[Osmf-talk] Zusammenfassung der Antworten der Kandidaten und ihrer Wahlprogramme

[Christoph Hormann]

On Sunday 08 December 2019, Jóhannes Birgir Jensson wrote:
> I've read the summations by Westnordost and Christoph Hormann
> (imagico) and thank them for their work and time they put into it -
> although my voting will neither copy nor flip their preferences
> wholesale.
>
> A lot of the critique is interesting, but what Christoph is looking
> for seems to be a lot more than the question itself entails, so most
> people get a minus there for simply answering the question - somewhat
> unorthodox approach to evaluation.

Thanks for your comments on my writing.  As i tried to point out in the 
text i was specifically looking for things beneath the surface of 
simple answers to simple questions - in quite a few cases even as 
simple as a yes/no decision.

I also indicated what i am interested in with the candidates before the 
questioning phase in

https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/imagico/diary/391104

After having watched in past elections candidates (especially native 
English speakers) sidestepping questions and pushing their agendas 
instead of actually addressing the subjects the members are interested 
in i decided to use a new approach this time and look for substantial 
reflection on matters and not just superficial storytelling.

> First in the "Your time" section he agrees that "Being a board member
> is quite a commitment". He then completely forgets it as we enter
> "Are you willing to attend a Board face to face meeting?"

Why do you think i forgot that?  All candidates essentially answered 
this question formally with a simple yes.  There is nothing of 
substance to analyze here.  So i went ahead with looking at how 
candidates differ in how they look at this topic.  Given i have been an 
outspoken critique of the way the board has in the past few years 
conducted F2F meetings that seems natural to me and in no way conflicts 
with the acknowledgement of the board members making a significant 
commitment.  It is simply about how the time (and money) is invested.

> He is not happy that the candidates "consider themselves clearly to
> be an elite within the community" for having the gall of having a
> face-to-face meeting paid by the community of an otherwise mostly
> distributed project. He also wants to see "documentation of
> measurable benefits" of having these meetings.
>
> Having served on various boards and working groups myself, both
> representing an employer or in private capacity (as a parent,
> enthusiast, activist or other) both in face-to-face meetings as well
> as remote, there is no doubt that face-to-face meetings offer a lot
> of intangible benefits like smoother interaction between the members.
> For example meeting Christoph in person would probably alter my view
> of him as opposed to the picture I have in my mind of him based on
> his writing, likewise he could possibly view me in a more positive
> light than my words here could give him reason to.

I think you are missing two very important points here:

* OSM is not just another open source community/project.  We try to 
create a truly egalitarian global community across language barriers 
based on the common goal of collecting verifiable local knowledge of 
the geographic reality world wide into a single, uniform and consistent 
data collection.  That fundamentally differs from all other projects 
people might have in mind for comparison (and yes, including Wikipedia) 
and unfortunately many of the candidates fail to acknowledge that when 
suggesting to take cues from such projects.
* I think you need to accept that OSM will not be long term sustainable 
if it depends in people meeting in person for the global cooperation 
within the project to function.  The idea that this could work by only 
the topmost elite of seven board members meeting once a year and 
everyone else staying at home and cooperating remotely or locally does 
not seem plausible to me.  And regarding the idea of throwing money at 
the problem: Keep in mind that money needs to come from somewhere and 
when it comes from companies which only look for very short term 
profits that can not be considered in any way to be sustainable of 
course.

I am convinced that in OpenStreetMap we need to put a lot more effort 
into having a functional cooperation through remote means.  This is the 
only way in my eyes for the project with its fundamental goals as 
descibed to be sustainable in the long term.  I know the current major 
consensus narrative in our society is that meeting in person is the 
non-plus-ultra of any cooperation and therefore my view on this will 
likely not gain that much support right now but in the long term this 
almost certainly will change in one way or the other.

> As social creatures we are so much more than our words, and words can
> be misunderstood based on intent, inflection, severity and other
> things which a keyboard or even a video can not provide. As for the
> meetings being paid for by the organization they are representing
> then that is seldom an issue as long as it is able to provide such
> financial renumeration. My time on some boards is free for the
> organization but paid for by some - when we get into travel of this
> scale it is really a no brainer if we want to ensure equal
> opportunities for board members to participate.
>
> So as Christoph asks why the board decides to put itself on an elite
> status and is looking for an answer to "what warrants this status"
> then we have a simple answer for him. This status is earned by the
> board members by being voted on the board by the members of the OSMF.
> It can not be simpler or fairer.

You are forgetting that the OSMF members do not form a proportional 
representation of the OSM community (see 
https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/imagico/diary/391322).  There is 
nothing fair about having the right to buy yourself a vote in deciding 
on who is the topmost elite of OSM.

And of course selling the idea of the need for an elite in a project of 
egalitarian cooperation and do-ocracy like OSM is kind of hard.

Anyway - i did not specifically look for statements along these lines in 
the candidates' statements and answers, i looked for *any* kind of 
statements that justify their status as an elite that can meet in 
person at the expense of the community without the need to further 
justify that expense.

> The elevated role that a board 
> serves for any project or organization or company means that it is
> indeed some sort of an elite, but we have a fair system as it is
> voted in by the members. Christoph's argument here makes no sense.
>
> Regarding discriminating aspects that can hinder a face-to-face
> meeting [...]

I think you probably realize that trying to address this by throwing 
money at the problem is kind of a tough sale.  But as i mentioned 
above - my point of critique was that there was no reflection on the 
matter at all, if any of the candidates would have answered like you 
did that would have been much better.

> However I can aid Christoph in mentioning that carbon offsetting a
> round trip for 7 people from Washington DC to Calcutta comes at 739
> Euros (using a long travel as example), so it would not break the
> bank [1].

I don't really want to sidestep the discussion in that direction but 
this kind of carbon offsetting is an illusion.  Typical estimates for 
what a realistic price for CO2 emissions would be that properly 
represents the overall costs for society would be from EUR 100 per ton 
upwards.  Carbon offsetting that is available for significantly less is 
therefore quite clearly a fraud.  The usual scheme for example is that 
they finance planting trees with that but that would only be a solid 
scheme if the price would include maintaining an protecting the 
plantation in all eternity.  But that is not part of the scheme.  The 
only appropriate way to compensate for removing fossile carbon from the 
ground and oxidizing it would be to store the carbon again to a deposit 
of similar long term stability.  That can be done but is way more 
expensive than planting a few trees and also more expensive than simply 
switching to renewable energies.

No matter if and to what extent you agree with me on this - this whole 
point about the board F2F meetings did not have a major influence on my 
election recommendation because ultimately the candidates did not 
distinguish themselves significantly on that matter.  I mostly 
expressed my disappointment on the relatively limited and short sighted 
view the candidates showed on this in general.

> Christoph has many more items he discussed, some of which I can agree
> with and many I do not. I have now written over 6.500 characters (and
> counting) worth of thoughts on just a tiny piece which I found
> displayed a lack of big thinking that a board needs to focus on, I
> hope people don't use his window of the world exclusively as they
> cast a vote because it seems it should be a lot bigger.

My hope is the same - but i can't help but notice that my "window of the 
world" is apparently a bit wider than that of some of the candidates.  
This leads me to the conclusion that members confronted with the need 
to make a voting decision might find it valuable to also have a view 
through my window.

> I thank all of the candidates for offering their time (our most
> valuable resource) and wish them well. I also hope that they do not
> take Christoph's words too close to heart, his assertion that these
> are his views of the candidates, not the people, ring hollow when he
> does in fact infer that they can not be trusted to use their best
> judgement and are instead puppets of paymasters - that hurts on a
> personal level.

Frederik already discussed this point very well - people are different 
obviously and if someone feels hurt by me considering them 
non-qualified for a position on the OSMF board it is not my place to 
say this cannot or should not be.  But it won't lead me not to state 
this assessment because i think for a functioning OSMF and board 
election process this is essential.

From personal experience i can say critique of my qualification for 
certain things can be hard to accept but on average i usually find it 
highly valuable.  I'd always prefer people telling me things like that 
openly than just silently thinking it but not saying anything out of 
fear they might hurt me.

In any case - as hollow as you might perceive my words to be - they are 
meant as written.

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