[Osmf-talk] "Legitimacy from an election process to direct attention" – Your response to the question regarding Working Groups

[Michal Migurski]

Hey Michael, thanks for asking. Great question.

The annual board election is OSMF’s only way to gather binding feedback from the community. People talk, argue, and debate stuff all year round in a widely dispersed set of spaces, but just once each year there’s a chance to decide who governs the Foundation. That’s what I mean by legitimacy: the board matters because of the election.

Thanks to this legitimacy, the board has (or should have) the ability to call attention to specific problems faced by OpenStreetMap. In my answer I’ve called out the critical bus factor affecting the Ops Working Group. If members of OWG got sick, hurt, or bored, OSM would be *comprehensively fucked*.

OSMF can use its soft power to direct attention toward things that the project needs operationally to succeed, such as:

1) Ways for technical contributors to have their recommendations accepted
2) Capacity planning for OSM’s technical growth needs
3) Paid contractors to perform system and database tasks that OWG has prioritized

Zverik’s recent diary post OWG Must Be Destroyed (https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Zverik/diary/391541) goes too far of course. The OSMF must help walk community members back from this level of frustration and nihilism.

I hope this answers your question!

-mike.

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> On Dec 11, 2019, at 2:45 PM, Michael Reichert <mich.reichert at gmx.de> wrote:
> 
> Hi Michal,
> 
> while reading your responses to the community questions, I stumbled
> about a part of your response which I do not understand. It's your
> response to question regarding working groups.
> 
> You wrote
> (https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Foundation/AGM19/Election_to_Board/Answers_and_manifestos#Michal_Migurski_A09)
>> OSMF’s board has tools to help [the working groups] such as funds for
>> hiring short-term staff and contractors, connections with members of
>> organizations and companies who can offer time or experience, and
>> legitimacy from an election process to direct attention and interest
>> of the wider community of mappers and data users.
> 
> What does "legitimacy from an election process to direct attention" mean
> in that context? I somehow miss a verb connecting subject ("legitimacy")
> and object ("election process").
> 
> Best regards
> 
> Michael
> 
> -- 
> Per E-Mail kommuniziere ich bevorzugt GPG-verschlüsselt. (Mailinglisten
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