[Osmf-talk] Board decision on recent OSMF membership registrations

[Christoph Hormann]

On Sunday 25 November 2018, Paul Norman wrote:
>
> If the people are fake, then there's no need to expel them since the
> memberships are invalid and can be deleted. I don't see any evidence
> that the signups are fake. I searched the names and some appear
> connected to OSM, and sometimes connected to their employer. 

If there are real people behind all of the registrations (and of course 
it does not necessarily have to be either all real or all fake) it puts 
the previous discussion Frederik initiated about voting recommendations 
by employers on a whole new level.  No one can seriously suggest that a 
hundred people registering from a corporate IP address within a single 
day happens out of their free choice.

By the way - how were these hundred registrations paid? - Were they each 
paid with a different paypal account or were they paid from a common 
source?

I agree with Simon that another useful approach at this point would be 
to contact all of the registration emails with further inquiries on 
their identity and their decision to apply for membership - including 
the possibility to supply this information confidentially to an 
independent party without the board learning about who supplied the 
information (see below).

> Several 
> are workers or former workers at Mapbox and Global Logic.

In light of this i would like to reiterate and reformulate my previous 
question:

Is any of the current board members either in a business/employment 
relationship with the company the IP address used was attributed to or 
is employed by a company that is in a business relationship with the 
company in question?

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