
>>
>>
>>
>> Thank you,
>>
>> Rob
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, 14 Nov 2018, 22:20 Simon Poole <simon at poole.ch
>> <mailto:simon at poole.ch> wrote:
>>
>> Forgetting all about making it easy and so on, there
>> is currently IMHO no reason a potential member
>> couldn't apply for a waiver, it would simply need to
>> be decided on a case by case base.
>>
>> Simon
>>
>> Am 14.11.2018 um 23:08 schrieb joost schouppe:
>>
>> Hi Rob,
>>
>>
>>
>> I can't give an account for the first three
>> years, but I can share my perspective about the
>> last. I specifically joined the MWG a year ago
>> to help push forward the waiver fee program.
>>
>>
>>
>> Over the last year, most of the volunteer time
>> has gone to keeping the engine running. There
>> were deep problems with the management software
>> for membership (civicrm), which made it easy to
>> lose members. There was a weird problem with
>> reminders about lapsing membership. Since we do
>> not have a self service area, people depend on
>> these reminders. It was a hard problem to fix,
>> which involved a lot of cooperation between
>> people, as well as a lot if discussion about
>> whether or not to hire consultancy to fix it; or
>> even to make sure they could actually work if
>> hired.
>>
>>
>>
>> At all the meetings I attended, I brought up the
>> waiver fee. There always seemed to be new
>> barriers to just start with it. A form, a
>> procedure, default lettres, membership classes.
>> Since the meetings were rather spread out, you
>> also lose time with bringing back to mind all
>> the details. Since a lot of the work required
>> knowledge about the inner workings of the
>> software, there wasn't a lot of work I could do
>> as a not so technical newbie. When there were
>> things I could do myself, my own time
>> constraints came in the way - as well as
>> recently finding out a lot of thinking work we
>> did together was lost because we used an exotic
>> open source tool that disappeared from the
>> internet.
>>
>>
>>
>> So my analysis if the last year would be: too
>> little volunteers to do the actual work, and a
>> lack of efficient workflows.
>>
>>
>>
>> IIRC we did get several board checkups on the
>> waiver fee and the occasional call to think bigger.
>>
>> I don't think there is anyone to blame, except
>> maybe if you start looking for the root causes
>> of our lack of volunteers. Since I don't want to
>> turn this into my position statement for the
>> Board elections, I'll hold that thought for now.
>> I will say that this experience is what led me
>> to try and revive the local chapters group as a
>> community building group. This group would try
>> to work in and with the other working groups to
>> support and push relevant projects forward.
>> Unfortunately that try has not really resulted
>> in much just yet.
>>
>>
>>
>> All the best,
>>
>> Joost
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